Ontario is investing $55.8 million to support planning and operations for York University’s new school of medicine, which the province says will help train more family doctors as millions of Ontarians remain without access to primary care.
The school, expected to welcome its first class in 2028, will be the first medical school in Ontario focused on training family physicians, according to a Government of Ontario news release Thursday.
The funding will support planning work including accreditation, curriculum development, faculty recruitment, a medical library, training costs and operating expenses for undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
When it opens, the school will have 80 undergraduate and 102 postgraduate training positions. At full capacity, it is expected to grow to 240 undergraduate seats and 293 postgraduate seats, the release said.
“Ontario-trained family doctors are the backbone of our health-care system,” Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security Minister Nolan Quinn said in the release.
The announcement comes as Ontario continues to grapple with a worsening shortage of family doctors.
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Communities across the province have increasingly turned to financial incentives, including signing bonuses and municipally funded recruitment programs, to compete for physicians.
According to Dec. 2025 data, the Canadian Medical Association states that 5.9 million people are without a family doctor.
“This investment will ensure that Ontario has a strong pipeline of family care providers to deliver excellent care for decades to come.”
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the investment is part of the province’s broader expansion of medical education.
Some municipalities have even proposed operating publicly supported clinics to attract doctors.
The York school is part of the province’s largest medical education expansion in more than a decade, which includes new medical schools at Toronto Metropolitan University and York, as well as additional seats at Ontario’s six existing medical schools.
The province says it is adding 340 undergraduate medical school seats and 551 residency positions by the 2028-29 academic year, representing a 67 per cent increase in family medicine graduates.
The investment announced Thursday builds on an initial $9 million the province committed in 2024 to begin planning and designing the York medical school.
Lisa Philipps, York University’s interim president and vice-chancellor, said the school will use a community-based model of medical education designed to improve access to care across northern Toronto, York Region, Simcoe County, Muskoka and surrounding communities.
The province has also announced that beginning this fall, Ontario medical schools must reserve at least 95 per cent of undergraduate seats for Ontario residents.
It is also launching the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant for Medical Education, which will provide funding to medical students who commit to practicing family medicine in Ontario for five years after graduating.
I do hope they select candidates with people skills and a so-called bedside manner . In addition they should teach them clinical skills which seem to have been abandoned in recent times
But but but Dougie, but but Ford, but but his developer friends.