velvetpage | (no subject)

(no subject)

Okay, scenario is as follows. An American woman marries a Canadian man and moves here illegally. She has a nine-year-old daughter, no ex appears to have any say in this child, and the child is also American. The school board (my employer) has denied the girl the right to attend school because, as an illegal alien, no one will be paying her fees. They want Mom to pay the fees ($9000 approximately) so she can go to school. Mom can't afford it, Stepdad can't even afford to sponsor his new wife properly or adopt the child let alone pay the fees, and the child has been homeschooled for two years as a result. She is not learning, probably because Mom doesn't know what she's doing and doesn't know how to find out. Oh, and the girl is special-needs, too, which means the education that's right for her would probably cost a lot more than the province would pay for to begin with.

[Poll #419060]

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To answer your last question first, I think the legal loophole the board is using is that every Canadian citizen must attend school.

I mostly agree with you on the other stuff, with one reservation. I know a few things about immigration myself, because my dad is a port-of-entry officer at Pearson Airport. The waiting list for legal immigration to Canada can take several months. Many of the people on it have similar ties to this country - my cousin's then-fiancée was denied entry for months on technicalities before my dad helped her sort through the red tape. My cousin had already moved back to Canada, and she had a written job offer here, but it still took ages.

This woman has jumped the queue. If my students tried to do something they knew was wrong and then get the benefits of it later, I'd insist they went back and did it right, the way everyone else had to. We have standards; they're long, but they're not unreasonable, and this woman would probably qualify without much trouble. Why should she get away with it? Are the rules there for everyone except her?

That said, the girl should have been in school. Getting her caught up will take a lot more resources than just having her up with her class from the get-go. And if the special needs cause problems with the catch-up, this could seriously screw up the rest of her life.

I think when people jump the queue like that, they should be able to stay put but be unable to work or collect any sort of benefits during that time. AND put them all the way on the back, from the time they were discovered, not from the time they SHOULD have been on the line. Maybe even fine them, make the fine prohibitively high (taken out of tax refunds? Something?) so that it encourages people to do it legitimately.

But the basics like education and at least emergency medical care? That should be the case.

No one is denied basic medical care in Canada. That one's not an issue. More than basic care, though - that's probably a big issue for this family. Every trip to the doctor's requires a health card that gets swiped. I doubt this family has seen a doctor the entire time they've been here unless it was an emergency.

I didn't even try to get care once when I was in England (eventually illegally). Didn't want to risk it. Didn't COMPLAIN, mind you, but didn't get any. I blame myself of course for not being legal, and only later on paying for insurance, privately.

Oh, and I agree with putting her back at the back of the line, etc. I'm guessing the bureaucracy of that would be seriously problematic to administer, though.

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