Maverick Cat Coalition

We, as foreign veterinary graduates, want to share our views with you through this letter.

We are being bullied, victimized and deprived by the BCVMA in that they are purposely creating hurdles in obtaining our license to practice veterinary medicine in B.C. by unnecessarily imposing conditions in obtaining extremely high scores in English exams as to restrict foreign graduates from gainful employment in B.C. We are being directly targeted and attacked by these restrictions. The sole purpose and goal of imposing and administering this monumental hurdle is to restrict, suppress, exclude and disable any more foreign veterinarians from obtaining a license in B.C. According to the Veterinarians Act 426 a person should have “sufficient” knowledge of English but the present Council has put such high demands in place as to obstruct attainment of a license to practice.

As of May 1, 2004 we are required to take and pass the TSE (Test of Spoken English) with a mark of 55 out of 60. Up until April 30, 2004 no TSE was required. This is clearly an excessive score designed to deprive and disable foreign veterinarians from obtaining a license to practice. The present BCVMA President and Registrar are misleading members by saying a score of 55 is average. A score of 55 would mean that you achieved better than 96 percent of people taking the test. Attaining that score would put you in a category as doing better than 99% of the people who took the TSE. It would be highly unlikely that even a person born in Canada would be able to obtain 55 out of 60 on the TSE, let alone 60 out of 60, even though their command of the English language is considered to be excellent.

As was written in The BC Veterinarian Summer 2004 edition “The highest possible score in these test situations is ‘60’; that is the level that represents equivalency to a native borne person of average ability.” It would be phenomenal for “a native borne person of average ability” to attain a score of 60 out of 60.

We hereby are enclosing a copy of the score description issued by ETS indicating that a score of 45 out of 60 is sufficient to communicate and understand the language with the audience with a high degree of diplomacy. Here we want to bring to your attention that not one of the other provinces in Canada requires the passing of the TSE to practice, only in B.C. Is this restriction in place? The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), Australia, New Zealand and England require 50 out of 60 in the TSE to obtain a license to practice. Moreover, BCMVA does not approve of other English language tests like CAEL and IELTS. This is merely discrimination on behalf of BCVMA and its president by creating unnecessary hurdles in demanding 55 out of 60 in the TSE in order to obtain a license to practice which they know is unattainable and unachievable by foreign graduates.

Consider this: the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA) requires a score of 50 out of 60 to obtain a license to practice in B.C. which means the qualifications to be a veterinarian in B.C. would be extremely higher than for a medical doctor. That is stating that a veterinarian is better qualified than a medical doctor.

Also, we would like to set the record straight with respect to two articles written in The BC Veterinarian Summer 2004 edition. Firstly, the article co-authored by Dr. Kaler, Dr. Rana, Dr. Sekhon, Dr. Bassi, Dr. Singh and Dr. Mann state that “a noisy demonstration in front of the BCVMA office” was held. That only happened because the above purposefully instigated and created a disturbance as to be disruptive and malicious. It only became “uncivilized” when they showed up because of their attempt to antagonize, defile and sully the demonstration.

Secondly, the article written by Dr. Dilbag Rana stating” that a person with Punjabi as their second language who wishes to practice veterinary medicine in the Punjab, India must pass a Punjabi language exam” neglected to inform the readers that the requirement to pass in Punjab, India is a score of only 33 out of 100. Interestingly, Dr. Rana wrote “historically veterinarians who graduated from India never had any problem with these tests.” Dr. Rana has tried for two years to achieve a score of 50 out of 60 on the TSE and has been unable to do so.

Accordingly, instigating these excessive demands will result in tying up the courts and dissipate funds within the BCVMA with ensuing lawsuits.