Health scare

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by Craig Segal

The Centre for Research Action on Race Relations is suing the Quebec Health Insurance Board for denying health care to the Canadian-born son of a non-Canadian woman living in Montreal, and is seeking the public's help to find other children facing similar circumstances.

Melca Salvador is a Filipino woman who has been working in Canada as a live-in nanny since 1995. She gave birth to her son, Richard Ebiya, in 1996. Ebiya lost his health care when Salvador's work permit expired on July 1, 2000.

CRARR's legal counsel, May Chiu, says Quebec medicare's decision to deny health care to Salvador's son contradicts a 1998 decision by the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec: that children born in Canada, who are thus Canadian citizens by birth, have the right to Quebec health care if they live in Quebec.

Immigration Canada's press guy refused to comment on Ebiya's case, but an Immigration Canada agent told the Mirror that everyone born in Canada gets health care. "If they're born on Canadian soil they are automatically Canadian citizens except children of diplomats," said the agent who refused to be named. Asked if all kids born in Canada get medicare, she said, "Absolutely. It should be given to them. That's the law."

Chiu hopes the case will help all children born and living in Quebec who have been denied government health insurance. She is asking any people facing this problem to call her at 939-3342. A court date at the Quebec Human Rights Commission has yet to be determined.