Ontario government figures show there were 3,833 students enrolled in the province's medical schools in 2023-24, with 473 out-of-province students - about 12 per cent of enrolment - and 10 international students.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The Ontario government is promising to reserve almost all of its medical school spots for provincial residents as the government said it would slash the number of out-of-province students by 2026.
The announcement, made Friday by Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones, also includes a prohibition on international students from attending undergraduate medical school programs in the province. However, that figure is already extremely low, with provincial data showing international students make up less than 0.3 per cent of undergraduate medical school spots in Ontario.
In a bid to train and retain more doctors, the government said it intends to pass a law and new regulations taking effect in fall 2026 that would require Ontario medical schools to allocate at least 95 per cent of undergraduate seats to provincial residents, with the other 5 per cent reserved for students from the rest of Canada.
“We know that if you’re born in Ontario, you’re more than likely to stay and practise in Ontario,” Mr. Ford said.
Ms. Jones added that, “Ontario students need to come first.”
“We’re going to prioritize Ontario residents, because those are our taxpayers that are paying those students to go to school.”
The health care-focused announcement was made as the province prepares to release its fall economic statement next week and as Mr. Ford considers an early election call in advance of the scheduled June, 2026, vote. The government has faced criticism from advocates and opposition parties about a lack of access to family doctors, and earlier this week announced former federal health minister Jane Philpott would be leading a new primary-care action team to help link all residents with family doctors within five years.
Mr. Ford on Friday said there are close to two million people without a family physician, while Dr. Philpott and the Ontario Medical Association put the figure at around 2.5 million. Mr. Ford said any number of people without primary care is “unacceptable.”
Mr. Ford also suggested during the press conference that 18 per cent of students in medical schools are foreign-born and “taking our kids’ seats and then not even staying here.” However, his office later clarified he was referring to postgraduate seats or residencies. The province is also looking to reclassify Canadians who study medicine abroad but come back to Ontario for their residency as domestic students, as opposed to being grouped in with international medical graduates.
According to Ontario government figures, there were 3,833 students enrolled in medical schools in 2023-24, with only 10 international students. There were 473 out-of-province students, making up about 12 per cent of enrolment.
Data from the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada show that in the 2022-23 academic year, 11 of the 3,732 seats at the province’s six medical schools were occupied by students from outside Canada. Three of those foreign students were from the United States.
The University of Ottawa’s medical school had three foreign students, the University of Toronto had four and McMaster University had four. The medical schools at Queen’s University, Western University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine did not enroll any foreign students that year.
Ontario is also expanding a “Learn and Stay” program that covers tuition and other educational costs such as books and supplies to include students who commit to becoming family doctors in Ontario.
The grant program, also beginning in 2026, is expected to cost $88-million over three years and be extended to 1,360 eligible undergraduate students who commit to practise family medicine with a full roster of patients once they graduate. The province says the program should allow 1.36 million more Ontarians to connect to primary care.
Michael Green, president of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, said reserving more medical school seats for Ontarians could help increase the supply of family doctors in the province, though more needs to be done to alleviate the primary-care crisis there and elsewhere in the country.
“People who have strong connections to an area are more likely to work there,” he said. “That is a part of a strategy that many universities use for determining their focus, and who they’re trying to get to graduate.”
Dr. Green, who is currently the head of the department of family medicine at Queen’s University and becomes president of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine next week, said he was more “excited” about the province’s decision to expand its learn-and-stay tuition-break program to future family doctors.
He said some medical students are shouldering so much debt that they feel they have to pick a specialty that pays more than family medicine. “Offering this kind of an incentive to students to say, ‘You know what? There’s an additional financial incentive for you to stay and do comprehensive family medicine in Ontario, because it’s something we really need,’ I think that’s a positive move.”
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles criticized Mr. Ford’s decision to exclude out-of-province and foreign students.
“We need more doctors, not less. At a time when we have more than two million people without a family doctor, we want to see more publicly funded residency positions. As always, this government’s priorities are in all the wrong places,” she said in a statement.