Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, July 09, 2012

The Conservatives repeat themselves

The Harper government is nothing if not predictable in how it goes about dismantling a program or service. It starts by denigrating the program and the program’s beneficiaries, and telling Canadians that they’ve been played for fools by the beneficiaries. Once that message has been drilled home, and the government judges that the moment is right and Canadians’ attitudes changed, it proceeds to get rid of the offending program – no matter how impractical, immoral or ultimately costly the exercise might prove to be.

Examples include the gun registry (accompanied by criticism of the police departments that claimed it was useful) and alternative sentencing programs (with much sneering at justice departments, notably Quebec’s, that believed having sentencing options was good for society).

The latest case is the government’s decision to severely curtail or simply eliminate health benefits for refugees, with some slight backtracking last Friday.

Until June 30, the Interim Federal Health program, which is similar to provincial health-insurance programs, provided basic health coverage to refugee claimants no matter where they came from or under what circumstances. The coverage was available until a claimant became a permanent resident, at which point the province began picking up the tab, or until the claimant abandoned or withdrew his or her claim.

The government proceeded as it always does. First, denigrate the program: Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has tirelessly painted the IFH program as little more than a draw for bogus refugee claimants. Free eyeglasses and a round of antibiotics are, apparently, more than enough reason for people to try to sneak into Canada on their flight from war, famine or violence. Kenney labels failed claimants “illegal immigrants.”

Second, tell Canadians they are being played for fools: Kenney has done his best to set Canadian citizens against refugees, saying refugees have until now been given better health care than residents, whereas in fact refugees have been given the same level of care as the lowest-income Canadians.

Third, when Canadians protest, as virtually the entire medical community in the country has, just tough it out: Call them “militants,” “activists” and “extremists.”

Dr. Philip Berger, chief of family and community medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and a founding member of a group called Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, says that those are words Kenney has used to describe national medical groups including the Canadian Medical Association, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union, the Canadian College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the Canadian Psychiatric Association and the Canadian Paediatric Society.

From Kenney’s zeal to reform Canada’s refugee program no one would guess that refugee-acceptance rates are at their lowest in the history of the Immigration and Refugee Board, at 38 per cent in 2010 and 2011, according to the University of Ottawa’s Human Rights Research and Education Centre. In recent years, the centre has found, the acceptance rate has been stable at between 40 and 45 per cent of the roughly 25,000 claims made every year. At that rate, a total of 11,250 people are accepted every year, including 2011.

That figure is dwarfed by the 4.3 million people around the world who were newly displaced in 2011. Last year “saw suffering on an epic scale. For so many lives to have been thrown into turmoil over so short a space of time means enormous personal cost for all who were affected,” Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said last month.

Ottawa seems less concerned with the fate of refugees than with how to categorize them. The government has two types: deserving and undeserving.

Deserving refugees, if health-care provision is a guide, are those who are government-sponsored, brought to Canada as permanent refugees through the Resettlement Assistance Program (as well as some victims of people-smuggling). According to Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, these refugees will have cost-free access to physician visits, diagnostics and laboratory testing through their provincial health coverage, along with prescription drugs, vision care and dental coverage.

Undeserving refugees appear to include those sponsored by church groups or other humanitarian organizations; those who have come from countries designated by the minister as places where refugees should not be coming from; those who have sought asylum in Canada after fleeing their homeland; and those whose claims have been denied. Refugees from countries deemed “safe” by the minister will have no coverage even in the case of emergencies. (“Safe” is a fast-moving target. Amnesty International reported this week that migrants in Greece are being beaten up.)

Refugee claimants from countries Canada recognizes as not safe will be covered for urgent or essential care, including physician visits and laboratory and diagnostic testing, the Doctors for Refugee Care group says. There is no coverage for preventive care. Otherwise, refugees will not be eligible for health care unless their condition involves a risk, narrowly defined, to public health. A contagious illness such as pneumonia is not considered a threat.

Quebec has promised, temporarily, to fill the gap by paying for medical care for all refugees. Doctors have promised to keep track of cases of compromised care. The group Doctors for Refugee Care will collect data as refugee patients run out of medication and become ineligible for care.

“As soon as we get data on harm done to refugees, we will be reporting it,” said Berger.

Original Article
Source: montreal gazette
Author: Janet Bagnall

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