Health Care: Refugee

Refugee Claimants Dept: As health-care professionals -- doctors, dentists, pharmacists -- raise their protests in letters, interviews and even demonstrations, the popular focus is all on the plight of refugee claimants. These are the people who have arrived on our shores usually at our international airports and claimed refugee status. There were about 25,000 of these last year. Few arrive in Manitoba, according to Winnipeg Free Press. What is being missed in all of this is that the same removal of vital health care coverage applies also to government-assisted refugees GARs and privately sponsored refugees PSRs and in the midst of the current brouhaha around the Harper government's effective cancellation of the interim federal health program for refugees, a major paradox is flying under the public's radar. Canada's pugilistic minister of immigration, Jason Kenney is able to set up his usual man of straw, the "bogus refugee," in order to deflect criticism from his government's removal of the interim federal health coverage from many needy refugee claimants. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.