Doctors to rally against Bill 2 this Sunday

Doctors and medical students plan to rally against Quebec’s new legislation, Bill 2, which modifies the remuneration structure for doctors Sunday afternoon.

Specialists, residents and family doctors belonging to four unions will gather at the Bell Centre to call for the suspension of Bill 2.

In addition to linking doctors’ salary to performance metrics, the law also imposes restrictions on collective action, such as the pressure tactics to not teach medical students which doctors used in the past few months.

Michael Kalin, family doctor and local coordinator of  Département territorial de médecine familiale de Montréal, said that the rally would be an opportunity for the different unions affected by the legislation to come together against the new law.

“We believe [Bill 2] is going to be the end of public medicine in Quebec, which is detrimental to patient care, to patient access, and of course to the livelihood of physicians and our patients,” Kalin said.

Kalin said the law was unrealistic about the performance targets, especially, given the poor infrastructure.

“You can’t dump more problems onto an existing fragile network and expect it to get better,” he explained. “If your doctor is seeing 2,000 patients, asking your doctor to see 4,000 patients is not realistic.”

He said the bill would scare medical professionals and students away to other provinces and encourage early retirement in some cases.

Kalin said he sees Sunday’s rally as also an opportunity to educate the public about the effects of the bill when it comes to effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

“On April 1, you’re going to see GMFs, clinics close, go bankrupt, as we will not have physicians to staff and we will not have the finances to keep our doors open,” he added. “This is a catastrophe about to happen.”

This weekend’s rally in Montreal will follow last Saturday’s demonstration in front of the National Assembly in Quebec City where over 1,000 people attended.

The unions planning to demonstrate include:

• Fédération des médecins résidents du Québec (FMRQ)
• Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ)
• Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec (FMSQ)
• Fédération médicale étudiante du Québec (FMEQ)