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Court boost for disabled applicants |
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The Supreme Court has ordered that two families with disabled children
be allowed to immigrate to Canada in a ruling that could have a huge
impact on other applicants with medical problems and disabilities.
Canada's top court dismissed Immigration Department pleas that allowing
the families in would place excessive demands on the country's social
support systems.
National newspaper the Globe and Mail reported that in one case,
the Hilewitz family wanted to immigrate from South Africa with a son in
his 20s who is mildly retarded. The family promised to pay privately
for special services, the newspaper said, but Immigration Department
officials refused the application, saying the rules prevented them from
considering the factor of private wealth.
The other case involved the de Jong family, who wanted to come from the
Netherlands to buy a dairy farm in Southern Ontario, the report said.
Their daughter is mildly retarded.
The family said they would send her to a private Christian school that
had agreed to provide special education at no cost to the public, the
newspaper reported.
Both families were denied entry under the "excessive demands"
provisions of the Immigration Act, which say people will not be allowed
into the country if they would be a drain on the social-welfare system.
A ruling written by Madam Justice Rosalie Abella and endorsed by seven
of the nine Supreme Court judges said it seemed "somewhat incongruous"
that the wealth that allowed these families to qualify for entry into
Canada was then ignored in determining whether their children would be
a drain on social systems.
The court sent the two applications back to the Minister of Citizenship
and Immigration for consideration by different visa officers.
Cecil Rotenberg, the immigration lawyer who took the case to the top
court for the two families, described the decision as a "complete and
total victory" for those who were trying to get the Immigration
Department to change the way it judges applicants.
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Newsfile 