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TORONTO – An arbitrator has awarded Ontario’s doctors a nearly 10-per-cent compensation increase for the first year of their new Physician Services Agreement.

The province is in the midst of negotiations with the Ontario Medical Association for the four-year agreement, but an arbitrator was tasked with setting increases for the first year, while the two sides work on the 2025-2028 period.

The OMA had proposed a five-per-cent general increase plus 10.2 per cent as a catch up to account for inflation, while the government proposed three per cent.

Arbitrator William Kaplan concluded that while the OMA’s target was unprecedented, the government’s suggested three per cent was “completely unrealistic.”

He writes that other health-care workers like nurses have received far more for the same time period, and they do not have to pay the overhead costs of running a practice out of their compensation, as doctors do, so he awarded a three-per-cent general increase plus a “catch up” of 6.95 per cent.

The Ministry of Health’s arbitration arguments angered doctors, as the government wrote that recruitment and retention of doctors was “not a major concern” and there was “no concern of a diminished supply of physicians.”

Kaplan wrote that there is a physician shortage.

“Somewhere between 1.35 million and 2.3 million people in the province are not attached to a family doctor,” the arbitration decision said.

“These are real numbers. The Ministry’s own documents – which we ordered disclosed – demonstrate that there is a problem to address.”

Kaplan cites a ministry document that showed the growth rate for family doctors was 1.4 per cent, which was below the growth rate for the population, at 1.6 per cent.

“What was being said, in other words, in the Ministry’s words, in this Ministry document, was that the problem is structural: the number of new family doctors needs to significantly exceed population growth and until and unless it begins to do so, the attachment problem will persist and deteriorate.”

The OMA said in a statement that while it is encouraged by the award, there is still much to be done to address the fact that more than two million Ontarians do not have a family doctor.

“The OMA also remains concerned about access to care, particularly in northern and rural Ontario, and ensuring that specialist consults, surgeries, and diagnostic tests are provided to patients in a timely manner so that people receive the best outcome possible,” the group wrote.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a statement that the agreement also provides for specific funding to be allocated to “targeted investments” to help enhance and connect people to primary care.

“This agreement builds on the $17.5 billion the province currently spends to connect people to family doctors, primary care and other services across the province, 50 per cent more than when we took office in 2018,” she wrote.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

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TORONTO – Ongoing controversy over the documentary “Russians at War” has brought scrutiny to Ontario’s public broadcaster, which has said it will not air the film it helped fund.

One media expert says TVO is getting “the worst of all worlds” by investing in a project that can no longer be shown or monetized.

“TVO created a thing which their audience doesn’t get to see, other audiences will get to see and they’ve footed the bill and gotten no reward for it,” Chris Arsenault, chair of Western University’s master of media in journalism and communication program, said in an interview.

“I can’t think of a worse outcome for a network than what’s happened.”

“Russians at War,” a film rebuked by the Ukrainian community and some Canadian politicians, was part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s lineup until organizers suspended all screenings this week due to “significant threats” to festival operations. It shows the disillusionment of some Russian soldiers on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

TVO had planned to air the story in the coming months, but the network’s board of directors withdrew support for the film on Tuesday, citing feedback it received. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Ukraine’s consul-general in Toronto and others have called the film Russian propaganda and a “whitewashing” of Russian military war crimes in Ukraine – claims the film’s producers and TIFF have rejected.

The TVO board’s announcement came just days after the network defended the film as “antiwar” at its core. It was an about-face the Documentary Organization of Canada said “poses a serious threat” to media independence and raises questions about political interference.

TVO has not responded to requests for comment and board chair Chris Day declined to elaborate on the decision to pull the film.

“Suffice it to say, we heard significant concerns and we responded,” Day wrote to The Canadian Press in an emailed response to an interview request.

Arsenault, who has not seen the documentary and could not comment on its content, said he’s nevertheless worried about the spectre of board intervention in independent editorial decisions, which he said “opens the doors” to further meddling in the production of documentaries and journalism.

“Russians at War,” a Canada-France co-production, was funded in part by the Canada Media Fund, which provided $340,000 for the project through its broadcaster envelope program. A spokesperson for the fund said TVO independently chose to use that money to support the production of the documentary.

One of the film’s producers, Cornelia Principe, said that TVO also had to pay a licensing fee to air the documentary. Such fees can range from $50,000 to $100,000, she said.

Principe, who has defended the documentary and its Canadian-Russian director Anastasia Trofimova, said she was shocked by the TVO board’s decision.

“Anastasia and I have been working with TVO on this for two and a half years.… I was a little bit out of it for hours. I just couldn’t believe it.”

What happens next, she said, is “uncharted territory” for TVO.

“This has, as far as I know, never happened before,” said Principe, who has worked with the broadcaster on various documentaries over the years.

TVO’s board has said the network will be “reviewing the process by which this project was funded and our brand leveraged.”

Ontario’s Minister of Education Jill Dunlop said in a statement that the decision made by TVO’s board of directors “was the right thing to do,” but did not elaborate.

As a non-profit government agency, TVO has a mandate to distribute educational materials and programs but the ministry is not involved with its broadcasting arm due to CRTC licensing rules.

Another public broadcaster, British Columbia’s Knowledge Network, has confirmed that it made a licence fee contribution of $15,000 for “Russians at War” so that it can be a “second window” broadcaster for the film.

Asked whether the documentary will still air at some point in British Columbia, a spokesperson for the network said it’s “working on a public response.”

Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has denounced the use of public funds for “Russians at War,” saying she shares the “grave concerns” Ukrainian officials and community members in Canada have raised about the film.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress has said it will keep protesting “Russians in War” since TIFF has said it will still screen the doc at some point. A demonstration in downtown Toronto was set to get underway Friday afternoon.

“Russians at War” is scheduled to screen at the Windsor International Film Festival, running from Oct. 24 to Nov. 3. The festival announced Friday that the documentary is among 10 nominees for its WIFF Prize in Canadian Film, worth $25,000.

— With files from Queen’s Park correspondent Allison Jones in Toronto.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.