I know there has been some controversy around this, and I understand that. I respect diverse views on this issue, but certainly from the direct feedback to my parliamentary office and the consultations we've had, and in my contact with ethnocultural and immigrant communities, I've received overwhelming support.
Just yesterday I was at a meeting at Carleton University and was approached by people from the South Asian community, including a couple of very prominent medical doctors who said they appreciated what we had done because they have seen the abuse.
We had cases, for example, of people who were rejected asylum claimants in the United States, who had lived there for many years, who got sick and then came north to Canada to make an asylum claim, because they didn't have insurance in the U.S., and they would get comprehensive plus extended benefits here in Canada. I think that's the wrong signal to send to people.
We will continue to provide comprehensive care and permanent residency and then provincial health insurance to bona fide refugees. We will absolutely do that. The vast majority of asylum claimants in the future will continue to receive the same essentially basic package of medically necessary physician and hospital services that most Canadian residents receive. But we do think there needs to be a balance here, and we think the program was out of balance.
Certainly the point we were at before these reforms in no way reflected the original intention of the program, which was to be a short-term stopgap for catastrophic care for newly arrived displaced persons from Europe. It became something much bigger than that, and frankly when I met Canadians who told me they were upset that they had to pay out of pocket for pharmaceuticals, dental care, and eye care ,but that even rejected asylum claimants who were delaying their deportation from Canada were getting those benefits from their tax dollars, it struck them as a lack of social equity.
I think this reflects the Canadian value of balance and equity.