Nova Scotia Launches Jordan Pharmacist Licensure Pilot to Ease Staffing Crisis

The Nova Scotia Pharmacy Regulator (NSPR) announced a new "Jordan Pharmacy Licensure Pathway" pilot on February 2, 2026, aimed at easing the province's pharmacist shortage by modernizing how internationally trained pharmacists are licensed. The pilot recruited pharmacists trained in Jordan, with 17 new pharmacy professionals arriving in Nova Scotia the same week the pilot launched.

Key takeaways

• NSPR estimates Nova Scotia has a shortage of roughly 500 pharmacists, with pharmacies struggling to staff to meet patient needs.
• Of the 17 pharmacists who arrived with the pilot's launch, 11 had refugee status and are permanent residents or on the path to residency.
• The pilot builds on NSPR and the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia's broader RxNS international recruitment initiative.
• By December 2025, that broader initiative had drawn over 1,000 expressions of interest, with 102 pharmacists applying for NS licensure -- 32 already licensed and 70 in progress.

Why this matters

"We are modernizing our licensure pathways so that we can be sure that we are licensing all who have the competence to practice pharmacy in Nova Scotia and want to come here," said Beverley Zwicker, NSPR's CEO and Registrar. "We have a significant shortage of pharmacists in the province and pharmacies are struggling to have the staff they need to meet the needs of their patients."

The pilot is a concrete example of a Canadian provincial regulator restructuring its licensing pipeline specifically to address a workforce crisis, rather than relying solely on domestic pharmacy school graduates or slower case-by-case credential recognition.

Practice guidance for pharmacists

• Pharmacy managers in Nova Scotia experiencing chronic vacancies should look into NSPR's RxNS recruitment initiative and the Jordan pathway specifically as a source of qualified candidates.
• Internationally trained pharmacists elsewhere in Canada facing slow credential recognition may want to watch whether other provinces adopt a similar structured pathway model.
• Pharmacists onboarding a colleague through this pathway should anticipate the usual orientation needs of a new-to-Canada practitioner (provincial drug formulary differences, local scope of practice, EMR/PharmaNet-equivalent systems) even though their core clinical competence has already been assessed.
• Employers should be aware that a meaningful share of these new licensees hold refugee status, which may carry specific settlement and work-authorization considerations for HR and onboarding.

What's next

NSPR has not published a target for how many additional pharmacists it expects the Jordan pathway to bring in over time, but the pilot sits within its larger RxNS recruitment push, which continues to process a pipeline of over 100 applicants toward NS licensure.