A report released today by the "Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives" (CCPA), an independent research institute, sheds light on the demands of international students in the province of Manitoba in west-central Canada. These students especially wish to regain public health care from which they have been deprived for five years.

The report states that the cancellation of health insurance for international students has exacerbated their financial and psychological pressures and pushed them to take risks they would not normally take.

Manitoba currently has more than 20,000 international students.

Judith Oviyoson Smith, co-chair of the "Manitoba Alliance for Health Care for All," who participated in the preparation of the report, says that one international student chose to remain sick rather than go to the doctor to avoid high fees.

"I contracted COVID-19 and wished to die rather than bear the high hospital bills. Fortunately, it did not come to that," says one of the students included in the survey within the "Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives" report.

According to the report, some students received threats of expulsion from Canada if they did not pay their medical bills.

"They live in constant fear of seeing their lives turned upside down in an instant," Oviyoson Smith said today at a press conference at the University of Winnipeg, alongside assistant professor of social work at the University of Manitoba, Lindsey Larius, who co-prepared the report.

It is noted that the previous Progressive Conservative government in Manitoba canceled public health care for international students in 2018 to save approximately 3.1 million dollars.

The report's authors hope to see international students benefiting again from public health coverage by the next academic year, in September 2024.

It is noted that during the general election campaign in Manitoba last fall, the local New Democratic Party (Manitoba's NDP) pledged to restore this health coverage for international students if it won the election.

This left-leaning party won a majority government in the election held on October 3.

The Minister of Health in the Manitoba government, Ozuma Asagwara, said in an email message that her government is committed to restoring public health care for international students but did not provide a specific timeline for this.