TENTATIVE AGREEMENT
Province, AMA make a deal
EDMONTON After more than a year of sparring, the Alberta government and the association representing the province's doctors have agreed on a tentative new contract.
Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Dr. Paul Boucher, the president of the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), made the announcement Friday afternoon, but would not provide specifics, saying they wanted to give doctors a chance to review the proposal.
Boucher said a special meeting of the AMA'S governing body will be held in the coming week via Zoom.
After that the AMA board will determine whether the agreement will proceed to a three-week ratification vote by approximately 11,000 members.
“A new agreement between the government and physicians will position us to get through COVID-19 and help us bring the health-care system back to full strength so that it can be there for Albertans to provide the care they expect and deserve,” Boucher said.
Shandro said the proposed new deal provides certainty and is in the best interest of patients, doctors and all Albertans.
“These negotiations tested us. The discussions were hard, they were difficult, but they also helped us to strengthen our relationship as we got a new appreciation for each other's perspective,” he said.
The news comes more than a year after Shandro tore up the province's contract with physicians beginning a bitter and often very public fight, which escalated throughout 2020, even as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
Shandro used his power to unilaterally implement changes to the way doctors are paid, which many, particularly those in rural communities, said made it nearly impossible for them to keep their offices open.
Doctors have left the province or threatened to leave over the fight. Shandro eventually rolled back many of those changes during the pandemic.
In April, the AMA sued, claiming that the province arbitrarily imposed its will on physicians and violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“I think the intention would be if the agreement addresses the issues within our lawsuit ... we would let that go,” Boucher said Friday.
Both Premier Jason Kenney and Shandro have said that Alberta doctors are the highest paid in Canada and the province needs to rein in spending.
The AMA said the dispute was not about money and more about not trusting the government or feeling respected.
The government has said its objective is to hold physician expenditures at $5.4 billion per year. The AMA countered that it had made reasonable offers during the negotiations, something the government denied.
Shandro did not provide a direct answer when asked whether the new deal met the $5.4-billion benchmark, saying only that the deal provides “predictability and stability.”
Meanwhile, the government and the AMA are showing other signs of attempting to bury the hatchet. Both sides have begun taking down online materials used to advocate for their positions over the last year.
“While we will still comment on other health-care topics, when it comes to negotiations, neither side will be giving media interviews,” the AMA posted on Twitter following the announcement.