Ontario Medical Association says doctors want binding arbitration before talks resume

TORONTO – The Ontario Medical Association says it wants the government to agree to binding arbitration before any resumption of talks on a new fee agreement for doctors.

More than 63 per cent of doctors who cast ballots last Sunday voted against the tentative deal, which would have raised the physician services budget by 2.5 per cent a year, to $12.9 billion by 2020.

OMA president Dr. Virgina Walley issued an open letter Thursday saying the association will return to negotiations once it has direction from doctors on what they want.

READ MORE: Doctors demand new Ontario Medical Association negotiators before talks resume

And she said it’s clear one thing they want is a system of binding arbitration in place before they return to negotiations on a new fee deal.

Walley said the OMA would consult its members on what happens next.

READ MORE: Results of vote by Ontario doctors on four-year fee deal delayed

She wasn’t impressed with Health Minister Eric Hoskins’s claim that he’s always been willing to consider binding arbitration, but that it must be done as part of the negotiations process.

“He adds it must be within pre-set fixed financial limits,” Walley said in Thursday’s open letter. “This is the same position he took before the negotiation of the rejected tentative physician services agreement.”

READ MORE: OMA wants new negotiating mandate after doctors reject tentative fee deal

Walley also announced the OMA has shut down its negotiations committees, fired its negotiations adviser, and terminated its relationship with the public relations firm Navigator.

The changes follow a demand Wednesday from the Coalition of Ontario Doctors, which led the campaign against the tentative fee agreement, for a change in the composition of the OMA’s negotiating committees.