It's hard to believe that they would pay for visitors birth. Can you provide any website?
Sadly I cannot find any wensite with this information, but I lived in both countries and I know a friend who is a Brasilian living in Portugal and he knows illegal Brasilian who gave birth there and they did not have to pay for it.
In Spain when I was there, turists where treated in the health care system and the health care turism was high, because they did not have to pay anything.
Also a friend who was a spanish permanent resident married an Ucranian woman and she did not have to pay for anything when giving birth less then a year later. She got the residency one month after marrying him and after marriage dhe got automatically insured by her husbands insurance.
I guess in Spain marriage just is more worth than in Canada, as being married is taken as a very serious thing. For example my husband would get the Spanish citizenship only after one year after we would live there because we are married.
Then also another thing, I never heard anyone ever say, they had to pay for giving birth or for health care in Spain or Portugal. And even if they would have, it is cheap. It costs around 2000€ - 3000€. But never heard it from nobody, nor from the news, nor from family or friends. Of course they will not make publicity out of this. Besides in Spain people do not see marriage as two people who are two separate entities. They are a family and as such, no foreigner who marries a Spanish citizen or Spanish resident would have to pay for giving birth. This is the same in Portugal. It is a totally different mentality then in Canada. And well, they have other issues instead. But my husband just assumed because we were married and for us this is culturally and religiously a very serious thing and a forever bonding relationship and we do not see each other as two different entities but as one flesh, he thought that I would be covered by his insurance, like the Ucranian wife of my friend was covered by his insurance. For him this was just the logical thing.
But we then later found out, I need not only to be a resident but one year married to him after being a resident in order to be covered by his private health insurance.
And this was something that he never thought. But we have learned that we cannot assume things just because they make sense to us or because culturally they are normal for us. Every country has it's laws and every insurance company has it's regulations and now we will know for the next time better.
And maybe I am wrong and people do pay in Spain and in Portugal to give birth if they aren't residents. I or anyone else I know just never have heard about that happening to anyone and it never ever appeared on the news or on the internet and I have never heard about that. While I did hear from the USA many times people have huge financial issues if they do not have insurance. That in Europe people have heard many times. About Canada not so much. I have even seen online the price is according to this website a bit more than 3000$,
https://www.coynecollege.edu/news-events/cost-childbirth-across-globe
but here in the Montréal area we got a price list of the hospitals by Medecins du Monde and the cheapest one is around 7000$. With midwifes it's around 8000$ and we would have to pay a hospital deposit of 10.000$ because the birthing homes are affiliated to certain hospitals only. So it is not worth it without insurance to go for a midwife. But I have read online that in Ontario this is different.
So I guess it depends also a lot of the province someone is living.
In British Columbia there was a case of a Scottish woman and a Canadian and she gave birth in a hotel near the hospital with a midwife for example to having to pay less. They like us also did not expect that to happen, so I guess it is because marriage and family is culturally viewed differently and this of course also reflects the laws of the country. But here in Québec I have heard that the provincial government gives a high allowance for having children and has a long paternity and maternity leave. So this is something that is better than in Spain and Portugal and many if not most European countries.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1197532
Thank you and have a nice day.