Dan Mazier
I’ve been a Member of Parliament for years. I’ve never been called a bigot for talking about healthcare. That changed this week.
Most Canadians have never heard of the Interim Federal Health Program.
It provides health coverage to asylum claimants while their case is being processed. That is reasonable and justified from a humanitarian perspective.
The vulnerable people fleeing persecution who Canada has supported need basic care as they are not eligible under provincially insured plans. Nobody, not one Conservative, proposed changing that.
But this program also provides supplemental health benefits to people whose claims have been rejected.
Rejected by the government's own Immigration and Refugee Board.
We are not talking about emergency care here.
We are talking about vision care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, counselling, home care, and assistive devices.
Benefits that millions of Canadians who pay into this system cannot access without paying out of pocket.
Meanwhile, the federal government covers these benefits to individuals the refugee board has ordered to leave after rejecting their claim.
How is that defensible?
The opposition day motion Conservatives introduced this week was straightforward: maintain emergency and life-saving care for every single person in Canada regardless of status, but end the supplemental benefits for people who have been rejected.
So, when the Liberals accused us of cutting healthcare for vulnerable people, they were not describing our motion. They were describing a motion we never made, and they knew it.
Can we even have an honest conversation about this? Apparently not.
Raise concerns about the costs and you’re accused of being racist.
Ask about eligibility and you're accused of punching down.
Cite the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer and you're accused of dividing Canadians.
In fact, it seems if you question any aspect of this program, you’re labelled a bigot before you finish your sentence.
While that debate is shut down, the waitlists continue to grow.
Six million Canadians do not have a family doctor. Over 100,000 Canadians have died waiting for care since 2018. The average wait for a specialist is about thirty weeks.
Does anyone seriously believe that increasing demand on a healthcare system already in crisis has no impact on capacity?
A rejected asylum claimant, who has no legal right to be in Canada according to the government, waits on the same waitlist as a Canadian and as a genuine refugee.
This Interim Federal Health Program has grown from around $66 million to $900 million a year in a decade. The Parliamentary Budget Officer projects it will cost over $1.5 billion per year by 2030.
That is nearly what the entire province of Saskatchewan now receives in federal health transfers. Yet the Liberals tell us we should not question it.
What other country provides better healthcare to the people it ordered to leave than to its own citizens? Name one.
You can’t.
Canada stands alone. Yet, when you ask why, you get called a bigot.
Here’s how absurd this has become.
A Canadian who cannot afford vision care, physiotherapy, or counselling would receive better health benefits if they left Canada, and then crossed back into Canada irregularly, filed an asylum claim, and had it rejected, compared to a taxpaying Canadian citizen.
If that sounds ridiculous, good. It is.
But it tells you everything about how far this program has strayed from its purpose.
This is not about compassion no matter how the Liberals try to spin it. The program exists to support genuine refugees who are fleeing persecution and can’t access provincial healthcare plans. That principle is not being disputed.
What Conservatives raised this week was why the government is providing premium health benefits its own citizens can’t access, to people its own refugee board has rejected, with no end date, during a healthcare crisis.
That is not a question about compassion. It is a question about responsibility.
A nurse in my riding working a double shift tonight is paying for her own glasses. She has been waiting fourteen months to see a specialist.
She is not a bigot for asking questions.
And neither am I.
We owe her an answer.
