Depends on the province. By your own admission you know very little about the system so not sure why you keep making these statements as though you do.
Yep. As to both statements.
For one thing, since there are
NO Canadian "
Medicare regulations" it is an outright lie to claim knowing even the "
basics" "
about Medicare regulations in Canada."
Some may quibble I quibble over semantics, putting nomenclature ahead of substance, especially since even distinctly Canadian sources of information, ranging from CBC to online Canadian government information (
see here for example), refer to "
Medicare" in connection to health care in Canada. But those references, in distinctly Canadian sources, in one way or another almost universally identify and distinguish "
Medicare," as used in reference to Canada, as an informal term referring to Canada's publicly funded health care system generally. This is largely, perhaps essentially, an accommodation to the (unfortunate) dominance of the American lexicon.
The distinction is amply illustrated by comparing the use of this term "
Medicare" in distinctly Canadian sources versus its use in non-Canadian sources, with some exceptions such as the Canadian immigration consultants' webpage linked in posts above (which is inaccurate and misleading in several respects), if one considers such sources to be distinctly Canadian (or reliable sources, which I will address further).
Is this a distinction without a difference? In most contexts probably. In most contexts it is readily recognized and understood the term "
Medicare" (or, as it appears rather often in specifically Canadian sources, lowercase "
medicare," effectively highlighting it is referring to medical or health care generally, not a formal entity or system in Canada) is
NOT being used as a reference to any ministry, department, or other governmental body in the Canadian national government,
NOR to a body of statutory law or regulations. (Again, there are
NO Canadian "
Medicare regulations," and, by the way, no mention at all of "medicare" in
the Canada Health Act) In particular, in most distinctly Canadian sources that are reliable sources, the underlying distinction is amply clear and understood, including in particular that references to "
Medicare" in the Canadian context is actually a general reference to health care in Canada, which is mandated by federal law and partially funded by the federal government, but almost entirely administered by the individual provinces and territories, with some fairly significant differences among various provinces.
Side Note: It not merely ironic that even in the country that does have a "Medicare" system, the term is widely misused and misunderstood in reference to health care there. While there is a trend toward merging the U.S. systems of Medicare and Medicaid (or migrating them toward a more universal insurance program), that appears to still be a long ways off, they are different, including some big differences that are important, including in regards to providing emergency care in the states.
Does It Matter?
Discussions about access to health care, and health care insurance coverage in Canada, are more suited for other parts of the forum, like in "
Settlement Issues." In this specific thread it is a peripheral tangent and unless the OP's child has particular health care issues it is not a primary factor affecting the OP's decision making. Worth taking note, yes, for sure, but not a driving consideration in navigating the way forward because it does not factor into the matrix of antecedents determining how things go in relation to potential screening for and enforcement of compliance with the PR Residency Obligation, and the impact on keeping status, or not.
That is, health care is an important issue, for new immigrants as well as for returning Canadians (including PRs, but also including citizens), but not for purposes of dealing with RO compliance screening and enforcement. In contrast, however, immigration status can be an important issue affecting eligibility for and access to health care insurance coverage in Canada.
Leading to that consultant webpage titled "
Can Non-Citizens Get Healthcare in Canada?" Lots of good accurate information there. Unfortunately, too much inaccurate and misleading information there as well. Thus, it is NOT a reliable source, despite the accuracy of some of it (much of it even), because it is not a source that can be trusted to be accurate. And its inaccuracies are not merely picky details, but rather some indicate there is more than a little they just do not get. Consider one of its more prominent inaccurate statements:
Remember the golden rule: Your spouse and dependent children also qualify for free healthcare in Canada if you do.
No idea where that comes from. At best it is grossly misleading but, make no mistake, otherwise simply NOT true for many. My guess is that it is more about there being a path (usually, but even this is not always true) to status in Canada, for spouses and dependent children, to status that will meet a province's specific status eligibility requirement for covered healthcare. But as a stand alone proposition, it is way off.
Oddly enough, in the details on that webpage it actually spells out eligibility requirements which would preclude some dependents from coverage. Internal inconsistencies signal a source is unreliable.
But it is readily apparent these consultants fail to understand some key aspects of how things work in Canada. They get the overriding, fundamental feature of health care in Canada, and state it clearly:
"Firstly, it’s important to note that Canada’s universal healthcare system differs from province to province. Each province has its own healthcare plan that varies in healthcare coverage as well as who it covers."
Beyond that, and skipping over any quibble about the inherent contradiction in referring to "
Canada’s universal healthcare system" at the same time it emphasizes it is not universal, but rather differs from province to province (but within the respective provinces, care must be "
universal," getting into nuances in the
weeds), beyond that the way this webpage addresses access to healthcare in Canada suggests they just do not get it.
Framing the headline and introductory question in reference to "
non-citizens" might make some sense, given the target audience, to draw the target audience in, but the failure to then promptly clarify that access to healthcare in Canada is NOT at all oriented to citizenship is a major, misleading mistake in its description. And one that obscures the core eligibility requirement for coverage in government funded healthcare in Canada:
RESIDENCY.
It is not complicated. So it is a bit disconcerting when purported professionals are so far off (there is a reason I and others often emphatically suggest getting professional assistance from lawyers rather than consultants). The mandate, in Federal law, in the Canada Health Act, is specifically to provide a certain level of healthcare to
RESIDENTS.
And to make it clear,
the Canada Health Act specifically defines "resident:"
resident means, in relation to a province, a person lawfully entitled to be or to remain in Canada who makes his home and is ordinarily present in the province, but does not include a tourist, a transient or a visitor to the province; (habitant)
It is NOT about citizenship, not at all. It does depend on immigration status, on being "
lawfully entitled to be or to remain in Canada," excluding visitors.
There are numerous ways in which an individual can be "
lawfully entitled to be or to remain in Canada," which in addition to Canadians (citizens and PRs) includes a wide range of temporary immigration status (but for purposes of entitlement to covered healthcare, not visitor status, with exceptions and some provinces being more open), and requisite proof of such status is generally required by the respective provinces. In contrast, however, no matter what the individual's immigration status is, they are NOT eligible for coverage in a given province UNLESS they are a resident of the province. In applying this the province may have a two-prong eligibility requirement: proof of residency AND in regards to a physical presence requirement. The latter is most likely based on an interpretation and application of the "
ordinarily present in the province" element in the statutory definition of "
resident."