The Prized Canadian 'Free' Healthcare

Fortunately for everyone, I have only needed to see a doctor once since my arrival in Canada. Same goes for 'The Kid.' When I did come down with a bladder infection that just wouldn't go away and started working into my kidneys, I finally broke down and decided I needed some antibiotics.

First, I spent about an hour researching the OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) on the web. I didn't have any medical coverage and everyone around the world has heard about Canada's free health care. I read, right there in black on white, that all I needed to be eligible for the program is:

You must have Ontario health insurance to use Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care funded health care services. You are eligible for the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) if you are included under one of the following categories :

• you are a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or landed immigrant, convention refugee, or are registered as an Indian under the Indian Act
• you have submitted an Application for Permanent Residence or an Application for Landing and have been confirmed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada as having satisfied the medical requirements for landing
• you are a foreign worker who holds a valid work permit or employment authorization which names a Canadian employer situated in Ontario and your prospective occupation and is valid for at least six months
• you are a foreign clergy member who will be providing services to a religious congregation in Ontario for at least six months
• you hold a Temporary Resident Permit or Minister's Permit with a case type 80 (for adoption only), 86, 87, 88 or 89
• you are the spouse, same sex partner, or dependent child (under 19 years of age) of a foreign clergy member or eligible foreign worker who is to be employed in Ontario for a period of at least three consecutive years
• you hold a work permit or employment authorization under the Live-In Caregivers in Canada Program or the Foreign Domestic Movement
• you have been issued a work permit or employment authorization under the Caribbean Commonwealth and Mexican Season Agricultural Workers Program administered by the federal department of Citizenship and Immigration
• and you make your permanent and principal home in Ontario
• and you are in Ontario for at least 153 days of the first 183 days immediately following the date you establish residency in Ontario (you cannot be absent for more than 30 days during the first 6 months of residency)
• and you are in Ontario for at least 153 days in any 12-month period

Read that second bullet again. I got excited. I called OHIP and asked what they needed from me. I was advised I needed a 'medical pass' letter from CIC. I turned around and immediately called CIC to get one. The friendly CIC agent tells me "I cannot issue that as your medical results have not been reviewed." For some reason, I am just not surprised. They have had my medical results since November 2005 and I guess I must be rushing them thinking that by May 2007, they might have reviewed them.

Ok, so no OHIP for me or The Kid. I go to a walk-in clinic, pay $150 cash, wait for about 3.5 hours and finally get in, get my prescription, and leave.

My previous encounter with the wonderful health care system was a few months prior when my husband injured his neck. He is a OHIP benefit recipient. We spent 4 hours at the emergency room basically moving from one waiting area to another waiting area without ever seeing a doctor. My husband informs me this is how the program works. You can go to a family doctor, but they don't have x-ray machines or even labs for the most part, so you end up going to the hospital anyway. Some people must think this is a great system, but I think it is horrendous. It is a case of you get what you pay for. Unfortunately, all of us pay for it in the form of GST. I pay for it every time I venture to Walmart and purchase laundry detergent.

To add insult to injury, OHIP by its own rules only requires that ' you have submitted an Application for Permanent Residence or an Application for Landing and have been confirmed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada as having satisfied the medical requirements for landing.' In reality, OHIP additionally requires that you have received AIP as well. I searched the OHIP site thoroughly and couldn't find that requirement of AIP, but if you call them, that is what they will tell you. AIP + medical pass letter from CIC gets you access.

Finding Nemo

By April 2007, I have become hostile about the immigration process. I am angry, blatantly and unabashedly full of rage. My immigration process has become a battle of principles now. Who, exactly, do these paper worshiping government employees think they are, that they can just put my life in limbo for however long they feel? My ECAS hasn't changed since November 2006.

I decide to pursue the other open item that still is out hanging: my overpayment refund. We paid my fees, in full, in October 2005. Still, not having received that refund of $485 that I have now named 'Nemo.' I feel I have a legitimate issue here and set out determined to find Nemo at all costs. My most productive call so far with the CIC agents of the Call Center, gets me a conversation that goes:

Me: "Yes, I am calling about getting a refund of my overpayment of the Right of Landing fee."

CIC Agent: "Yes, I see that you are overpaid by $485."

Me: "When can I expect that refund to be issued?"

CIC Agent: "You could get that refund in 3 days, 3 months or 3 years, I can't tell you."

Me: (stunned and silent)

CIC Agent: "You can send a letter to this address (rattles off some address in Alberta) and request the refund, but it probably won't help you get it any quicker."

Me: (still stunned) "You are kidding, right? Do you at least give interest since you have been holding that money for over a year now?"

CIC Agent: (chuckling) "No ma'am, we don't give interest. (laughs) Anything else I can help you with today?"

I know what you are thinking, dear reader. You think I am exaggerating about this conversation. I am not. With my hand firmly laid across a Bible, I swear this is the truth. I can't get my mind wrapped around this concept. I can't understand why the agent would find it amusing. CIC acknowledges the overpayment. They know its there. They willfully and deliberately will not return it. They have that money securely locked away and allocated on their budget. I do not think I will see that money ever again. They will find a way to keep it. They will change the fee schedule again just to keep it, or find some obscure government regulation that they will enforce just to keep it. I admit, perhaps some delusions of paranoia have set in regarding this refund, but I don't know what else to think.

I want to write a letter of complaint to someone (in all honesty, I want to scream at someone but I am trying to act like an educated adult). But I decide against it. All that the letter would accomplish is satisfying more paper worshiping Canadian government employees paper fetishes. Nemo is still missing and I have lost another battle with CIC. I fear I am losing the war, as well.

1 Year Anniversary (Feb 2007)

My 1 year anniversary of my arrival in Canada came and went without fanfare. My one year anniversary of being 'in process' for Canadian permanent residence followed suit. How appropriate that the traditional 1 year anniversary gift is paper.

I have no paper left to send to the paper worshiping Canadian government employee to mark the event. So, around February 2007, I devise a new game plan and determine that my only course of action is to call the Call Center continuously and check my ECAS daily. Perhaps, with just enough annoyance, I can persuade the paper worshiper to at least blow the dust off my file.

By now, I have gone from hopeful that this process will complete sometime during my life expectancy to believing that my current state of nonexistence will continue for an eternity. It has become my own little hell, not unlike Dante's. I check ECAS daily, and every day, the same words stare blankly, unforgivingly, back at me from my computer screen:

We received your application for permanent residence on February 15, 2006.

We started processing your application on June 16, 2006 .

We transferred your application to the local CIC office on November 7, 2006. The local CIC office may contact you. .

I contact the Call Center at least twice a week. I ask the same questions. I get the same answers. Some of the Call Center agents are pleasant and others are just rude. I assume that they log the calls into their system and I imagine the Call Center agent looking through this long list of my calls and thinking I must be insane. I don't care at this point. I just want the comfort to know that someone, somewhere, is reviewing my file and my state of marginal existence will end someday soon. The responses from the CIC agents at the Call Center are prerecorded as every agent says it exactly the same: "Your file was transferred on November 7, 2006. Your file is still in process."

I try different approaches, ask why the file was transferred? Is there something else I need to document or send in? Who can I talk to at the local office regarding my file? I learn that local offices don't take phone calls. I learn CIC has not requested additional information from me.

My husband is equally annoyed, but he still has faith in the Canadian government. He tells me to just be patient, they can't sit on the file forever. He hates seeing me upset. He says that he thinks we will be called in for a personal interview soon and then things will get moving. He says everything will be fine, don't worry. I analyze my latest actions and come to the conclusion that I am only upsetting myself. Even an act of God couldn't move my file any closer to the top of the pile. I stop hounding the paper worshipers for awhile, but I continue to check ECAS daily.

(Not So) Sweet November

Finally, November 2006 brings news from CIC. I have been sitting on pins and needles since February waiting on this gift from God, this Canadian immigration process, this elusive ideal.

I go down the hall to the area by the front door of the apartment where the Canada Post employee stops for a few minutes each day and brings to me tidings from the outside world. I receive mostly flyers from Shopper's Drug and Zeller's with their sale notices. I get bank statements and I get many items that have my address but are not for me; perhaps they were prior residents. I thoughtfully balance these articles on top of a little ledge above the row of stainless steel mailboxes so the postman can take them and try to find their rightful owners the following day.

On this special day in November 2006, I receive a white, business size envelope, from Citizenship & Immigration Canada. I am so excited! This must be it, I think to myself. I do not even wait to return to my apartment to read it. I rip open the envelope there in the building foyer and I read it. Below my name and address and a reference line for my file number, the letter says:

Your file has been transferred to: CIC Etobicoke Office
5343 Dundas Street West
Etobicoke ON M9B 6K5

The office may contact you.

That's it. I check the envelope again. It's empty. I am stunned. I read this letter, all one line of it 14 times. I don't know what to think.

I make it back to my apartment and immediately begin to call the CIC Call Center. I do not know what this letter means. I need someone to decipher this code for me. I seem to have misplaced my decoder ring somewhere. I get through to a live paper worshiping CIC agent the following day. He states that a 'determination could not be made' and thus, the file was transferred to the local office. The local office will pick up on the processing of the file. "How much longer do I have to wait?" I cry. The agent advises that this particular local office back log is currently 9 months. I have a thousand questions running around my brain but I just can't seem to utter a coherent sentence at that moment so I just hang up.

9 months rings through my head for days. That is July 2007. What am I supposed to do until then? Where does my life go during this process? I don't understand why this is happening. I pull out my copies of my application and I read through it over and over. I have no criminal record, the FBI verifies that. All the supporting information they asked for is there. I have birth certificates, divorce decrees, copies of bank statements, 8x10 color glossies with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one describing each picture; the list is endless. My brain does nothing but guess at what the problem is.

Job Search Canadian Style

Knowing that CIC must be nearing the end of their first stage approval process (AIP), at least according to their processing times as posted on their website, I decide now is the time to dip my feet into the job market pool and start shopping around. CIC's process is to first, go through your file, and if everything is satisfactory by their standards, they wave their magic wand and grant AIP, or Approval In Principle. This AIP allows you to get a work permit and a temporary SIN (Social Insurance Number).

I use tools like Monster.com and the local newspaper, which inevitably leads me to recruiters. In the past, my success with finding employment has been split evenly between using recruiters and direct applications to employers, so I decide to stick with proven success, at least in the U.S. Canada proves to work the same and after just two days, I have a three interviews lined up. I am excited about this. Perhaps this will work out anyway.

I attend my interviews and some are just 'HR' interviews. The HR manager decides if you are presentable enough to actually interview with the hiring managers, department heads, etc. Some of the interviews are with the recruiters themselves who decide if you are presentable to their clients. It's all good either way. The interviews keep coming. Some are at first round stage, others I am at my second or third round. I just keep booking interviews and hoping my immigration process keeps up with me. Some employers have gone so far as to verify my education by requesting transcripts from the university itself and get references from previous employers. But, no formal offers are ever made.

I had been honest with the recruiters and prospective employers about my current status in Canada. With the recruiters, I told them upfront that I had not received authorization to work yet, but I expect it any day now. I suppose it is obvious since beyond providing them a resume, they ask that you fill out an employment application and I don't have anything to write in the SIN block. At the end of it all, I got many "Give us a call when you have your work authorization" type responses from both the recruiters and the employers.

I quizzed one of the recruiters about getting a Temporary Work Permit. This involves the employer proving to the paper worshiping Canadian government employees that they have exhausted the Canadian labor pool and can find no one else on the planet, other than me, to fill the position. Once that is done, I would send in a form, with a $150 fee and would be granted a temporary work permit. Once the permit application is processed, the employer can hire me. The recruiter, very eloquently, said, the chances of me getting an employer to sponsor me this way had the odds of slim to none, in their experience.

Not knowing how much longer CIC will take with their processing, I elect to wait it out and I stop pursuing employment until I get that elusive SIN. With my heart a little heavier, I return to taking up space and waiting.

Status Check 2-32

Armed with the information posted on CIC's website and their current processing times, I leave the CIC Call Center alone for a few more months. Around comes October 2006 and having been sitting in Canada for over 1 year, I feel that about now, CIC should be doing more of their vodoo on my file.

I contact the Call Center on a weekly basis now. I ask benign questions like "What is the status?" and I always receive the same response: "We started processing your file in June 2006 and it is still in process." On one occasion, I venture a bit from the norm and inquire about an overpayment of fees.

I paid my fees in October 2005 (see: Going to the chapel and we gonna get married) according to the current fee schedule at the time. In May 2006, CIC announced that they cut their fee for permanent residence from $975 to $490 (see: CIC Reduction of Right of Permanent Residence Fee). I paid the $975 and hadn't received Permanent Resident status by their cut off date of May 3, 2006 making me eligible for the refund of $485. So I enter this conversation with my friendly paper worshiping Canadian government employee thinking it is a very simple thing, getting this refund. The nice CIC employee politely tells me that the refund is automatic and I will receive this refund when they have processed my file. Which begs the follow up question, "When will that be?" with the canned response: "Your file is in process and current processing times are 8 months." "But," I argue, "it has been 8 months." And still, I receive the same response: my file is still in process.

I leave all of these CIC Call Center phone conversations the same way: dejected and depressed. I learn nothing new with every phone call and my ECAS still shows the same information. My wiser-than-his-years husband advises me just to drop the issue; it will be over soon. He understands that I am not a happy person just playing housewife. I want to get a job, start looking at houses to buy, to basically get on with my life. But, wait more we do.

Status Check 1

Along comes July 2006 and I haven't heard anything from the fine folks at immigration yet. I decide it is time to call them and check on the status of my application. So, I call their Call Center number and it actually takes me 2 days to connect with a government employee. I am certain I have interrupted her Tuesday Paper Worshiping Ceremony, as she is somewhat abrupt with me.

She begins this phone call with 'lets play 20 questions and after you submit a DNA sample for our lab to verify your identity, will I, as a paper worshiping Canadian government employee, pretend to answer your concerns.' So the simple question of the day is "what is the status of my application?" The simple answer is "It is in process. Our current processing time is 8 months." I learn other details such as CIC does not send you any acknowledgment of receipt of your application or send you anything to let you know they have awarded your application a number, and they basically have no contact with the applicant on any level. I did, however, manage to pry a case number from the hands of this cold, paper worshiping, Canadian government employee, which will be invaluable in allowing me to access the CIC ECAS (Citizenship & Immigration Canada Electronic Client Application System).

My application has been in the 'system' for a mere 5 months. Who am I to think something has been done with the file at this point? I do log onto the ECAS system and I see this:

We received your application for permanent residence on February 15, 2006.

We started processing your application on June 16, 2006.

I am excited by this. The application is in process. Someone is looking at it and doing their government employee vodoo on the file. This is good news.