Evidence of meeting #78 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director General, Migration Health Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We'll have to follow up with the statistics, but I'd like to ask Dr. Saeed to speak to the process around how the mitigation plan is considered.
Dr. Arshad Saeed Director, Centralized Medical Admissibility Unit, Migration Health Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The mitigation plan is submitted as part of the procedural fairness given to the applicant, whereby first they can challenge our diagnosis and then they can provide a detailed plan that includes how they're going to defray the cost of that service.
As we said earlier on, it's not a medical condition that renders them inadmissible, but the services, the health services and social services. If they have a detailed plan, we look at the feasibility, the practicality, and the applicability of the plan in a Canadian context. That is done, and then we provide our opinion to the visa officer to make the final decision.
October 24th, 2017 / 9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Would you have any numbers on how many of these plans have been accepted over the last two or three years?
Director, Centralized Medical Admissibility Unit, Migration Health Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That number we can provide to you later on. We don't have it right now.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Okay.
My next question is on your opening remarks. You mentioned “the exception of convention refugees, protected persons, and some members of the family class”, that is, “spouses, partners and direct dependents”. I would like to get more clarification on who is exempted, because we hear stories such as that of a live-in caregiver whose son was rejected because he was disabled. Can we have more clarity on who is exempted and who is not?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The exempted groups are convention refugees, such as resettled refugees. They are protected persons, people found to be refugees in Canada. Then there are some members of the family class, the close family members. If I were sponsoring my spouse and my dependent children, they would be exempt from the medical inadmissibility provisions. We still do immigration medical exams because we want to know from a public health or public safety perspective whether there's something that we need to be concerned about.
Then there are folks who are not exempted. The kinds of cases you're talking about tend to be economic immigrants, and it's either the principal applicant or one of the dependants of that economic immigrant who has issues, who has a health condition that then raises concerns around excessive demand. It might be a live-in caregiver. It might be a federal skilled worker. It might be a student.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Would they not be considered as dependants? Would an 18-year-old child not be considered a dependant of that live-in caregiver?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
They're considered as dependants, but they're not exempted in the way close family class members are under the policy as it currently stands.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
In the case of close family class, for example, if today I sponsored my husband and my two kids and one of them has a problem, they would be exempted.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
However, for the live-in caregiver, they will not be exempted?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Next, does anything in the evaluation process consider the economic benefit of having the family in Canada as permanent residents and the contribution to our economy that would be lost should the family be denied?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Under the current policy, no. That's considered as part of the selection decision in selecting individuals to become immigrants to Canada, but for the actual admissibility—medical, criminal, or otherwise—we don't then factor that back in again. We don't have that net economic benefit test that Australia tried to do a few years ago and found too complicated.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Okay.
How much scope do officers have with regard to the interpretation of subsection 38(1) of IRPA? When were the most recent ministerial instructions issued? Have officers been told to interpret the act strictly, or do they have some flexibility while making their decisions?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There are guidelines or instructions—program instructions, I think they're called—that are provided and updated on a regular basis, so we could look and see, particularly on the medical admissibility side, when those were last updated.
Visa officers look to apply the act and the regulations as they are written and as they have been interpreted by the courts, and we provide guidance to them to say, “Here's a recent court decision, and we need to modify our behaviour and do this and this instead.” For example, when the Supreme Court of Canada made a very important decision in 2005 in a case called Hilewitz and De Jong, we modified the way in which we did medical admissibility screening at that point. The instructions were provided to officers and training was provided, etc.
The visa officer, then, is looking at the mitigation plan that's been presented and at humanitarian and compassionate considerations, so there are those areas of flexibility.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the panel for coming out.
I'm still not crystal clear on this. Is it $135 million annually or is it $27 million annually? The cost is $135 million for a year or...?
Senior Director, Migration Health Policy and Partnerships, Migration Health Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's that at any given time for the provinces, or from a provincial perspective, there are five years' worth of decisions that are in play, right? If we pick this year, 2017, then decisions from 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012 are all in play. Each of those years will generate a five-year-profile's worth of savings. As Ms. Rempel suggested, it's like a rolling amount that goes across those years. From the perspective of the province, they're getting five years' worth of savings.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
You're saying that for five years, it's $135 million.
Senior Director, Migration Health Policy and Partnerships, Migration Health Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, roughly speaking, and recognizing that this is an estimate based on one year of data.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We looked at the data from 2014 as being a representative sample, but the profile in 2012 of people who are medically inadmissible and the cost of health and social services for those particular conditions might be different.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Yes.
When we talk about $27 million, or $135 million over five years, does this include medical costs, education costs, social costs, or any other costs?
