FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

October 1, 2025 –   Niagara Falls, ON

A Made-In-Ontario Solution to the Doctor Shortage

Unlike any other province in Canada, Ontario does not have a centralized recruitment strategy, leaving communities competing against each other, spending millions in municipal funds on individual efforts.

The Ontario Physician Recruitment Alliance (OPRA) today released A Structural Solution to Ontario’s Primary Care Physician Shortage, a policy brief that requests the provincial government to formally recognize and fund a province-wide approach to recruit and retain family physicians, linking local community expertise with provincial goals.

A recent Health Canada / Canadian Medical Association report confirms that Canada currently faces a shortage of nearly 23,000 family physicians, and the 1,300 family physician graduates is far too low to close the gap. The brief outlines how recognizing OPRA as the central recruitment body and providing stable funding, would enable consistent candidate pipelines, faster integration, and measurable results. Built by frontline community recruiters embedded across Ontario, OPRA’s model reduces duplication and competition, strengthens onboarding and retention, and improves value for money by lowering reliance on costly stop-gap coverage. Since its launch in 2023, OPRA has already identified over 3,000 physician candidates, coordinated dozens of recruitment initiatives and successfully recruited Ontario-trained and internationally trained doctors to work in Ontario. OPRA was built to fix Ontario’s fragmented recruitment system and ensure families can access primary care close to home.

“Ontario has been operating in a fragmented recruitment system. OPRA works at scale while staying rooted in local communities,” said Jill Croteau, Chair & Executive Director of OPRA. “With formal recognition and stable funding, OPRA can coordinate province-wide recruitment, reduce duplication of municipal funding, and get physicians into practices faster, where patients need them most. We are the front line of physician recruitment and understand the short and long-term pipeline talent coming into our communities.”

“This is about improving care for patients and communities,” said Dr. Jeff Remington, Physician Lead at OPRA. “By coordinating recruitment efforts, we can help physicians move more quickly from initial interest to active practice, while also supporting them through onboarding and long-term retention. That means faster access to high-quality, comprehensive primary care — especially in communities that need it most. Our health system is at a breaking point, and short-term fixes like costly temporary locum coverage are simply not sustainable.”

What OPRA’s proposal delivers:

  • One coordinated system: Province-wide strategy with regional execution to eliminate duplication and competition.
  • Speed & scale: Shared pipelines, shared best practices, and proactive retention supports.
  • Accountability: Clear metrics to track attraction, onboarding timelines, and retention outcomes.
  • Better value: Reduced reliance on expensive stop-gap coverage through sustained workforce growth.
  • The Ontario Physician Recruitment Alliance (OPRA) is a not-for-profit alliance of experienced, community-embedded physician recruiters across Ontario. OPRA coordinates recruitment at scale, builds trusted candidate relationships, supports licensing and practice integration, and advances physician retention in collaboration with local, regional, and provincial partners. Learn more at opra.ca.

About OPRA

The Ontario Physician Recruitment Alliance (OPRA) is a not-for-profit alliance of experienced, community-embedded physician recruiters across Ontario. OPRA coordinates recruitment at scale, builds trusted candidate relationships, supports licensing and practice integration, and advances physician retention in collaboration with local, regional, and provincial partners. Learn more at opra.ca.

The full policy brief is available here: OPRA Policy Brief 2025.09.04 final

Media contact

Jill Croteau, on behalf of OPRA

jill.croteau@opra.ca | opra.ca