Public health requires no one be left behind
Federal government should move on regularizing migrants' immigration status, Sasha Dyck says.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that unless everyone's health is protected, all of us are at risk. As a public-health nurse, I see every day how important access to health care is in stopping contagion and improving health equity. But as a resident of Parc-extension, I see that many of my neighbours cannot access vital health care, simply because of their immigration status. That is why I am adding my voice to those of almost 1,000 health-care workers and health organizations from across Canada who have signed an open letter calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to develop a comprehensive and inclusive immigration regularization program granting status to all migrants currently living in Canada. We also are calling on provinces to ensure universal access to health care for uninsured patients.
There seems to be a political window opening. Late last year, Trudeau gave a mandate to Minister of Immigration Sean Fraser to “explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers.” Parliament followed up by unanimously passing a symbolic motion (M-44) calling for permanent resident status “for temporary foreign workers, including international students, with significant Canadian work experience in sectors with persistent labour shortages.” Such a program should include everyone, regardless of industry sector or work experience. A small, partial or exclusionary regularization program would leave too many people in my neighbourhood behind.
My neighbours, many of whom have been on the front lines of the pandemic with me, should have access to health care like I do.
The pandemic taught us that everyone is connected and the exclusion of any person or group of people from equal rights is harmful to all. During the first waves of the pandemic, I worked at the COVID testing clinic in my neighbourhood. Factory workers and agricultural day labourers would come in with symptoms and tell us that they had no access to masks and couldn't physically distance themselves from their colleagues at work. They were often in the process of making refugee claims and thus didn't have full access to the health-care system. And when their test results came back positive, they didn't have access to the federal programs that would allow them to stay home in isolation. As a result, they had to make tough choices about whether to return to work, and risk spreading the virus, or stay home and isolate and risk eviction because they couldn't pay their rent, not to mention being unable to provide food and medication for their families. Nobody should have to make those choices.
My neighbours, many of whom have been on the front lines of the pandemic with me, should have access to health care like I do. Canada likes to think of itself as a fair society. And a fair society means equal rights, including access to health care. Equal rights are only possible when everyone has full and permanent immigration status. Regularization and status for all is an effective solution to the failures of immigration policy and the negative health impacts it has had on my neighbours.
I believe that the prime minister must seize this historic opportunity to ensure an equal right to health care by granting full and permanent immigration status. On Sunday, Oct. 16, it will have been 10 months since the mandate commitment letter on regularization was announced. On that day, migrants and their supporters across the country will be visiting the offices of cabinet ministers, calling on them to deliver a comprehensive regularization program without exclusions and without any more delay. Health care workers stand with them, and I invite all residents of Canada to join us. Status for all is necessary to ensure access to health care and health for all.