PC Leader Patrick Brown has thrown his support behind the doctors who are fighting the Liberal government, winning praise from some physicians — and the ire of the Minister of Health.

Last weekend, the province’s doctors voted down the tentative agreement that the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) had reached with the government. One of their central objections was that the agreement did not give doctors the right to binding arbitration.

It's something doctors really want. More than 90 per cent of those who turned out to vote approved a resolution stating that the OMA shouldn't negotiate an agreement that does not include the right to settle disputes concerning implementation of the agreement with binding arbitration. The OMA is also in the midst of a court challenge, at the behest of its members, seeking a declaration from a judge that doctors have a right to use binding interest arbitration to resolve bargaining impasses.

Shortly after the results of the OMA vote were announced, Brown issued a statement supporting the doctors' decision. He also announced at a recent press conference that he supports doctors' argument that they deserve the right to settle disputes with the government through binding arbitration, because, like firefighters and police officers, they can’t go on strike.

And that’s won him some fans among the doctors who voted No.

One of them is Dr. David Jacobs, who met with the PC Leader along with other No vote campaigners, and came away from the meeting impressed.

“I can speak to the good character of Patrick Brown, he’s somebody you can trust,” said Jacobs, in an interview with QP Briefing. "In Patrick, we could find someone that we could come to a reasonable agreement. And he's not a pushover either. He's been quite clear, there has to be give and take in order to come to a point of binding arbitration."

Brown told QP Briefing the same thing Tuesday — he hasn’t promised outright that his government would give doctors binding arbitration. Instead, but he'd use it as a bargaining chip in negotiations.

“What I’ve told physicians is that if I have the honour of being Ontario’s premier in 22 months, binding arbitration would be on the table, but it’s always important to have a little give and take and there’s things I want to physicians to agree to as well,” Brown said.

For example, he wants to see Ontario make use of physician assistants in the same way the Canadian Forces does, and he’d like to see nurse practitioners’ prescribing powers enhanced, he said. “I would certainly be willing to negotiate binding arbitration if Ontario’s physicians would be willing to agree to enhancing and modernizing our health care system.”

Health Minister Eric Hoskins called out Brown for that Tuesday afternoon.

"I'm not sure if he's been categorical or not, but if he has, he's the first Progressive Conservative leader ever to advocate for binding arbitration," Hoskins said at a news conference. "If he wants to support pay raises to well-paid specialists, 500 of which are earning more than $1 million a year, he's taken a side, but I think we need a balanced approach."

Hoskins accused Brown of rarely taking a stand on issues, and taking the wrong one on this issue.

"He's taken a stand, for the first time really since becoming Conservative leader, where he has avoided making proclamations on any important policy decisions," Hoskins said. "He's finally taken a stand and decided that the limited funds available to the government, to the treasury, should go to one purpose, should go to specialists ... he's decided to side with them and not with investing to improve other aspects of the health care system, like home care and access to health services, our nurse practitioners and academic teaching hospitals and the like."

Hoskins said the Liberal government is open to some form of binding arbitration — but not without limits. The government needs to be able to control the overall physician services budget, he said.

The ministry took that approach with the agreement that was voted down. It had included limited use of binding dispute resolution — a facilitator would have been appointed to issue binding recommendations on the implementation of the agreement within the budget set out in the agreement. However, that facilitator could not determine “what money or how much money needs to be saved or spent,” according to the agreement.

Coincidentally, Hoskins gave that statement while attending the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Windsor, where local leaders have complained that the binding arbitration interest given to municipal police and firefighters have run up their salaries, creating huge drains on municipal budgets.

That appears to be what Hoskins wants to avoid for the provincial government, but Brown told QP Briefing he isn't worried about it.

"When it comes to binding arbitration for police and firefighters, I would note it was Mike Harris, a Progressive Conservative premier, who brought that in," said Brown. "And when [former PC leader] Tim Hudak put forward a motion to change that, they aggressively opposed it. So if the Liberals support binding arbitration for TTC workers, police and firefighters, my question is why do they not support it for physicians, who very much care for life-or-death matters."

Brown said he believes binding arbitration can be managed "in a fiscally responsible manner" and he added that he plans to save money by modernizing the health care system.

His party campaigned in the last election on eliminating the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs), but the government has since tabled a bill to eliminate the Community Care Access Centres, boosting LHINs’ power and giving them responsibility for home and community care. The PCs' next modernization plan may not include eliminating the LHINs, he said.

“What shape or form that will take, we haven’t arrived at our final destination on that yet,” said Brown. “We’ll obviously have a policy platform to release before the next election.”

PC Leader gets praise from dissident doctors, ire of the Health Minister

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