Ottawa and Federal Court Justice Anne Mactavish

Federal Court Justice Anne Mactavish: Though seriously ill with diabetes and other ailments, he has worked as a restaurant dishwasher in Ottawa and at gas stations. He makes about $10,000 a year, files tax returns and pays taxes. At one time he could get help from the Citizenship and Immigration Ministry to offset the costs of his insulin, medical tests and medications under a federal program that paid for basic health care for refugee claimants until they left the country or became eligible for provincial health care. No longer, according to The Star. That fear was fully justified, Federal Court Justice Anne Mactavish has just ruled in a withering indictment that strikes down the new policy because it violates sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that prohibit cruel and unusual treatment and that affirm equal rights for all. Ottawas cutbacks are having a devastating impact, she found, and lives are being put at risk and Hanif Ayubi is stuck in limbo. Like many others, he fled Afghanistan for fear of the Taliban and came to Canada in 2001, but wasnt accepted as a refugee. Still, he wasnt deported because it is too risky to ship people back to the war-ravaged country. In 2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harpers government abruptly cut benefits to Ayubi, along with thousands of other failed claimants and refugees from countries Ottawa deems safe, in a shameful policy shift that refugee advocates warned would put lives at risk. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.