However, according to the Director of Immigration Health Services, this policy may be reviewed within the next two years and HIV testing may become routinely required. New regulations regarding medical inadmissibility have been under development for many years. If adopted, they could enable some people known to be HIV-positive to immigrate to Canada. These questions remain controversial.
Opinion is widely divergent.
Some, such as Reform MP Art Hanger, have issued a call for mandatory testing of all candidates for permanent residence in Canada, and denial of status to all candidates testing HIV-positive, including refugees. In addition, Hanger has demanded that temporary visitors living with HIV be barred from entering Canada. A motion introduced by Hanger, proposing the HIV testing of all applicants for residence in Canada, was however defeated in the House of Commons in September 1994. Many tests that will become available probably should not be used for screening immigrants, or people in many other circumstances, because the harm involved, whether to those tested or to the values of our society, is not outweighed by compensating benefits. Second, to institute such testing could appeal to and confirm the deepest prejudices of people who are opposed to anyone they perceive as unlike themselves, of whom immigrants are often considered to be a prime example.