The Ford government has climbed down from a controversial decision to walk away from arbitration proceedings with the province’s doctors.

The government informed the Ontario Medical Association on Friday that it had reversed a decision made earlier in the week to pull the plug on arbitration hearings aimed at resolving a contract dispute of almost five years, the organization’s president, Dr. Nadia Alam, wrote in an email blast to members.

“Good news … the Ontario Medical Association was formally advised that the government has agreed to resume arbitration hearings on our Physician Services Agreement. Our mutual goal is to achieve a fair and reasonable outcome for doctors, patients and government,” she wrote.

The government stunned the OMA as well as experts in labour law earlier in the week when it unilaterally announced it was putting an end to binding arbitration.

Referring to attempts by a small group of highly paid specialists to break away from the association, a letter from a government lawyer said the health ministry “lacks confidence” that the OMA has the support of its members.

The letter went on to say that the health ministry wanted to have a broader dialogue with the profession to determine who should represent it in contract negotiations with the province.

Labour lawyers such as Paul Cavalluzzo said the government’s actions were “shocking” and “clearly illegal.”

They were a violation of the province’s legal obligations under the Arbitration Act and contractual obligations under a Binding Arbitration Framework agreement it had signed with the OMA, he said.

The OMA is the lawful bargaining agent for the province’s 31,000 active physicians and the government has no legal authority to challenge that, Cavalluzzo added.

The OMA also argued that it was illegal for the government to “fire” its nominee from the three-person arbitration board.

The province’s actions sparked an angry backlash from doctors, particularly on social media. They denounced the Conservatives — they tagged individual MPPs and cabinet ministers on Twitter — for breaking an election promise to work with them.

Many threatened job action, including a complete withdrawal of services.

“Heartfelt thanks go to all the members who responded quickly to send thousands of letters, messages, calls and tweets to their elected officials in government. Your voice resonated. You made a difference,” Alam said in her email.

The government’s attempt to abandon arbitration also created a schism within its ranks. Numerous sources have told the Star the decision was made unilaterally by officials from the office of Premier Doug Ford over the objections of Health Minister Christine Elliott and other Tory MPPs.

These sources also said the government was unaware its actions were illegal.

In a written statement issued late Friday, Elliott’s press secretary, Hayley Chazan, said the government still plans to carry out a consultation on “the question of appropriate representation of physicians” and that it hopes the OMA will participate.

An effort by highly paid specialists to separate from the OMA was launched last month after an internal association committee recommended that unfair pay gaps between high- and low-billing specialty groups be addressed. It was led by Dr. David Jacobs, vice-president of the Ontario Association of Radiologists. Radiology is among the highest paid specialties.

Jacobs is also an outspoken supporter of Ford.

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Conservative MPP Randy Hillier, from the eastern Ontario riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, said the government did the right thing by listening to doctors and honouring its election pledge to build a good working relationship with them.

Alan Drummond, an emergency medicine doctor, said the “key issue” that must soon be resolved is “relativity” — or the big pay gaps between medical specialties.

A solution may have to be imposed upon the profession “so that government can align its priorities with a fixed funding envelope,” Drummond said.