Ontario premier encourages applications: 'Call me on my cell phone'
Quebec could be facing an exodus of healthcare professionals after passing legislation that imposes a new compensation system on the province’s doctors, introducing performance-based pay and severe penalties for collective resistance.
Bill 2 was adopted in a special session of the National Assembly on Oct. 25.
And the response from Quebec’s medical community has been swift. In just a few days, more than 100 Quebec doctors have applied for licences to practise in other provinces. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario reported 70 applications from Quebec doctors since Oct. 23—an enormous jump compared to the 19 applications received over the previous four months, reported CBC.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is also targeting healthcare professionals from outside the province.
“Call 1-800-DOUG-FORD, all the docs… Come by, call me on my cell phone, it’s on the internet. Come by and we’ll have you real quick,” Ford told reporters on Wednesday, according to a CBC report.
“I’d love to see the doctors, nurses, anyone in healthcare come to Ontario because we’re a growing community.”
Quebec premier unhappy
Quebec Premier François Legault condemned Ford’s comments. In a post on social media platform X, Legault noted: “Today, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he was inviting Quebec doctors to move to Ontario. That’s unacceptable. It’s a clear lack of judgment.
“We’re making major changes to our healthcare system. It’s emotional and it’s not easy. Every province is facing serious challenges in healthcare. This is not the time to be taking shots at each other, it’s time to work together.”
This surge is not limited to Ontario. New Brunswick’s college has received 40 applications from Quebec doctors this month, far above the usual three or four per month. Vitalité, a New Brunswick health authority, has seen a “wave” of inquiries, with 100 expressions of interest from Quebec physicians in the past month alone, CBC noted.
“New Brunswick is officially bilingual, and having a doctor who speaks your native tongue is always helpful, so New Brunswick could be appealing to Quebec physicians,” Dr. Margot Burnell, president of the Canadian Medical Association and a practising oncologist in New Brunswick, said in a Global News report.
Criticism of changes to doctors' compensation
Dr. Marc-André Amyot, president of the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ), called the situation a “tragedy,” according to a CTV News report.
He warned, “A doctor leaving, whether for retirement or for another province, is a tragedy for patients. On average, each doctor has 1,000 patients. And imagine, those patients won’t find another family doctor. There’s already a shortage of 2,000 family doctors in Quebec,” according to the report.
Amyot claims that there is a shortage of 2,000 family doctors in Quebec and “we are far from improving this shortage with a bill like this,” according to a CBC report.
The province’s two largest doctors’ federations are taking the provincial government to court over the newly adopted legislation, according to a previous CBC report.
“Doug Ford is the happiest man on earth these days because he has the opportunity to come and get our doctors. You see the same of the other provinces,” said Quebec Liberal leader Pablo Rodriguez in a CTV News report, who vowed to rewrite Bill 2 with doctors’ input if the Liberals come to power in the 2026 provincial election.
Previously, Quebec’s bid to hire foreign nurses to fill open positions in the province led many to face significant hardships as they came to the province, according to an internal report cited in a Canadian Press (CP) story earlier this year.
