CFPC Advocacy Day 2025: The CFPC calls for federal action to support family doctors

2025-10-23

(Mississauga, ON) On October 21st, representatives from the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) returned to Parliament Hill to meet with federal leaders about addressing unsustainable working conditions for family doctors.

Led by Dr. Michael Allan (Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer), Dr. Carrie Bernard (President), and Dr. Michael Green (Past President), the CFPC delegation met with 19 parliamentarians across major parties, including Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health Maggie Chi, Conservative Shadow Minister of Health Dan Mazier, and the Honourable Buckley Belanger, Secretary of State (Rural Development).

The CFPC delegation emphasized the following solutions to strengthen family medicine:

• Implement the federal government’s pledged $300 million New Practice Fund to support early-career family doctors.
• Expand residency training capacity with matching investments in community-based infrastructure and preceptors.
• Address excessive paperwork of federal health forms such as the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) form. The CFPC encouraged mirroring the positive progress currently being made with the CPP Disability Benefit form as a model for collaboratively simplifying and streamlining other federal health forms.
• Invest in the distribution of effective referral tools and fund long-term term adoption of artificial intelligence scribe products.
• Strengthen interdisciplinary primary care models that include, rather than replace, family physicians. Effective team-based care requires both federal investment and national leadership to clarify scopes of practice and ensure collaboration across health professions.

The CFPC remains committed to working with federal, provincial, and territorial (FPT) governments to deliver tangible improvements to Canada’s health care system. In 2024 FPT bilateral health agreements were signed, which included commitments to advance access to family health services and increase the supply of family physicians. As the federal government prepares for the next phase of renewals in 2026, the CFPC is keen to see transparency on outcomes achieved so far and to ensure the priorities of front-line family physicians are meaningfully reflected in the renewed agreements.

Highlights from the event on our social media channels: