Have managed to find a job in Canada, so I am now looking for new things to be worried about! Our youngest (nearly 3) is having speech therapy and I was wondering if this could be a problem when it comes to our medicals. Does anyone have an insight into this?

TVM in advance.

It is hard to answer your question without knowing the underlying condition and even then it is only the Canadian medical service that can truly say.

Hi

Firstly I have never worked for CIC

We have four children three have been referred to speech therapy, both in the UK and here in Canada. Our eldest son had quite serious language issues although these were corrected with-out too much professional intervention. The only one of our children still with a possible referral is our youngest but we take the view that this is a short term problem that can be corrected without a large burden being bourne by medical services. I understand from a trusted source that the magical figure of burden on the health care system can absorb here is <$5000/year anything above this is deemed too great a drain on Canada's healthcare and an automatic refusal of PR is issued. I believe that for this case to be final the condition must be diagnosed as chronic. This reply is posted to the best of my belief and not as an absolute.

Your not alone in your concern about the CIC medical exams, there seems to be very little about what will or will not be allowed to enable PR here. Perhaps some transparancy could be afforded by CIC to help would be PR's in their decision to apply or not given that the processing fees are non returnable.

Especially considering that CIC may ban a person with a health problem from even visiting Canada. (which they have done in at least one case).

Thank you for your responses. The speech therapist believes that he has verbal dyspraxia, which should be resolved by his therapy and hard work making him practise. His older brother (now nearly 5) had similar problems at around the same age, but was signed off by the therapist 6 months ago and is now fine. We would be willing to pay for private treatment in Canada if this became an issue. Is that possible?

My son, who is 10 also has verbal dyspraxia. We are here on a work permit so didn't need a medical. He started off in a public school, for one term, and was offered the same sort of access to speech therapists etc that he had in England. Unfortunately, it is also the same sort of wait as there as well. We have now gone the private route, the same as in England. Basically, I highly doubt it will be a problem but the services where I am in Ontario have been cut back, but no more so than back home. Hope my rambling helps!

Hi guys

My son had Aspergers syndrome, I know its not quite the same thing but just make sure you have every bit of paper you can to prove that your child's "problem" won't be a drain so if immigration question it at the medical you can prove it isn't. We didn't have all our bits of paper to prove our son wouldn't be a drain and are now waiting for immigration to be happy that he isn't goin to be a drain with all the letters, diagnosis and pychologist reports we could lay our hands on.

So just be aware so you don't have the hassles we've had

Fiona

The following has been posted on various immigration lawyers sites :-
September 10, 2007


Citizenship and Immigration Canada skirts medical ruling

It’s taken almost two years for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to finally respond to one of its greatest defeats in the Supreme Court of Canada.

In October, 2005 the court made a landmark ruling involving two medical refusal cases.

David and Susan Hilewitz tried to immigrate here with their two boys. Their younger son Gavin suffered from “developmental delay” and functioned at the level of an 8-year-old.

Dirk de Jong, a Dutch farmer, also tried to bring his family to Canada including his 9-year-old daughter, Dirkje, who was diagnosed as “intellectually disabled”.

Both businessmen applied under Canada’s business immigration category. Hilewitz applied as an “investor” while de Jong applied as a “self-employed” person.

Both applicants were asked to respond to the allegation that they might be inadmissible to Canada for having a dependent whose “admission…might reasonably be expected to cause excessive demands on health or social services” in Canada.

Both families tried to persuade immigration authorities that they had never previously used government assistance in their own countries and were each willing and financially able to look after their children without our government assistance. Nonetheless, both applications were refused on the grounds that these considerations were irrelevant.

On appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada sided with the families and rejected CIC’s “cookie cutter” approach which “impedes entry for all persons who are intellectually disabled, regardless of family support or assistance.”

One would think that all prospective immigrants would thereafter be entitled to make the case to CIC that they have the means and intent to prevent their disabled child from becoming a burden on the state.

Well, not so.

On September 7th, CIC released Operational Bulletin 037 outlining new procedures that it was adopting in order to comply with the courts 2-year old ruling.

In its usual “never-give-an-inch” fashion, the department outlined a more individualized procedure but limited it “only to applications made under the business class”. In other words, all applicants who are in similar circumstances and who are applying in other immigration classes are out of luck regardless of their net worth or intent.

How can the department justify this position?

Probably from a single sentence contained in Madame Justice Abella’s ruling where she observed that “It seems to me somewhat incongruous to interpret the legislation in such a way that the very assets that qualify investors and self-employed individuals for admission to Canada can simultaneously be ignored in determining the admissibility of their disabled children.”

This language appears to have been used to explain the absence of logic in the governments’ position and not to limit the application of the Court’s decision to business class cases. However, it appears that CIC is interpreting it that way in order to limit the extent of its loss in court.

The moral of the story?

If you have a child in such circumstances and want fairness, apply under the business class if you can because the department is still wielding its “cookie cutter” on children with disabilities in all other classes.

Interesting reading! It just shows how unfair the system is.

Fiona