Open work permit holders to get OHIP

A year after hundreds of immigrant workers who came to Ontario on open work permits were not granted health insurance cards due to an immigration fault, the OHIP rules have been changed by the province in order to get rid of the problem.

A year after hundreds of immigrant workers who came to Ontario on open work permits were not granted health insurance cards due to an immigration fault, the OHIP rules have been changed by the province in order to get rid of the problem.

Last April, in an effort to retain talented people with Canadian credentials, Immigration Canada relaxed rules as a result of which foreign workers who graduate from a Canadian college or university were allowed to work in Canada for a period of up to three years. The rules are also applicable to some of the overseas workers working in Canada.

However, these open work permit holders were not granted OHIP due to the reason that neither their work visas had the name of a Canadian employer, nor did it indicated their prospective occupation as it is required as per the old immigration law. Without the name of the employer, health cards cannot be issued by health officials.

But from now onwards, the changes mean that all temporary foreign workers or foreign graduates who are in Canada on open work permits will get OHIP as long as they have been doing full time work in Ontario for at least a period of six months and have been living there for a minimum of 153 days. If the conditions are satisfied, workers along with their spouses and dependents will get OHIP.

According to immigration, 66,875 temporary foreign workers were admitted into Ontario last year. However, it is not known that how many of them were on open permit.