Local News
Past President of Doctors Manitoba reflects on Manitoba’s severe doctor shortage
By BERNIE BELLAN As president of Doctors Manitoba for the past year, Dr. Michael Boroditsky maintained a high profile within the media, often being called upon to react to various issues, especially the pronounced shortage of doctors within Manitoba.
Doctors Manitoba is an advocacy group for the more than 4,000 physicians in Manitoba – both active and non-active, engaging in policy development. As Dr. Boroditsky, now the Past President of Doctors Manitoba, said, “We’re more of an advocacy group than a union.
“Our main mission is to strengthen and support doctors in Manitoba,” although not just in the area of “renumeration,”, he explained.
According to its website, Doctors Manitoba “advocates for our physicians, so that they can stay focused on providing exceptional care to Manitobans.
“We strive to work collaboratively with partners to help develop a better health care system for Manitobans. We work to improve health policy so patients have better access to physicians across Manitoba, and so physicians have the supports they need to meet their patients’ needs.
“We regularly connect with the provincial government, Shared Health, regional health authorities and other organizations to ensure the physicians’ voices are heard and have an impact on decision-making.”
On Thursday, May 23, Dr. Boroditsky, who started in practice 25 years ago as an obstetrician gynaecologist, spoke to over 40 attendees at the weekly Remis speakers luncheon group at the Gwen Secter Centre. The focus of his talk was the “physician shortage” in Manitoba.
Using a series of slides that showed graphs detailing just how much Manitoba has slid almost to the bottom of all Canadian provinces when it comes to the number of physicians per capita (only Prince Edward Island has a worse ratio), Dr. Boroditsky was candid in describing the challenges that Manitobans face when it comes to finding doctors.
While the total number of physicians in Manitoba has grown by 21% in Manitoba over the past 20 years, this is actually the lowest growth of any province. Dr. Boroditsky explained that growth hasn’t kept pace with the growth in Manitoba’s population, nor has the number of physicians here per 100,000 (215) kept pace with the national average, which is 247/100,000.
To give an idea how far Manitoba has fallen in terms of physicians per capita, in 2002, we had the fourth highest ratio of physicians/100,000 population, while in 2023 we had fallen to ninth. Manitoba needs 445 more doctors just to get to the Canadian average.
To add even more gloom to the picture, Dr. Boroditsky said that, in a 2023 poll of physicians here, to which one third of active physicians responded, 12% of physicians said they were likely to retire within the next three years; 14% said they were likely to leave Manitoba; and 26% said they were likely to reduce their hours.
He did offer a glimmer of hope though, when he said that preliminary results from the 2024 Annual Physician Survey showed a slight improvement with physicians intending to stay in practice here in Manitoba.
Dr. Boroditsky cited six different reasons that doctors gave in explaining why they were either thinking of retiring or leaving the province. They included: frustrated by the “system”; feeling “burned out” or “distressed:”; don’t feel “valued”; “personal reasons”; “red tape”; or too heavy a “workload”.
While “burnout and distress are still high,” Dr. Boroditsky observed, the situation is “improving.”
“We’re seeing a different tone in government.”
Yet, in another moment of candour, Dr. Boroditsky said, “News flash: It’s hard to recruit (physicians) here in Manitoba.”
When it comes to physician retention, he described the number of years a physician needs to put in before they can begin practising as a doctor (beginning with three years of pre-med studies): For a family physician – nine years; for a specialist – 12 years; and for someone who undertakes a fellowship – 15 years.
Dr. Boroditsky touched upon the area of immigrant doctors – and why doesn’t Manitoba allow more of them?
There are two types of International Medical Graduates (IMGs), he explained: Canadians who have gone overseas for their medical education, to such jurisdictions as Ireland or Australia; and physicians from abroad looking to relocate to Canada.
Until now, the Manitoba government has only offered 20 training spaces for IMGs each year, Dr. Boroditsky explained, but that figure will double to 40 this year. Unfortunately, we need to add 445 doctors here altogether even if we were just to meet the national average, so adding 20 more IMGs to the total isn’t enough on its own to fix the shortage.
Still, there was some good news in the area of physician retention. The average net gain in doctors in Manitoba over the past five years has been 60 a year, Dr. Boroditsky noted. Putting some more flesh on that figure, he said that, on average, 213 new doctors have begun practice here each of the past five years, but 153 have either retired or left the province. This year, however, of the UM medical school graduating class, 79 have committed to doing their residencies in Manitoba, he said. (Manitoba does not have mandatory residency requirements for graduating medical students, he added.)
Turning to other areas where there has been much-needed change to the system, Dr. Boroditsky noted that “cloud storage” now allows doctors anywhere in the province to access the results of blood tests and imaging sessions e.g., CAT scans, MRIs. The one crucial area that still remains to be accessible by doctors, however, remain “clinical notes,” but that’s coming, he predicted.
In the question and answer session that followed, I asked Dr. Boroditsky about a recent Maclean’s Magazine article which analyzed in some detail the dire state of the Canadian medical system. That article noted the increasing privatization of medical services, the proliferation of nurse practitioners in many areas where there are severe doctor shortages, and the advent of what is known as “virtual medicine,” especially in areas where patients find it difficult to see a doctor in person. (I had written an article about a service that began in Manitoba in 2022 known as QDoc, which describes how successful a foray into “virtual medicine” by two Winnipeggers, Dr. Norm Silver, and Dave Berkowits, had been. You can read that article at https://jewishpostandnews.ca/faqs/rokmicronews-fp-1/qdoc-a-new-venture-that-promises-to-change-the-way-patients-interact-with-doctors/)
I asked Dr. Boroditsky whether Doctors Manitoba had a problem with the expanded use of nurse practitioners and what he thought of virtual medicine?
He said there’s been a “significant increase” in nurse practitioners (who are allowed to see patients, diagnose and prescribe in certain limited areas) and fully agreed “that team-based care with providers working with physicians is the way to move forward.” As for “virtual medicine,” Dr. Boroditsky said, “its’ a game changer.”
It was toward the end of his talk that Dr. Boroditsky talked about the heightened antisemitism of which many Jewish doctors have expressed deep concern. His comments can be read in another article on our home page at https://jewishpostandnews.ca/faqs/rokmicronews-fp-1/jewish-physicians-in-manitoba-form-association-in-response-to-antisemitism/
Local News
Application filed by two former members of Etz Chayim Congregation against the congregation to have their memberships restored dismissed by judge
The following is taken from the Canadian Jewish News website: “Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench has dismissed Hadass Eviatar and David Hoult’s application challenging the termination of their membership at Congregation Etz Chayim. In his decision, Justice Vic Toews noted that, although Hoult’s letter describing a hypothetical attack on the synagogue may have lacked sensitivity given the political climate, he did not intend to threaten violence against congregants. However, the judge ruled that the court did not have jurisdiction to intervene in the membership dispute under Manitoba’s Corporations Act, finding that the couple had no financial, proprietary or economic interest that would entitle them to the remedies they sought. The judge concluded that religious organizations are generally free to determine their own membership rules and ordered each side to bear its own legal costs.”
If you would like to read the original article that broke the story about the battle between Hadaass Eviatar and David Hoult with Etz Chayim Congregation you can go to Epic Court Battle.”
Local News
Jewish Federation now says Jewish population of Winnipeg in 2021 (according to the census) was 13,940 – not the 16,000 figure that the Federation had been touting for years
By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted Oct. 27, 2026) Longtime readers of The Jewish Post & News (and this website) would probably know that I have long had a very strong interest in establishing as accurate figures as possible when it has come to reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish community.
For years I argued that our Jewish Federation was exaggerating the size of our Jewish population. I heard the figure of 16,000 bandied about by leaders in our community quite often when it came to reporting the size of our Jewish population – without any empirical evidence to back that figure up.
I had long maintained that the only reasonably accurate figures when it came to reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish population were those produced by the late Evelyn Katz, when she was the unofficial demographer for the Jewish Federation – over 30 years ago. What Evelyn would do is keep careful track of births, deaths, numbers of newcomers but, perhaps most important: the number of people who had left our community.
Thus, in August 2022 when I interviewed Faye Rosenberg Cohen who, at the time, was just about to retire as the Jewish Federation’s Chief Planning and Allocations Officer, I was somewhat astonished to hear Faye say, when I asked her what proportion of our Jewish community was made up of immigrants, she answered that “I can honestly say when I look at those numbers it’s somewhere around 1/3 of the community.”
In response, I asked: “So you’d say it’s somewhere between 4-5,000?”
Faye said: “I think it’s more than that.”
I wrote in that article, “I indicated my skepticism at that time, saying ‘You know that I’ve always been skeptical about the numbers that have been used by the Federation for the population of the Jewish community. I think though that it’s always been more of a case of identification – who identifies as Jewish.’ ”
Later, after the results of the 2021 census were released, I wrote that “if you take into account the results of the 2021 census, the Jewish community cannot be larger than 14,270 at a maximum. But that figure would also include anyone who had either said either their ethnic origin was Jewish or their religion was Jewish.”
Since many of the individuals who had said on the 2021 census that their ethnic origin was Jewish, but their religion was something else, I maintained that ascertaining the real size of our Jewish community was highly problematic.
Still, for the sake of argument I was willing to accept that, realistically, it was somewhere between 13,000-14,000 – but nowhere close to the figure of 16,000 that had come to be suggested by our then president of the Jewish Federation or by other leading figures in our community.
So, it was with a sense of satisfaction that I heard Sharon Graham, who is now the Jewish Federation’s Community Planning and Allocations Lead say to an audience of over 50 people who were at the Gwen Secter Centre on Thursday, October 22, that the Jewish community in 2021 was – at a maximum: 13,940.
Sharon was at the Gwen Secter Centre to speak to Remis Lecture attendees. Her presentation preceded a presentation by Jewish Federation CEO Jeff Lieberman. Sharon used a PowerPoint presentation to provide some very interesting insights into where our Jewish community was at in 2021- and I’m offering some parts of her presentation here for you to read because I thought they were so interesting.
I had actually made many of the same observations about the results of the 2021 census in my own reporting back in 2022, but seeing what I had written confirmed by the Jewish Federation’s point person on planning told me that Sharon has a much more realistic view of our community than did Faye Rosenberg Cohen.
Here, for instance, is a slide that shows the proportion of our Jewish community that is made up of immigrants. It’s slightly under one fifth, not the one third percentage that Faye had suggested.
But, what really set Sharon’s presentation apart from anything else I’ve ever seen presented by someone from the Jewish Federation – other than the aforementioned Evelyn Katz, was the slide she projected which showed that, while there had been a large influx of newcomers to Winnipeg’s Jewish community between 2016-2021 there had also been a significantly high number of people who had left our Jewish community in those same years, as you can see in the following slide:
That is something we just don’t hear discussed by leaders of our Jewish organizations, but let’s be realistic: For many newcomers who came to Winnipeg and were counted as new members of our Jewish community, Winnipeg – for a variety of reasons, was a stepping stone to other communities. It may have been for reasons of better job opportunities, moving closer to other family members, or – the reason that we hear so often when it comes to people saying they want to leave Winnipeg: the weather.
But, whatever the reason, Sharon’s figures show that, as much as GrowWinnipeg may have been an abiding success when it’s come to attracting newcomers to our Jewish community here, getting them to stay long term is a different story.
And, while there were other aspects of Sharon’s presentation that certainly merit discussion, especially the figures she produced about intermarriage, rather than delving into them here, I thought it useful simply to insert them for you, the reader, to see – and draw your own conclusions.
Local News
Marty Green expands his protest against extremist Jewish settlers to two more venues – and is arrested twice more
(Tuesday, October 27) We received the following press release about Marty Green being arrested again, both at the University of Manitoba and at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue:
Both sides came to blows on Saturday, October 24, at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue as security personnel sought to prevent Marty Green from interfering with synagogue traffic as he protested just outside synagogue grounds against the actions of religious settlers in Israel’s occupied West Bank territory. Synagogue Executive Director Rena Secter Elbaze quickly intervened to prevent further escalation. Police arrived shorty thereafter and detained Green for 45 minutes before driving him home and releasing him. It is not clear whether their decision not to lay charges was the result of their own onsite investigation or whether it was at the request of the synagogue executive.
Green has now been arrested four times in the last month and faces multiple charges for disturbing the peace, including two episodes at the Asper Campus and one more this past Friday (Oct. 23) at the University of Manitoba. While Green says initially he was merely handing out leaflets (at the Asper Campus), since his first arrest on September 23, he has returned to the campus with a large placard and an acccordion, accompanying himself while singing songs with lyrics that include such phrases as “The Jews Are Bananas….B-A-N-A-N-A-S”. In addition to listing actions of the religious settlers as including arson, vandalism, and theft, he pointedly alleges that the IDF has been backing up the settlers in their actions.
Green had earlier notified the Shaarey Zedek that he was contemplating bringing his protest to the synagogue. He was told that if he attempted to enter the grounds he would be prevented from doing so. At that time, Secter Elbaze told Green that his intentions were inappropriate, declaring the synagogue to be “a house of worship dedicated to prayer, learning, community, and spiritual engagement.” Green responded that if the synagogue were willing to contact the Crown and inform them that “that there was never any legal basis for their claims that I was conducting myself inappropriately at the Asper Campus” (with regard to his earlier arrests) that he would “voluntarily refrain from carrying his informational campaign to the synagogue(s).”
Green further argues that the recent “psak” (religious ruling) by leading Israeli rabbi Rov Dov Lior, in which Lior declares that it is not merely permissible but praiseworthy for Jews to steal olives from Arab orchards….that this ruling brings his protest within the proper realm of religious discourse. He says further that if the local rabbis were willing to speak out to their congregations against the aforesaid psak, that he might have refrained from taking his campaign to their grounds.
Although Green was released on Saturday without charges, police confiscated his placard. They explained that it was being held as evidence pending an investigation by Major Crimes as to whether it constituted hate literature.
There was no further information given as to what happened at the University of Manitoba.
