EDMONTON: Members of the Alberta Medical Association have voted to ratify a proposed three-year master pay agreement with the provincial government, the association said Tuesday.
About 22 per cent of eligible members took part in the vote, and 76 per cent of those who voted backed the deal.
Association president Dr. Heidi Fell said the agreement is not what doctors originally sought and came after mediation, in what she described as a “difficult and constrained bargaining environment.”
Fell said the deal does, however, provide “a three-year framework and stability” and came with “some meaningful gains for doctors.”
Hospitals Minister Adriana LaGrange said the agreement “offers fair, competitive compensation while ensuring the health-care system remains sustainable.”
The association and the government said they will release details of the agreement once it is finalized. Neither Global News nor The Canadian Press, which reported the vote, published compensation figures, and Canada News Media has not independently confirmed any terms of the deal.
The vote closes a round of bargaining that went to mediation. A mediated settlement typically means both sides moved from their opening positions, which is the way Fell framed the result in her message to members.
The previous master agreement between Alberta physicians and the province covered 2022 to 2026. When members ratified that package in September 2022, the association reported that 70.2 per cent of responding physicians voted yes, on a turnout of 45.8 per cent. Tuesday’s turnout of 22 per cent is roughly half that figure, though the share of voters in favour was higher this time.
Master agreements set the framework for how physicians are paid in the province, and they matter to patients because compensation and working conditions shape how many doctors are willing to open or keep practices. Alberta has been under pressure to attract and retain doctors, particularly in family medicine and in rural communities.
Any changes to how physicians are paid will also be watched closely by the province’s other health-care groups, which are bargaining with the government over their own contracts.
Because the full terms have not been released, it is not yet clear how the new agreement treats fee schedules, rural incentives or the family-doctor payment model the province introduced in December 2024. Those details are expected when the government and the association publish the finalized agreement.
This story is developing and will be updated when the terms are made public.
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Via Global News and The Canadian Press (CJME). Original reports: Global News, CJME.
