Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - August 2009
Quebec’s bureaucratic red tape is severely hindering progress on a doctor’s mobility agreement signed between Quebec and Ontario last April.
The agreement, which was drafted to attract physicians to the province of Quebec, has been operational on the Ontario side since August 1st, meaning Quebec doctors are now able to practice in Ontario, while Ontario doctors wishing to come to Quebec are still waiting.
Officials say that the new agreement probably will not see implementation before next January, which is concerning many physicians on the Quebec side such as the president of Féderation des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec Louis Godin .
“I’m not going to hide my disappointment about this,” Godin said in an interview. “Clearly, under the circumstances, we run a big risk of seeing a greater migration of Quebec physicians to Ontario rather than the inverse.”
General Practitioners in Ontario on average make $260,000 per year while in Quebec they make $195,000 annually. Quebec is facing a shortage of an estimated 800 doctors, while over the last decade more than 800 doctors have left the province to practice medicine elsewhere.
Source: The Gazette
