editorial: carney caves on cuts to costly health plan
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canadian prime minister mark carney.
dave chan
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just when you thought prime minister mark carney had seen the light and was backpedalling on the flawed policies of his predecessor, justin trudeau, he caved to political expediency.
earlier this year, the federal government announced cutbacks to the lavish health-care plan that supports asylum seekers and refugee claimants. that was welcome news. newcomers to this country should not qualify for more generous health-care benefits than people who have lived and worked here all their lives. yet that happens in some cases. in may, the government introduced a 30% co-payment scheme for supplemental health benefits, such as dental care, optometry and therapy for refugee claimants and asylum seekers under its interim federal health program (ifhp).
cue the sob stories: a cbc news story quoted a person who had received 100 hours of mental health counselling over 16 months after arriving from the bahamas. such counselling was capped at a 10-hour annual limit.
“being able to go to a mental health specialist, a therapist and just sit for an hour and express myself and vocalize my trauma and receive help, expanded for over a year — it was something i never had before,” one asylum seeker from the bahamas is quoted as saying.
a caribbean enclave of high-end yachts and luxury resorts, the bahamas is also a parliamentary democracy that rates 90 out of 100 points in freedom house’s ranking of overall freedoms. apparently, though, asylum seekers require hundreds of hours of open-ended therapy to overcome that trauma.
prime minister stephen harper cut back the program, but trudeau increased it. costs have since more than quadrupled — from $210.6 million in 2020-2021 to $896 million in 2024-2025. the co-payment charges have now been dropped.
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health insurance is just that — insurance. you pay into it so that, if you need it, the services are there for you. if you’re a newcomer to this country, you haven’t built a credit in the program.
refugee claimants and asylum seekers get a better deal on health care than people who have lived and worked here all their lives. the canadian dental care plan is income-tested. foolish people who work hard to have a decent living and seniors who saved for retirement don’t qualify. but if you come here as a refugee or asylum seeker, open wide. carney caved. your filling is on the taxpayer.
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