Health Law, Policy and Ethics Seminar Series: Laura Bisaillon

Health Law, Policy and Ethics Seminar Series

Presents:

Laura Bisaillon
University of Toronto

Commentator: Valentina Capurri, Toronto Metropolitan University

Screening Out: Exclusionary Lawyering and Doctoring in the Canadian Immigration System

Tuesday October 17, 2023
12:30pm - 2pm
Jackman Law Building, 78 Queen's Park
Room P115, Penelope Tan Classroom

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JEkTuNiyS-q07JaIndxBOw

Abstract: If the late Stephen Hawking had wanted to settle in Canada, he would likely have been denied. This is because he was disabled. Federal immigration law is designed to exclude people with chronic illness and developmental or genetic difference from permanently settling on health grounds, with some exceptions. This is referred to as medical inadmissibility. I discuss the immigration system based on my award-winning institutional ethnography of its medical, legal and administrative practices published as Screening Out: HIV Testing and the Canadian Immigration Experience. I demonstrate how mandatory HIV screening and medical examination trigger institutional practices that are highly problematic for would-be immigrants, refugees, and for bureaucrats, doctors, and lawyers. I articulate doable recommendations for change that carry the promise of ridding institutionally arising harms.

Laura Bisaillon is a sociologist and associate professor at the University of Toronto. Her scholarship investigates the inner workings of state bureaucracies through their medical, legal, and administrative practices from the standpoint of the very people toward whom exclusionary policy, law and practices are directed. She is author of the award-winning book Screening Out (2022) and director of the film The Unmaking of Medical Inadmissibility (2020) and project Medical Exclusion.  

For further workshop information contact events.law@utoronto.ca