An owner of several Lower Mainland medical clinics is warning that a well-intentioned plan to bring more doctors to Surrey could lead to unintended consequences for existing clinics.

That is unless a more holistic approach to soaring practice costs is undertaken by the provincial government, according to Dr. Julie Wilson.

“It’s possible it could disrupt the market,” the owner of Terra Nova Medical Clinics, said of the city’s plan.

Last month the City of Surrey took a page out of at least three other suburban or rural B.C. municipalities by facilitating the opening of a new medical clinic in its downtown area.

Mayor Brenda Locke said city hall was providing about $100,000 worth of benefits to the new clinic operators via a lease subsidy and extended health benefits for its doctors through the city’s provider.

Locke said the city is planning on opening up to 10 more clinics within the year to increase the ratio of doctors to residents in Surrey.

Locke said Vancouver has nearly twice as many family doctors located there than in Surrey. As of July 2025, for every 1,000 residents of Surrey, 53 are waitlisted for finding a doctor, according to Health Data BC. In Vancouver, it’s 49 per 1,000 residents.

“We are putting Surrey residents first and I can tell you, you have seen in Surrey rallies because of the challenges faced with access to doctor care,” said Locke.

Business in Vancouver asked Locke if her office was taking on a role better suited for the B.C. Ministry of Health.

“This is unique because the city initiated the plan and is really encouraging doctors as best we can to make life easier for doctors to do what they want to do, which is treat patients,” said Locke.

“Doctors are just like any private business and so that doesn’t happen anywhere. The Ministry of Health does not provide clinics anywhere.”

Locke said Surrey put out a request for proposal to clinic operators and eventually chose Total Life Care (TLC) Medical Clinic.

TLC owner Dr. Alexander Weinberg told BIV the savings the clinic receives will be utilized for out-of-province recruitment of doctors.

“We do not compete with anybody in this municipality. We don’t want to take anybody’s doctors by giving them a better split or by giving them anything better. We do not offer anything different,” Weinberg said.

“We are going by our mandate, which is, we do not poach, we do not take any doctors from anywhere else [in B.C.],” said Weinberg, who notes he has already recruited three doctors from the United Kingdom.

Wilson said she was pleased to hear the new clinics will not recruit other B.C. doctors.

“Otherwise, it’s just Peter robbing Paul here, right? It’s not increasing net capacity. And I’m very glad that they decided to do that and that shows that they are committed to the cause,” said Wilson.

However, said Wilson, despite the vow not to poach, it does not change the fact existing clinics also need to spend time and money on recruiting doctors from outside the province, thus giving subsidized clinics an advantage.

“So, it creates an anti-competitive market and a sort of a downward spiral towards pressuring the overheads lower and lower, at the cost of services for the society and for the community,” said Wilson.

Wilson said that clinics charge doctors a fee to practice, which cuts into the doctor’s government payments for caring for patients.

“So what’s happening is many clinics are lowering their overhead, and they’re doing that for recruitment, so that doctors will choose them because they have to pay less to the clinic,” said Wilson.

Overhead refers to all the extra costs associated with running a clinic, from office staff to special medical supplies.

“You see clinics no longer doing vaccines, so public health has to take it on. So that adds more expense to the government. They’re no longer doing suture, no longer doing autoclaving and procedures. And they do this to keep their overhead low,” Wilson said.

A recruiter can cost from between $10,000 to $30,000 to secure a foreign doctor, said Wilson.

“So, recruitment is a bit of a battlefield for clinics in B.C. right now,” Wilson said.

Wilson said she is happy for TLC and pleased with the effort to increase the number of doctors in B.C. But she said she would like to see government help for existing clinics, many of which are teetering on the edge of folding due to inflationary costs.

“I do believe the system is quite fragile,” said Wilson.

Locke said she acknowledges the concerns raised by Wilson and others.

On the same day Locke opened the TLC clinic, Locke’s October election mayoral challenger, Coun. Linda Annis, put out a statement saying city hall should not be competing with Surrey’s existing medical clinics.

“City hall could have used property tax incentives and the quick turnaround of permit approvals to give existing clinics the chance to expand or add new clinics,” said Annis.

“Instead, we are now competing unfairly with our city’s existing clinics and we’re using scarce city property taxes to do it.”

Another municipal initiative that aims to create more new clinics is a concept from advocacy group BC Family Doctors to create special zoning for community health clinic spaces in new developments to address what it calls a “critical shortage” of clinic space.

At the request of the group in 2025, the Union of B.C. Municipalities passed a resolution to have the province include funding for community health spaces as an eligible charge on new developments.

BC Family Doctors spokeswoman Jennifer Boon told BIV the group “strongly recommends that municipalities start by working with/speaking to existing doctors in their communities and asking what they need to offer optimal care.”

Wilson said while wages and material costs are the biggest cost burden on existing clinics, it is land and construction/renovation costs that makes building a new one nearly impossible these days.

Meanwhile, B.C. Health Minister Ravi Kahlon dismissed any concerns municipalities are left holding the bag for recruitment of doctors in their own jurisdiction.

“You have seen municipalities show up to create some infrastructure for these independent doctors to operate,” said Kahlon.

Kahlon said it isn’t a new thing for a municipality to create a clinic, although the precedent was only set starting in 2025 in Colwood, Langford and Grand Forks.

Kahlon said his ministry has not asked municipalities to do this, which could lead to competition among them.

“But if they see an opportunity to invest a small amount of money to attract some of these doctors to their communities as opposed to others then they are free to do so,” said Kahlon, adding he “can’t control every local government’s actions.”

Kahlon said between 2017 and 2024 the ministry increased foreign doctor recruits by about 37 per cent.

Since 2017, the province has seen a positive net inflow every year of physicians practising in B.C. In fiscal 2024-25, the inflow of doctors reached 1,136 individuals, while the outflow (retirements, leaving practice or moving outside of B.C.) reached 807. From 2017 to August 2026, the number of family doctors has increased by more than 2,400—from 6,513 to 8,915.

However, from 2017 to 2026, the percentage of British Columbians unattached to a family physician increased from 18.2 per cent to 23 per cent.

Kahlon said the increase in population has outpaced the recruitment efforts.

“Not only are we attracting more doctors, we’ve also seen a significant increase in population as well. … And yes, there are doctors retiring,” said Kahlon, adding virtual care and new urgent care clinics are providing new routes to access to care.

The ministry stated that its new Longitudinal Family Physician (LFP) payment model provides funding for salary, benefits, and clinic space to support existing clinics.

“We have seen a generational change in the way physicians work,” the ministry stated.

“Previous generations generally preferred setting up their own office and practices. More recent generations of physicians generally prefer to practice in environments where infrastructure and overheard are already established, which provides the potential benefits of having more time to focus on patient care and have a better work-life balance.”

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