Bangladesh man with palliative cancer struggling to raise 2-year-old son, access Canadian medical care

It was simply years after face of the earth laid-off from St. Clare's Mercy infirmary in St. John's when Asif Mahumud Prince found out he was going to be a father.

It was August 2022. The Memorial University student, originally from Bangladesh, had been diagnosed with metastatic thyroid cancer, and the prognosis was bleak.

“I was scared for my life. I was scared to be a father and then I'm scared about the baby. What am I going to do? Am I going to be in his life or not,” said Prince.

His doctor now considers his treatment to be palliative, and has told Prince he will likely only live two to three more years.

Prince's child is now two years old, and lives with his ex-girlfriend. The parents share custody, with Prince taking the child for scheduled parenting time a few days a week.

Too sick to stay in school, Prince now has visitor status in Canada, meaning he can’t work, apply for social assistance or access Newfoundland and Labrador’s medical care plan (MCP).

He has applied for permanent residency, but Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) says he could be waiting a decade for approval.

While he waits for his application to be processed, Prince said he has no way to earn money to support himself or his child.

“How do you expect someone to … live with dignity when there is a dependent you have to take care of,” he said.

He has terminal cancer, no medical care, and no way to support his young son

St. John’s-based immigration lawyer Meghan Felt is helping Prince obtain his permanent residency, and says his only option now is to apply based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

“It's essentially kind of a catch-all immigration application,” said Felt. “[Where] there are unique and compelling humanitarian circumstances that, maybe, warrant granting this person permanent residency.”

For some permanent residency programs, though, the wait time has recently skyrocketed to 50 years.

Either way, with Prince’s prognosis, he will likely not live long enough to see his application be accepted.

Prince said the only thing keeping him going is his son.

“My goal is to work, have some savings, spend some time with him and secure a future for him, somehow, to the best of my ability,” he said.

Felt is confident Prince’s application will be successful because he has shared custody of a young child, and because he requires medical treatment.

But considering the application's long wait time, Felt said the only other option they can hope for is an approval in principle — a letter from IRCC stating your application meets permanent residency requirements, but still has to pass other background checks.

Prince has sent letters to St. John's East MP Joanne Thompson and federal Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab, asking them to help expedite the process.

In an emailed statement, IRCC confirmed Prince’s application is still in the regular queue, and the current processing time is approximately 10 years. 

IRCC processes applications according to Canada's admission targets — targets that, in the case of temporary residents, Ottawa is reducing by 43 per cent over the next few years.

IRCC also wrote that the processing time is affected "by a range of factors, including immigration targets, the complexity of individual cases, security screenings, and how quickly applicants respond to requests for information.” 

IRCC does not systematically track wait times for approvals in principle.

“[We] are aware of his health struggles, his responsibilities as a parent, as well as his desire to obtain permanent residency. We encourage Mr. Prince to reach out as staff remain available to assist him,” wrote King.

Felt said it is critical that Canada approves Prince's humanitarian and compassionate grounds application because he has legal custody over a Canadian child.

In Canada, Felt said, there is a legal principle that all decisions must consider the best interest of the child. She argues Prince should be granted a work permit because it is in the best interest of the child to have his father stay in Canada.

“It's a clear-cut case here to me, in my opinion,” said Felt. “But the problem right now is processing times.”

Felt said the 10-year wait “seems drastically unreasonable.”

“What we really want is for Asif’s humanitarian application to be expedited for us to receive that approval in principle, so that we can apply for an open work permit for him, to allow him to get his MCP card and to allow him to be able to support himself and his son,” she said.

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