Top court’s ruling affects more than AMA

Your surgeon isn’t going to walk out in mid-operation — there was never a chance of that — but Alberta’s angriest labour dispute is far from over.

The doctors, members of the Alberta Medical Association, have decided to press on with action against the provincial government while making it clear they will do nothing to hurt patients.

The docs have become a militant labour group, which is odd, since they aren’t a union at all, but a professional association.

Alberta’s labour code, in fact, excludes doctors from union rights.

But they’re threatening a lawsuit for a remarkable reason.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that groups like the AMA can enjoy full collective bargaining privileges, exactly like a union.

Maybe that’s why the government has backed up since Nov. 16, when Health Minister Fred Horne said further talks with the AMA were useless and he would impose a fee regime.

Now the PCs say Horne’s hammer never dropped because negotiations are underway again.

“We are back in negotiations,” says Bart Johnson, Horne’s press secretary. “We have been since the AMA indicated a desire to keep negotiating.

“The minister doesn’t intend to implement the settlement as long as that’s the case. We’d rather have a negotiated agreement, obviously.”

To the doctors, it’s not so obvious. They don’t think they’re negotiating, just working with a “facilitator” to find ways to start again.

So far, the parties haven’t even found this facilitator and the deadline is Dec. 31.

Through all this, the government insists the doctors don’t have bargaining rights.

They’re “not a union in that sense,” Horne told me last month. “They’re a professional association.”

Even doctors prefer to think of themselves as independent professionals, not unionists.

But the AMA now holds that high card dealt by the Supreme Court.

After a fascinating series of cases, the court ruled in 2011 that bargaining rights don’t extend just to unions, but to other groups with a history of discussions with employers.

The charter section guaranteeing freedom of association “protects the right to associate to achieve collective goals,” the court said.

That also means it “protects a right to collective bargaining.”

Meeting on the weekend, the docs decided to consider a lawsuit. They brought a high-level lawyer, John Craig, in from Toronto to explain how it can be done.

Craig was involved in a case filed by the Ontario Medical Association after that province threatened to unilaterally cut fees.

The doctors announced their intention to sue in June. Last week, they inked a negotiated deal with the government. Why did that happen? Maybe for the same reason Horne did not impose the terms he announced Nov. 16 — because the government knew, or came to realize, that it would hand the doctors a powerful legal case for violation of rights.

These federal rulings are quite radical and could affect many areas of provincial authority.

Generally, the provinces decide what groups can be a union and benefit from collective bargaining rules.

Now, the court says that even excluded groups can enjoy the same rights and treatment. In Alberta, farm workers could be one such group.

The PCs have long said the doctors can’t behave as a professional body on the one hand, and then demand union rights when a deal is on the table.

Now, it seems, they can do exactly that.