Agreement with Quebec: doctors get an increase of more than 14.6 % over 8 years

Photo Simon Clark
The minister Pierre Moreau provides that the agreement “takes into account the capacity to pay of Québec”.

Patrick Bellerose

Friday, October 6, 2017 11:13

UPDATE
Friday, October 6, 2017 12:11

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The general practitioners in Québec will be entitled to a pay rise of 14.4% over eight years, said Friday morning the president of the treasury Board, Pierre Moreau.

This is an average annual increase of 1.8 % over the term of the agreement, which runs from 2015 to 2023.

This represents the sum of $ 340 million, to which must be added $ 500 million are non-recurring, for a total of 840 million $.

The agreement takes into account the amounts deferred that were due to family physicians in previous two agreements. Québec asserts that only $ 63 million in “new money” will be disbursed by the public treasury in this agreement. This “new money” is a salary increase of 2.4 %, says Pierre Moreau.

“The Quebec rule its accounts. […] We put the order in the house,” said Pierre Moreau.

The agreement also provides that the canadian Institute for health information will be responsible to determine if general practitioners in Quebec have reached parity with the rest of the country. Otherwise, Québec will negotiate a new catch-up.

Attract talent

Minister Moreau provides that the agreement “takes into account the capacity to pay of Québec”.

This agreement will help to”attract the best talent to the practice as a general practitioner to keep them in Quebec” and”to establish long-term relationships” with them, the minister said Moreau.

Minister Moreau said to be able to make such an offer because his government has “done all the cleaning of public finances and generated a margin of manoeuvre that simply did not exist in the past.”

The Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ) had concluded last July the tentative agreement, which was recently submitted to its members for approval. They have approved 96% of the time.

Minister Moreau has led the negotiations with the doctors, while the minister of Health, Gaétan Barrette, had been ruled out of the process. The government Couillard had also hired two traders to the external, Maurice Charlebois and André Bergevin.