Responding to contagious diseases among those entering Canada is important, but it must be done without discrimination. Church groups working at the border report that linking the TB risk to refugees alone, and to Tibetan refugees in particular, is unfair. Others tell us that most refugees who test positive for TB do not have an active form of the disease and are not infectious. For example, refugees vaccinated to protect them from TB show positive. Most forms of TB can be relatively easily treated and infection can be curtailed within 2 weeks.
Border groups report serious social discrimination on account of the media reporting.
For example, refugee children in schools say that other children no longer wish to sit next to them. The link between refugees, especially Tibetan refugees, and a TB health hazard which is now established in the public mind, is discrimination. Any targeting for special treatment must be objective, stated in advance in law and must be reasonable. Discrimination is something which happens in practice. It is not a matter of what was intended to happen.