This post is supposed to help PR applicants who received inadmissible letter. I must fist thank ComputerGeek from this forum, he gave me the briefest yet the most powerful help when I needed. Also, I want to thank Morgan from a chat group.
Brief background: I came to Canada as an international student, finished school, found a job, applied for Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program and then Permanent Residence. My partner and I met in Canada and we applied as common law relationship.
Timeline: (Might be missing a thing or two but the main ones are here)
26-OCT-2015: Application for PR received
01-FEB-2016: Acknowledging receipt of your application(s) correspondence received
01-FEB-2016: Review Started
25-JUL-2016: Criminal record check request received
07-SEP-2016: Medical requested
16-FEB-2017: Fairness letter (Inadmissible email) received
12-APR-2017: Response to IRCC submitted
13-JUN-2017: Passport request
05-JUL-2017: Landed
So, I can only speak from my experience, in our case it was because of my partner's condition: Chronic Hepatitis B and was prescribed of Tenofovir. As the price for Tenofovir isn't directly available in Manitoba, it was calculated based on average price from neighbor provinces. VO decided the cost is somewhere between $6748.85 and $7106.55 annually. meanwhile the average per capita threshold of $6,655.00 annually, therefore she was deemed as inadmissible.
If you have received this letter, DO NOT PANIC. Oh well, you will panic, just like we did. However, in most cases, the fairness letter is flawed I'll explain why:
1) What IRCC quotes is normally correct, however it does not take your provincial medical program into account. Take us for a living example, Tenofovir is 100% covered by Manitoba Pharmacare program. However, there is deductible. Deductible for Pharmacare program is calculated based on your family income from two years ago. If you were an international student, or have been working for at least two years, this might be your key point. In general, you will have to work at least 6 months to apply for MPNP, which takes around 3-6 months. Then you will have to apply for PR, it will be another 16 months by the time they start to review your file and issue you the fairness letter. In other words, by the time you receive the fairness letter, you would have been working for over two years, even if you are by yourself and earning around minimum wage, your deductible will be around $1,100. This $1,100 deductible alone will bring the cost below the threshold. And our actual deductible is way more than this as we applied as family. (For the first time I was happy that my deductible is high)
To conclude, if you are on prescription, check out the local program and figure out weather or not your prescription is covered by any provincial/federal program. If yes, how much is covered, how much still need to come from your own pocket, and this is the key. Get them to issue you an official notice of your deductible and provide your T4 for last two years to prove it. If you had a raise at work, show it! This indicates your deductible will be higher and higher, thus your cost will be lower and lower.
I would keep finding any other fact that lowers my actual cost to indicate the actual cost as low as possible. Throw up anything that helps, but remember, make sure it's true and applicable.
2) If you have successfully brought the cost below the outlined threshold, congratulations! But the response does not stop here. You still need to proof that you can pay for your deduction. For us, my partner's coverage from work covers 100% of the deductible. We request a pre-approval letter from the coverage provider stating that they will 100% cover the deductible. My coverage can also cover a big portion of it. So, unless we both lose our jobs, we will have the ability to pay four our deductible, cause as I mentioned, it's not a small amount.
3) Talk to your family doctor or a specialist if you are on prescription. Ask if any cheaper drugs can be used, or even better if you can stop taking the drug. Look for alternative options to lower your cost.
4) Other things can also be argued. In our case, Tenofovir's patent expires in 2018 and after that the generic drugs will be available. The more competition, the lower the price will be. For this part, I'll throw a few useful links here:
- Patent check: Government of Canada: Patent register
You will need a DIN to locate the drug, which normally can be found on the label or on the prescription.
- Get examples for lowered price due to generic drugs: i.e.: V!(i)agra
- Also, a Federal study indicating patients will be benefited from competition:
Competition Bureau: Benefiting from Generic Drug Competition in Canada: The Way Forward
5) We also stretched that we have bought a house and established our roots in Canada. We have the motivation to work and keep working hard as we need to pay for the mortgage as so on.
6) I also read somewhere in the response, you should always ask for a Temporary Residence Permission. And IRCC normally ignores this request. If in the worst-case scenario, you were declined, this might be helpful when you appeal to court.
Above is how we approached IRCC for the fairness letter we received. An alternative option is to find an inadmissibility lawyer do write the response for you. Normally they are more experienced and more powerful in terms of the response. But the cost is high, the quote we got is $6,000. And after a few weeks study I felt confident to write it myself and we did it.
I wish you all the best and hope you can successfully beat the fairness letter and start your new life in Canada.
Brief background: I came to Canada as an international student, finished school, found a job, applied for Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program and then Permanent Residence. My partner and I met in Canada and we applied as common law relationship.
Timeline: (Might be missing a thing or two but the main ones are here)
26-OCT-2015: Application for PR received
01-FEB-2016: Acknowledging receipt of your application(s) correspondence received
01-FEB-2016: Review Started
25-JUL-2016: Criminal record check request received
07-SEP-2016: Medical requested
16-FEB-2017: Fairness letter (Inadmissible email) received
12-APR-2017: Response to IRCC submitted
13-JUN-2017: Passport request
05-JUL-2017: Landed
So, I can only speak from my experience, in our case it was because of my partner's condition: Chronic Hepatitis B and was prescribed of Tenofovir. As the price for Tenofovir isn't directly available in Manitoba, it was calculated based on average price from neighbor provinces. VO decided the cost is somewhere between $6748.85 and $7106.55 annually. meanwhile the average per capita threshold of $6,655.00 annually, therefore she was deemed as inadmissible.
If you have received this letter, DO NOT PANIC. Oh well, you will panic, just like we did. However, in most cases, the fairness letter is flawed I'll explain why:
1) What IRCC quotes is normally correct, however it does not take your provincial medical program into account. Take us for a living example, Tenofovir is 100% covered by Manitoba Pharmacare program. However, there is deductible. Deductible for Pharmacare program is calculated based on your family income from two years ago. If you were an international student, or have been working for at least two years, this might be your key point. In general, you will have to work at least 6 months to apply for MPNP, which takes around 3-6 months. Then you will have to apply for PR, it will be another 16 months by the time they start to review your file and issue you the fairness letter. In other words, by the time you receive the fairness letter, you would have been working for over two years, even if you are by yourself and earning around minimum wage, your deductible will be around $1,100. This $1,100 deductible alone will bring the cost below the threshold. And our actual deductible is way more than this as we applied as family. (For the first time I was happy that my deductible is high)
To conclude, if you are on prescription, check out the local program and figure out weather or not your prescription is covered by any provincial/federal program. If yes, how much is covered, how much still need to come from your own pocket, and this is the key. Get them to issue you an official notice of your deductible and provide your T4 for last two years to prove it. If you had a raise at work, show it! This indicates your deductible will be higher and higher, thus your cost will be lower and lower.
I would keep finding any other fact that lowers my actual cost to indicate the actual cost as low as possible. Throw up anything that helps, but remember, make sure it's true and applicable.
2) If you have successfully brought the cost below the outlined threshold, congratulations! But the response does not stop here. You still need to proof that you can pay for your deduction. For us, my partner's coverage from work covers 100% of the deductible. We request a pre-approval letter from the coverage provider stating that they will 100% cover the deductible. My coverage can also cover a big portion of it. So, unless we both lose our jobs, we will have the ability to pay four our deductible, cause as I mentioned, it's not a small amount.
3) Talk to your family doctor or a specialist if you are on prescription. Ask if any cheaper drugs can be used, or even better if you can stop taking the drug. Look for alternative options to lower your cost.
4) Other things can also be argued. In our case, Tenofovir's patent expires in 2018 and after that the generic drugs will be available. The more competition, the lower the price will be. For this part, I'll throw a few useful links here:
- Patent check: Government of Canada: Patent register
You will need a DIN to locate the drug, which normally can be found on the label or on the prescription.
- Get examples for lowered price due to generic drugs: i.e.: V!(i)agra
- Also, a Federal study indicating patients will be benefited from competition:
Competition Bureau: Benefiting from Generic Drug Competition in Canada: The Way Forward
5) We also stretched that we have bought a house and established our roots in Canada. We have the motivation to work and keep working hard as we need to pay for the mortgage as so on.
6) I also read somewhere in the response, you should always ask for a Temporary Residence Permission. And IRCC normally ignores this request. If in the worst-case scenario, you were declined, this might be helpful when you appeal to court.
Above is how we approached IRCC for the fairness letter we received. An alternative option is to find an inadmissibility lawyer do write the response for you. Normally they are more experienced and more powerful in terms of the response. But the cost is high, the quote we got is $6,000. And after a few weeks study I felt confident to write it myself and we did it.
I wish you all the best and hope you can successfully beat the fairness letter and start your new life in Canada.
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