May 1, 2026 – Ottawa — The Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW) is deeply disturbed that the Government of Canada has moved forward with shortsighted changes to the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP), placing lives at risk and forcing health professionals into direct conflict with their ethical obligations, particularly around continuity of care.
Effective May 1, 2026, the cumulative impact of the IFHP changes is ethically indefensible and will dismantle essential health protections for refugees and protected person populations, including:
- Narrowing of eligibility: Entire categories of individuals will lose access to care despite ongoing risk and active immigration processes.
- Removal or reduction of supplemental coverage: Including prescription medications, interpretation services, counselling, and other essential health supports.
- 30% co‑payment requirement: A functional barrier to care for individuals living in poverty or without the legal right to work.
- Hard cap of 10 mental health sessions: Applied regardless of clinical need, acuity, or stage of treatment.
- Elimination of funded interpretation services: Rendering ethical, informed, and confidential care impossible for many clients.
These changes will disproportionately harm those already most marginalized, including women, racialized claimants, and survivors of gender‑based violence.
By proceeding with these changes, the Government of Canada is abandoning its moral and ethical obligations to support refugees, asylum claimants, and protected persons. In the immediate term, these policy decisions place vulnerable people at serious risk while forcing health and social service professionals into untenable ethical dilemmas that undermine continuity of care.
In the mid‑term, the introduction of co‑payments and coverage restrictions will delay access to preventive and early‑intervention care, ultimately increasing long‑term health system costs when manageable conditions escalate into emergencies. These changes also shift significant financial, clinical, and administrative burdens onto provincial systems, frontline practitioners, and an already over‑stretched non‑profit sector.
CASW unequivocally demands the immediate repeal of the IFHP changes on humanitarian, ethical, and public health grounds.
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