Aside from the immigration matters, you should note that your wife has likely committed healthcare fraud, which is a very serious crime. Provincial health coverage has residency requirements and from what you've said, your wife did not meet those requirements when she came to Canada to give birth and therefore did not qualify for coverage.
Your whole family needed to apply to restart their health care coverage when you returned to Canada and wait up to 3 months for your coverage to start again.
It is obviously morally wrong and a direct flout of the rules.
I'm a new PR of Canada (still living in the US and waiting to find a job in Canada) and I also strongly believe that majority of Canadians are very nice and honest (though I was shown a middle finger while walking on a side walk along with my 3 years old daughter in Vancouver, I take it as an exception) but the sentence is a sign of the rising emotions against immigrants which has taken over the US and I'm sure Canada won't be far behind.
Really not up tp the hospital to pick up on the issue. It should be picked up by the health ministry of that province. The 2016 visit was likely more to guarantee that the child had Canadian citizenship. I sense that they would have paid for the services had they been required to do so. I suspect that the 2 month trip in 2017 may be for the birth of another child. If the family does return the error may get picked up but seems like they don't audit their system very well. Alsp dpubt family will be returning anytime soom unless there is another birth. In BC the system seems to work a bit better because people cancel their premiums when they leave so have to restart them. I do think they should audit and at least freeze the cards so it doesn't happen a second time. People don't go to the doctor regularly so many people would get flagged so it is hard to implement a good system. Should be easy when it come to birth if there is almost no prenatal or postpartum care. Canada has been pretty insulated from birth tourism and immigrants not establishing themselves in Canada for the longterm. Things habe changed in the past 10-15 years. As the world has become more global many families are applying to immigrate for the child's future and only intend them to actually move to Canada to attend postsecondary education if at all. In some countries collecting citizenships for your child is just another way to show that your child is better than other children. As always, governements are slow to change rules so they are probably 10 years behind. If you look at the real estate market we are only now putting very loose minimal taxes on foreign ownership. Australia did it before us and was more strict with their rules.
I second your emotion and I would also be outraged if there are people doing fraud in my country. But then I guess there are people doing fraud everywhere and typically it's upto the government to put checks in place. I hope and wish that Canadian government will soon put those checks in place so that immigrants who really contribute to economy are welcomed.
