Refugee health-care fixes tricky, feds say

Government asks for more time, but lawyer questions last-minute move

The health care-system serving thousands of refugee claimants will be thrown into chaos next month if there’s a rush to create a new program, the federal government says.

But the lawyer representing the refugees who took the government to court over the issue says the government had plenty of time to devise a plan.

Now all sides are being forced to scramble in the face of a Nov. 4 deadline for the government to either create a new, charter-compliant system of funding refugee health care or return to the one in place before 2012.

Justice Anne Mactavish of the Federal Court ruled in July that the existing interim federal health program, which restricts how much the government will pay for refugee claimants’ health care, amounted to cruel and unusual treatment.

The ruling came two years after the Conservative government implemented sweeping changes to the program, which had been in place since the 1950s.

The government argued that refugee claimants were getting better care than most Canadians and program costs were ballooning as refugees arrived specifically to take advantage of health-care benefits.

Advocates and claimants were caught off guard by the change, which they argued put the health of untold numbers of refugee claimants at risk as they could no longer afford treatments such as prenatal care and diabetes medication.

They went to court, arguing the changes violated the charter. They won, and the government was given four months to change the program again or go back to the old one.

With a month left to go, the federal government filed its appeal this week and with it, a request for a stay of the decision, arguing for more time.

“The order of Justice Mactavish does not provide any guidance as to what form of interim policy would be constitutionally compliant,” Craig Shankar, who oversaw the program for the Immigration Department, said in an affidavit.

“The government must presumably implement a new policy which requires strategic review and cabinet approval. Once approved, this new policy, whatever it may be, would represent the second substantive change to the program in two years. If the government is successful on appeal, there is the potential for a third major change in the program.”

Lorne Waldman, the lawyer who took the case to Federal Court on behalf of refugee claimants and advocacy groups, wondered why the government waited until the last minute.

“If this was going to create chaos, why didn’t they move forward quickly, so that there could be a determination on all of the issues in a timely fashion and not a determination at the last possible minute?” he asked in an interview.