Medical-school leaders are raising the alarm over their students’ declining interest in providing traditional cradle-to-grave primary care at a moment when the country is desperate for more family doctors.
Medical associations for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. also issued statements to The Globe and Mail echoing the concerns of the national doctors’ association. The Ontario Medical Association criticized the new tax measures last week. For individuals, the first $250,000 of capital gains will continue to be taxed under an inclusion rate of 50 per cent. But for corporations, the new 67-per-cent rate will kick in on the first dollar of capital gains.
As small-business owners, most physicians in Canada do not receive benefits, pensions or maternity- or paternity-leave pay. To offset that gap, Dr. Ross said that, across the country, physicians agreed to incorporate their practices in order to save for retirement, rather than be paid more up front under their provincial agreements.
In this year’s first round, 108 of 560 family medicine residency slots in Ontario went unfilled, up from 100 last year, 61 in 2022, 52 in 2021 and 30 in 2020, according to Andrew Park, the president of the Ontario Medical Association, which held the briefing at which Dr. Moaveni and other medical educators spoke Tuesday.
In September of 2025, TMU will open a new medical school northwest of Toronto in Brampton, a fast-growing magnet city for new immigrants where Dr. Varughese said chronic disease rates are high and primary-care access is decreasing. “Communities that are medically underserved, like Brampton, are significantly impacted by fewer students choosing family medicine,” he said.