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Just a quick note that the application for judicial review was in fact filed with the Federal Court today.

At this point the government has 30 days to respond (so March 29, 2012). We will then have one final opportunity to file within 10 days.

The clock is ticking.

Note that I do not yet have a copy of what was actually filed with the Court, but I have already asked my attorney to forward one to me (that should be easy, given that they submit electronically these days.)

I’ve previously mentioned the seminal Companioni case. From that case, I was able to locate my current attorney. I’ve also been doing quite a bit of work lately in New York City (recall that my client is physically located in the same building as the consulate that considered and rejected my application.) Since Companioni lived in NEw York, I spent some time trying to track them down.

While I think I have, the process was far more challenging than I had initially expected – after all, these days it’s generally quite easy to track someone down. Even when I found a matching profile on a professional website, I was surprised to find out that the person I identified did not allow direct contact (and this is a business networking website!) That surprised me. The same thing for social websites (e.g., Facebook). As I dug deeper it began to sink in that there might be a high price for success: the rights of privacy disappear once the legal system is involved. The details of who I am, what I do for a living, where I live, and my medical condition are all spelled out in a legal decision. If it is unsuccessful, almost no one will take notice – and from my review of judicial review decisions most are unsuccessful. Then again, most are refugee cases.

Companioni was succesful. When I pushed my attorney a bit more on Monday about “where they were in the process” he demurred and said that I was pushing into an area of attorney/client privilege. I’ve since offered up permission for my attorney to pass along contact information, but I’ve not heard anything. A shame, but I suspect they may prefer their privacy.

I’m not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but in this case it occurred to me that the reason for these things might very likely be that after the decision was made some people took it upon themselves to make the lives of Companioni and his partner difficult. I cannot be surprised at such actions, given the extremist views of some people (e.g., Westboro Baptist Church and their actions.)

So now I’m wondering: will the cost of success (however unlikely) be so high that I ultimately decide it was not worth it? If so, it really challenges me as to the basic nature of justice and the manner in which we execute it these days. But then again, perhaps that is the goal: to provide us with an outlet that is so expensive regardless of success or failure that we will remain complacent and simply accept the fact that we are excluded.

That leaves me with a rhetorical question to ponder: Does Canada merely present the illusion of equality and tolerance while actively discouraging it?

Over the past couple of days I’ve sent e-mail to my attorney offering to assist as well as offering my own thoughts. I suspect that my “insight” probably isn’t appreciated all that much. I’ll try to keep from becoming annoying (and anyone who has read this far probably has picked up on the fact that I can be a bit intense.)

At any rate, I’m going to lay low for a bit (at least with respect to pestering my attorney) and let him do his thing. I’d expect I’ll see something (in draft form) from him around the 20th of the month since the filing deadline is the end of the month.

So this morning I received an e-mail from my attorney including the reasons for the rejection. What it boils down to is “the applicant wants to move to British Columbia, and given British Columbia’s policy of paying the full cost of medication, the applicant is medically inadmissible due to excessive demand.”

This is as I had concluded. My attorney is telling me:

My initial reaction is that this decision makes the same error that was addressed by the Supreme Court in Hilewitz, confusing mere eligibility for a program with probability of demand. In your case we submitted undisputed evidence regarding lack of demand; the application was refused based upon your eligibility for the program.

While I have not really discussed it up to this point, I have done quite a bit to educate myself on the current treatment paradigms. The clinical practice varies dramatically from what I have found in the research data – and the research information is all over the board. I suspect this is because there is actually too much money available to fund research – this encourages far too many people to submit far too many ideas. In addition, it relies upon a system that becomes de-facto self-perpetuating (e.g., in order to obtain and maintain funding you have to gain the blessing of those in power, and those in power only approve research that is in agreement with the current paradigm.) In some ways, we may have been better off in the days when funding sources for research were numerous and varied – simply because it eliminates some of this conformance-based policy practice.

At any rate, the current treatment paradigm here in British Columbia is to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs to everyone who is either at risk or diagnosed. Those pharmaceuticals are quite expensive, at least in Canada, because they are subject to patent protection (although some of those patents are starting to run out.) Thus, the essence of the current CIC policy, combined with the policy of British Columbia, is that anyone who is not medically exempt is ineligible for immigration. The irony of this is that the amount of money they are considering (roughly $58,000 over 10 years) is less than the amount I’ve already paid (in two years) in just income taxes here in British Columbia. But this isn’t a cost/benefit decision, this is a pure cost decision.

Bottom line: I’ve now spent quite a bit of money pursuing my own protocol – running tests for things that actually matter (according to the scientific literature that I’ve read, although I have to keep in mind that it is wise to be skeptical of such literature,) taking treatments that might work (a bit more speculative) and finding other affected people who have experience in avoiding the mainstream paradigm (which is “oh, we’d best put you on chemotherapy because otherwise you might get sick!”) Protocols such as I’ve been following aren’t even an option in the mainstream public funded health care system, despite the availability of peer reviewed scientific data in support of them.

At any rate, this response means the timer is now ticking – there are 30 days to file the “Application”.