"The country has approximately 15,000 too few doctors, a figure roughly double the total number of students in all years of study at our 17 medical schools combined. At a doctor-patient ratio of just 2.3 per 1,000 population, we are 24th on the list of 28 industrialized countries. Approximately 1.5 million Canadians cannot find a family physician as a result.
..The doctor shortage began in the mid-1980s .. at the same time the last Trudeau government passed the Canada Health Act, which forbade user fees, balanced billing by doctors and private clinics and hospitals. Immediately, doctors began moving to the United States by the hundreds every year ..approximately 12,000 Canadian doctors have moved south. According to another article in the CMAJ last winter, "this is the equivalent of having two average-sized Canadian medical schools dedicated to producing physicians for the United States" every year for 25 years. Add to this the way politicians and bureaucrats deliberately reduced the number of medical school graduates -- the number fell 14% between 1991 and 2000 -- and it is easy to see why there are too few doctors in this country."
The doctor shortage is a very complex, ongoing nationwide problem. Ontario is hard hit, having the largest and fastest growing population + recent history of gov't cutbacks to education and public health care system (remember Harris?) Physicians get higher pay and better working conditions elsewhere. If they don't leave for the States, they leave for other provinces. And of those who choose to stay, less than 3% opt for positions in smaller towns/rural areas (ie the most underserviced places)