Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange announced on Monday a new investment into physician compensation equalling a 22 per cent increase over 2025.--CP FILE PHOTO
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
The province has announced a substantial increase to money allocated for physician compensation ahead of the tabling of Budget 2026 later this week.
Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange announced the investment at a Monday press conference.
If the budget is passed, the investment in physician compensation will represent an increase of $1.4 billion, up 22 per cent from what was allocated in Budget 2025.
The new funding will be primary directed toward physician compensation, with $450 million used for recruitment and education and $15 million for other supports.
“We’re doing this for two reasons,” she told reporters Monday. “First, we want to maintain Alberta’s reputation as a fantastic place to doctors to practise, and this funding will ensure the province’s physicians are well supported and competitively compensated.
“Second, we want to attract, recruit and retain physicians across the province with an appropriate mix between urban, rural and remote communities.”
Smith says although the province’s population has grown by nearly 600,000 in the past five years, increases in the numbers of physicians have kept up.
Since 2019, she says Alberta has added 2,060 doctors, 12,000 registered nurses and more than 12,000 health-care aides. She says the total of 6,362 family physicians is an all-time high and an increase of a third over the last decade.
She also says her government intends to increase RN graduates by 48 per cent by 2030, and is expanding medical faculties across the province to train 100 more doctors.
Smith referenced a report from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, which recorded 13,008 physicians registered in the province at the end of last year, an increase of 796 compared to 2024.
However, a recent study by the Angus Reed Institute found that Alberta has fewer family physicians per capita than it did 10 years ago.
The same report shows every Canadian province except Alberta and Ontario seeing that number rise.
In a statement to the News on Monday, Alberta Medical Association president Brian Wirzba said while the AMA was not notified in advance about the announcement, members are encouraged by the government’s focus on the investment he says is required to sustain the system.
Wirzba says the AMA still needs to review the government’s figures related to the announcement to understand how they were calculated and how they will be allocated to physician compensation and services.
The province and the AMA are slated to return to the bargaining table in March to negotiate a new collective agreement.
Smith says she is looking forward to negotiations.
“I feel like we’ve got a really good starting ground and a common ground of understanding with the AMA,” she said. “This is a measure of good faith with them, that we’re prepared to invest, but we also want the service improvements, as do they.”
“We take the government at its word, and the AMA looks forward to negotiating in good faith to achieve a fair, sustainable agreement that supports physicians, their practices and the patients they care for,” said Wirzba.
LaGrange also said a new online dashboard will include metrics about how many Albertans are attached to a family practitioner and how many are still searching by Apr. 1.
According to the province’s Find A Provider webpage, more than 700 doctors are taking patients across the province, including seven in Medicine Hat.
