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It will, the government says, apply only to new doctors — not those currently practising, or resident and medical students — and an expert panel will help determine where doctors need to be sent.

“It’s a 1970s solution for a 21st-century problem,” said Christine Molnar, the president of the Alberta Medical Association. “I would have left, like, when I graduated. I had opportunities across Canada and in the United States. Why would you stay here in this environment that is not supportive, that is introducing a level of uncertainty and risk? Why would you stay here?”

The government argues that the issue in Alberta isn’t the supply of doctors (as it is in other provinces) but rather an issue of distributing them. So there isn’t an easy comparison, it says, to other attempts at such a system. The government says it will continue other programs, such as those that “expose medical students and residents to rural practice.”

Molnar said many new doctors are concerned that, as small business owners, they will have a tough time planning for an uncertain future and it even feels like they won’t get to choose their own co-workers in small communities or clinics. “Maybe that’ll be part of the restrictions, but we don’t know,” Molnar said.

It's a 1970s solution for a 21st-century problem

The experience in other provinces has been mixed.

In Quebec, for example, which has used a permitting system since 2004, a clinic in Montreal shut down after 40 years because five of the 10 doctors retired, and there were no permits available to the clinic to replace them.