Chris Mason is arrested prior to his pending deportation. (CBC)

Advocates for the disabled are slamming the federal government for trying to deport a man who was injured while working in Canada, saying immigration laws that exclude those who require medical help are discriminatory.

"The Immigration Act frankly prohibits people with disabilities from immigrating to Canada," said Laurie Beachell of Disabled People's International. "The effect would mean people like Stephen Hawking, world-renowned physicist, brilliant man, could never become Canadian."

Disabled advocates have been trying to convince the Canadian government to change the act, even before the case of Winnipegger Chris Mason, 36, came into the public domain this week.

Mason was ordered deported to Great Britain after Canadian immigration officials determined that to grant the wheelchair-bound man permanent resident status would create an undue economic burden for taxpayers.

Mason was captured by Canada Border Services agents Wednesday while at a friend's home in Winnipeg. He missed a scheduled deportation flight to Manchester Tuesday and remains in custody awaiting an immigration hearing and a new deportation date.

Mason said he has no desire to return to England where he hasn't lived since he was a child.

He came to Canada in 2001 and began working as a truck driver in Ontario and British Columbia before settling in Winnipeg. The long-haul trucker damaged his back, however, when the toll of many hours in a truck cab resulted in the fusion of his vertebra, and he ended up as a paraplegic.

Mason was in another accident in 2007 — hit by a taxi while leaving hospital — and has been unable to work since.

He's been without a visa for more than two years and has been collecting social assistance while battling Manitoba's Public Insurance Corp. over injury benefits.

Wants action

Beachell said disability advocates want Canada to amend the Immigration Act, removing the clause that says anyone who might cause undue economic demand on the social welfare system can be denied the right to live here.

"We want to see that excessive demand clause removed," said Beachell.

"We want to see a focus on people's abilities and the contribution they can make to Canada as they come here as citizens or immigrants, rather than focus on what their limitations are or whether they'll cause any challenges or difficulties."

Refugees, who obviously can be injured before being admitted to Canada, are excluded from the "excessive demand" clause in the Immigration Act, said Beachell. But the clause applies to everyone else.

Hafeez Khan, Mason's lawyer, has said he will seek an injunction to prevent the deportation. He will argue that Mason came to Canada as a foreign worker, was injured in Canada, and that it would be inhumane to throw him out of the country where he worked and was injured.

"There's thousands and thousands of foreign workers in Canada," Khan said. "But if they're just going to deport people when they have workplace injuries ... there's something wrong there."