ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the development and growth of Refuge Hamilton Centre for Newcomer Health (HCNH) as a community of citizens who acted on a common interest in the provision of health care for newcomers in Hamilton, Ontario, as well as the bidirectional impacts of political policy and civil society advocacy for its clients. Refuge HCNH developed within a specific political and health-care landscape in Hamilton, Ontario, although one that may be reflected in other Canadian communities. Until 2012 and "since 1957, Citizenship and Immigration Canada funded the Federal Interim Health Program (FIHP) to provide temporary health care coverage to refugees and persons claiming refugee status", this until they "become eligible for provincial health coverage or until they are deported if their claim is rejected". The changes to Canada's refugee determination system brought by the Conservative government of the time, had ramifications beyond the changes to FIHP for refugee claimants.
