In the end sanity prevailed — but just barely.

After seven weeks of brinksmanship, the government of Premier François Legault took the first steps Friday to retract Bill 2 , the controversial law that sought to force a new compensation model and working conditions on doctors — but came perilously close to triggering a meltdown of the health system instead.

Someone, somewhere, realized at the 11th hour that unilaterally imposing a health reform — especially one that was unworkable, unrealistic and booby-trapped with all kinds of punitive measures to micromanage and shortchange doctors — was going to have dire consequences.

Doctors would flee . Clinics would close . More patients would be orphaned. Emergency rooms would be overwhelmed beyond anything Quebec has yet seen. Physicians who ha

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