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Alberta doctors have become the best paid in Canada, recording an average gross income of $365,765 last year that edged them ahead of counterparts in Ontario and Saskatchewan, new national statistics show.

The rise in earnings comes as Alberta also continues to experience the country’s biggest increase in its physician workforce, resulting in substantial new costs the NDP government is now negotiating to get under control.

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“This is the first year that Alberta comes out as the highest average payment in the country,” said Walter Feeney of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), which published the statistics in its annual National Physician Database.

“What we hope is that this report contributes to those negotiations to set those fees and changes to the rates.”

Feeney said the institute has tracked average gross earnings since 2007, with Alberta doctors typically ranking second or third highest among the provinces. But a 3.2-per-cent increase last year — four times higher than the national rate — was enough to push them into the lead.