here4myman

If your waiting for a 2 year work permit(should be arriving in 10 weeks) and you find out your spouse is pregnant, should you make the immigration aware of this....

Do you need to get private insurance before you leave England for the 2 years or are you covered in Canada after a certain amount of time. Can you still get private medical insurance if your pregnant to go to Canada? Can she have the baby once in Canada? Any one had a baby in Canada while on a work permit?
Thanks in advance...Anne

Judy in Calgary

First of all, congratulations on your news.

Now, to answer your question. There is no need to inform Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Many Canadian provinces impose a three-month waiting period before you're covered by their provincial health care insurance plans. It's prudent to buy private medical insurance to cover you for that period. I mean, pregnancy aside, I would want insurance to cover me in the event of a medical emergency.

There is more information in the Wiki article called Medical Insurance-Canada.

A few provinces, like Alberta, give you provincial health care coverage from Day One. However, I get the impression from your previous posts that you may be heading to Ontario. That is one of the provinces that imposes a 3-month waiting period.

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that. I mean it occurs to me that they may treat it as a pre-existing condition and, at the very least, charge a higher premium.

Yes.

Members of this forum, who have been spouses of work permit holders, have had babies while they've been in Canada.

There is a Wiki article called Babies-Alberta. While that article was written with Alberta in mind, much of the information in it is applicable to other provinces as well.

In fact I may write a Wiki called Babies-Canada.

Hope that helps.
x

here4myman

Thanks for that Judy, Ive just done some searching and found some of your other replys...very helpful
This is for a cousin and his spouse that are planning to come stay with us on a work permit from England for 2 years. His spouse has just found out she is 3months pregnant and his work permit is due in 8-10 weeks. They are unsure if she would be better to fly back to England to have the baby or have it in Canada...They asked me to find out what I could about having the baby here. Would the baby be automatically insured as a Canadian Citizen Would it just be the mother that would need the insurance as the baby should be covered. I am in BC and am not sure if there is a 3 month waiting period here.

Judy in Calgary

I'm not sure about BC, but I believe most Canadian provinces immediately provide health care coverage for babies born in those provinces. That is, my understanding is that, in most provinces, a baby is covered as soon as he/she is born.

It is my understanding that it would be only the mother who would be subject to the 3-month waiting period. But I don't know that for sure. It would be prudent for you to check with Medical Services Plan of BC.

Yes, there is a 3-month waiting period in BC. Well, it may be less than 3 full months. It's the balance of the month in which you arrive in BC plus 2 full months after that. So, let's suppose your cousin and his wife were to arrive in BC in November 10th. They'd have to wait the rest of November, the whole of December, and the whole of January. They'd be eligible for provincial health care coverage on February 1st.

If your cousin's work permit application is going to take 8 - 10 weeks to be approved, it might be about 12 weeks before they actually flew to BC. First of all, we don't know the exact amount of time that it'll take CIC to issue the work permit. Secondly, your cousin and his wife may have various arrangements to make before they can leave the UK. It also may take a shorter amount of time for the work permit to be issued. I don't know. I'm just using a rough estimate.

Anyway, if we say, for the purposes of this discussion, that it would be 12 weeks before they could fly to Canada. At that point your cousin's wife would be about 6 months' pregnant.

Whether or not she would have BC health care insurance coverage by the time she gave birth, I can't say at this point. With the numbers I have available, I would say it would be touch and go.

Keep in mind that a normal childbirth, without complications, would cost between C$5,000 and C$7,000.

If she decides to have the baby in the UK, I'm not entirely sure if there would be any point in her flying to BC with her husband when he goes there to take up his job. An airline wouldn't allow her to fly back to the UK if she was at an advanced stage of her pregnancy. So she wouldn't be in BC for all that long before she had to turn around and fly back to the UK and wait to have her baby there.

It would be less than ideal for her to give birth to the baby while she was in the UK and her husband was in Canada. It's nice if a family can be together and start bonding right away when a baby is born.

So, all in all, your cousin and his wife are facing a situation in which, regardless of what they choose, there are likely to be some pros and cons.
x

Jim Humphries

From a strictly Canadian immigration point of view it would be best to have the child in Canada. Otherwise its another person to visa and can lead to unexpected delays in re-uniting the family in Canada.