The New Brunswick Medical Society repeated Friday that it will go to court to block a government-imposed two-year wage freeze.

Earlier, the province's fee-freeze law was given royal assent in the legislative assembly, the second-last step before being implemented.

Premier Shawn Graham and Health Minister Michael Murphy repeatedly asked the doctors to return to the bargaining table this week.

"The premier has invited physicians to return to the negotiating table, but only if we agree in advance that the government's policy of two years of zero [per cent fee increase] would be up front," Dr. Ludger Blier, the president of the medical society, said in a release.

"Is that a true negotiation, or an attempt to bring some legitimacy to unacceptable behaviour?"

Blier said the medical society will pursue what legal options are open to physicians to protect the tentative agreement negotiated in December.

Murphy said on Thursday when the fee-freeze bill passed third reading that the Liberal government hoped it would not have to be used and that the two sides could still come to a deal.

Even though the law was given royal assent on Friday, the government could choose not to proclaim it if a separate deal is reached.

Blier said the government's actions have seriously damaged the relationship between physicians and the province.

The New Brunswick government has imposed a two-year wage freeze on all public servants as a way to battle the projected $740-million deficit.

Once it is proclaimed, the fee-freeze law would extend the doctors' current contract, which expired in March 2008, until April 2010.

Murphy said if the doctors agree to a two-year pay freeze, the province would save about $36 million, including $25 million from fee-for-service doctors who bill the province by procedure or patient, and $9 million from salaried physicians.

Some of the doctors have argued that the plan will hurt the ability of the province to recruit and retain physicians.