Asagwara criticized for inaction on once-championed foreign health coverage

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This article was published 26/11/2024 (675 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While in opposition, then-NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara supported a Manitoba brain researcher’s fight to have his Italian wife’s health insurance covered.

What a difference three years and an election can make.

Robert Beattie, an assistant neurobiology professor at the University of Manitoba, said after a year in power the now health minister has done nothing to change the policy they once fought. Beattie says a response he recently received from the provincial government is the same one he received from the previous Progressive Conservative regime.

“The minister clearly understands there is a problem, asked their predecessors to fix it, and now won’t fix it when they are in a position to do so,” said Beattie on Monday. “They have decided to do nothing.

“This is bureaucracy at its finest. There is a simple solution and the minister has the authority to make exceptions in these circumstances.”

Beattie, who was born and raised in Winnipeg, left the province after graduating with an undergraduate degree in microbiology from the U of M. He spent the next 14 years living in England, where he received his PhD in biomedical sciences, before landing in Switzerland and Austria for his post-doctoral training.

When Beattie returned to Manitoba in July 2021, to take a position with the U of M’s department of biochemistry and medical genetics, he now had a wife and two children.

While his children were covered by Manitoba Health, his wife, who was from Italy, wasn’t and they had to buy private health insurance for her at about $200 per month.

Beattie saw it as a double standard — the province pays health insurance for spouses of foreigners working in Manitoba on a work visa but does not provide coverage for the spouses of Manitobans who marry a foreign partner and return here to work.

The scientist said when he reached out to the NDP for assistance at that time, both Asagwara and then-immigration critic Malaya Marcelino wrote a letter to then-Tory health minister Audrey Gordon saying people in his family’s situation “have secured employment, have families, become active members of their community by joining committees and groups, and have done their best to integrate themselves and contribute to their community for the betterment of all Manitobans.

“We ask that partners of Canadian citizens receive Manitoba health-care coverage without the lengthy delay as they build their lives here in Manitoba with their families, colleagues and friends.”

Beattie’s wife has since been granted permanent residency and is now covered by Manitoba Health, but said he is continuing to advocate on the issue because he knows several families who are in the same situation he was.

A letter earlier this month from the health minister’s office noted legal status in Canada is determined by the federal government and the Health Services Insurance Act, “does not automatically provide health coverage to spouses and dependents as a result of one family member holding a valid work permit.”

Beattie said while the province’s website says visitor record holders are not eligible for health coverage, it also notes an exception can be made if the visitor record holder is the spouse of a person who has a work permit valid for 12 months or more.

Christopher Adams, an adjunct political studies professor at the U of M, said it’s not the first time an opposition politician has said something that is not repeated when they are on the government side.

“There’s the theatre of opposition critic and then the reality of being a minister,” said Adams. “The questions of opposition are often for public consumption rather than legal consumption.”

Adams said if the health minister has the power to grant exceptions for health coverage, it would be no different than the minister granting approval for individual Manitobans to receive a drug that is not part of the Pharmacare program.

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook called the matter “yet another example of the NDP saying one thing while campaigning and doing something entirely different in government.”

In a statement, Asagwara said, “I am listening to the concerns of Manitobans when it comes to health care in this province.

“Legal status in Canada is determined by the federal government. Health coverage requires that each person meets eligible legal status regardless of their marital status.

“We continue to work alongside the federal government to increase access to care in this province.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca