Ontario’s nurses call on government and stakeholders to collectively strengthen our publicly-funded, not-for-profit health system and make it more responsive to the public’s needs, easier to navigate and more efficient and cost-effective. To make this happen, focus must be placed on advancing primary health care for all through health promotion, disease prevention, social and environmental determinants of health and community care.

This backgrounder provides an overview of Ontario’s Registered Nurse (RN) workforce, which is broken into RNs in the general class (RN(GC)s) and RNs in

This backgrounder provides an overview of Ontario’s Registered Nurse (RN) workforce, which is broken into RNs in the general class (RN(GC)s) and RNs in the extended class (nurse practitioners or “NPs”). Unless otherwise specified, “RN” refers to both groups. RPNs refer to registered practical nurses.