Caring, Compassion and Cost

"We think it is absolutely incumbent on us as a government to defend the interests of taxpayers that weren't being looked after under the previous system."
"There was not just normal health care, but enhanced health care, that goes well beyond what most Canadians receive, going to people whose claims failed, whose claims were literally bogus."
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander

"The 2012 modifications to the Interim Federal Health Program potentially jeopardize the health, the safety and indeed the very lives, of these innocent and vulnerable children in a manner that shocks the conscience and outrages our standards of decency."
"It puts their lives at risk and perpetuates the stereotypical view that they are cheats and queue-jumpers, that their refugee claims are 'bogus', and that they have come to Canada to abuse the generosity of Canadians."
"It serves to perpetuate the historical disadvantage suffered by members of an admittedly vulnerable, poor and disadvantaged group."
Justice Anne Mactavish, Federal Court

Doctor Nora McBean of the South East Ottawa Community Centre joins fellow protesters at a rally on Parliament Hill Monday regarding planned cuts to the refugee medical program. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

"All the doctors that I know who treat refugee claimants do not turn them away."
"However, we know that a majority of physicians in clinics in various cities across Canada will not accept refugee claimants as patients because they have no confidence in the (Interim Federal Health Program) as it now stands."
Dr. Philip Berger, chief, family and community medicine, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto

The federal government identified what it saw as a problem associated with medical care given people claiming refugee status seeking haven in Canada. The problem relates to refused refugees who may remain in Canada while they exhaust the legal system of their right to appeal such rulings, a right given them that can and often does create a situation where they will live in Canada for years while their case wends through the various courts of appeal.

Two years ago the government brought in legislation enabling them to reduce the health-care coverage provided for refugee claimants. Basic health care was provided, but the care did not go beyond the basics. Medical benefits, claimed those protesting this move, were reduced to the point where they left claimants vulnerable; while still being given essential health care of a basic level, supplementals like vision and dental care were withheld.

The fact of the matter is that these are areas of care that are not given to most Canadians either. Eye care and dental care, unless Canadians have a generous plan through their employers, must pay for these services out of their own pockets. The level of medical care intervention, aids in social integration, language schools and similar assists to immigrants was absolutely unknown decades ago when many new immigrants to the country had to forge their way on their own, paying for all such services if they could.

Canadian Health Coalition

Canada is struggling with sky-high costs associated with the provision of health care and medical facilities to cope with the needs of a growing population, and most particularly an aging population. The costs of pharmaceuticals have outpaced the ability of provincial governments to continue paying for what many consider basic needs. Canada has moved from providing basic health services on a  universal basis, to the expansion of such services in step with newer medical techniques.

The country's universality in health services provisions is stretched to the maximum; long waits for surgery and to be able to see a medical specialist in most fields of medicine have long plagued the system, failing in some instances to serve the needs of Canadians. The burden of providing medical services to a quarter-million additional people entering the country annually is critically onerous. The new legislation now rejected by the Federal Court dismays the government which claims to have saved hundreds of millions at all levels of government since implementation of the reduced program.

In her finding of discrimination, slamming the government for cutting back on additional health services to refugees, Justice Mactavish insisted the government's actions violates a section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in the process creating two tiers of health coverage between refugee claimants originating from countries on the government safe list and those not on that safe list. And she focused, for greater effect, emphatically on the well-being of vulnerable refugee children.

Government insists their new health-care provision rules bring health benefits for newcomers to Canada in line with benefits other Canadians receive. Its purpose was to deter those entering the country attempting to abuse the health-care system. This issue represents a true Gordian knot of moral responsibilities and human needs. How much is enough and how much is too much? And how to deny that human beings everywhere seek to advantage themselves at the cost to others?