We have some recommendations in terms of that same goal. First, we're seeking that the legislation be amended to carve out publicly funded health care delivered by medical practitioners who deliver their services in professional medicine corporations, which are a readily identified activity by CRA.
Second, we seek amendment in the legislation to recognize that policy objectives aimed at for-profit partnerships, whether they be legal, accounting, or otherwise, are not applicable to not-for-profit delivery of health care services as we know them under the Canada Health Act, following the litmus test of medically necessary examinations.
The third would be that a decision on this matter be made quickly. We have a thousand radiologists in Ontario, 2,800 across Canada. In the case of the thousand physicians in Ontario, they service 13 million patients. The lack of a decision is causing people to make decisions, and when enjoined with some of the other turbulent activities happening in the public sector at a provincial level, this creates unnecessary and dangerous instability.
The concern is that physicians, not just radiologists but physicians generally, will do what happened in the 1980s, 1990s, and the early 2000s, and that is that they will move to other jurisdictions, principally the U.S., to provide services. That, obviously, is one of the unintended consequences that we see, which obviously tax planners or policy-makers did not have in mind when they set out to do this, in terms of what the implication is for both federal and provincial health policy across the country.
The fourth is that if there is a change in the tax legislation that it be communicated as effectively and as efficiently as possible, that it be done through bodies like our own or the Canadian Medical Association in order to address this significant undercurrent that remains in the minds of practising doctors across the country.
Thank you.