Sukhjeevan Sharma,
In her letter to Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Gelinas said she knows of “two Ontarians” who were each “identified at the border and their health history was used to deny access. Gelinas said Richardson is one of those people. She would not identify the other person but said in that case it “was not a mental health issue.’’ “Canadians must be assured that their personal records are kept confidential, as intended,” Sullivan said. On Monday, Richardson attempted to fly to New York en route to a $6,000 10-day Caribbean cruise, in collaboration with a March of Dimes group.
However, she was told by a U.S. border agent at Toronto’s Pearson airport that she couldn’t board the flight without getting a “medical clearance” from one of only three Ontario doctors whose assessments are accepted by Homeland Security. Richardson was told by the agent that their computer system revealed that she had had a mental illness episode in 2012. The paperwork she was given reflects that.
Richardson had been treated in 2012 for clinical depression at a Toronto hospital, after a “half-hearted” attempt at suicide, following a relationship breakup. She says she had taken pills but then stopped, “realizing that I could not go through with the attempt.” A family member had nonetheless called an ambulance and also passed on a suicide letter, Richardson had written, to her doctors. A previous attempt at suicide in 2001, in which she jumped off the Bloor Viaduct bridge as a result of delusions, had been more serious. That experience, which she wrote in a book published in 2008, left her paraplegic.
But between 2001 and 2012, she had been on medications that kept her feeling stable. She says that since being treated for clinical depression following the 2012 incident, her condition has again stabilized. Richardson, who has a master’s degree in counselling, sees a psychiatrist with whom she has a very good relationship. She offered her doctor’s name and phone number to the border agent at the airport but was told it “would not suffice.” Richardson said she was too shocked and devastated at the time to ask the agent how he got her medical information. She now believes that it was an “invasion of privacy” and “discriminatory of people with mental illness.’’
Sadly, it happens a lot, says lawyer Barry Swardon, who says he has given advice to “many people who have had a similar problem.” One of those was Ontario woman Lois Kamenitz, 64, who was not allowed to get on a flight at Pearson Airport in 2011 because border authorities had accessed information about her suicide attempt years earlier. Unfortunately, “you can’t fight a foreign government” legally, said
