A pass standing is required on the MCCQE Part I in order to be awarded Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada (LMCC).

[citation needed] Examination costs, which represent the MCC's main source of income, are increased on a yearly basis.

[10] The Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE) Part II has been criticized for nearly two decades for its relevance, validity, possible redundancy, and financial burden on resident physicians.

According to Dr. Maureen Topps, Executive Director and CEO of the Medical Council of Canada (MCC), “MCC examinations were created to ensure that physicians across Canada meet common standards in order to provide safe and effective patient care.”[11] This is an important objective, and the MCC’s efforts to standardize Canadian medical education in the early 20th century played a key role in the development of the consistently high quality of education provided by Canadian medical schools today.

Canadian medical schools now universally utilize comprehensive written and clinical exams to test students prior to graduation.

It is evident that the MCCQE Part II is a vestige of an earlier, less evolved medical education system, and it is now widely regarded as an outdated artifact.

[15] Many are still pondering why Canada's resident physicians are shouldering the costs of an exam that continues to exist mainly as a means to generate substantial revenues for the MCC.

[16][17] Multiple Canadians studying medicine abroad were also forced to return to Canada amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in order to attend an in-person examination administered by the MCC.

[18] The MCC's lack of proactivity in planning a sound format for examinations to take place safely is strongly criticized.

[10] It was later announced that the preregistration period for the May 2021 MCCQE Part 2 was postponed to a later date to allow even more time for the MCC to organize virtual OSCEs.

This is generally the first step for medical graduates who wish to obtain licence to practice prior to applying to their own provincial or territorial regulatory body.