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MONTREAL — The federal government has examined setting limits on the number of refugees that Canada takes in with health problems, such as trauma from torture.

Staff at Citizenship and Immigration Canada were asked last year to suggest ways to cut down on the number of “high needs” refugees in order to reduce strain on the health-care system, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press.

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That request came from former immigration minister Jason Kenney, who is still the Conservatives’ minister responsible for multiculturalism.

He was eventually given a series of options including a cap on refugees with health problems — such as “developmental delay, blindness, victims of trauma and torture” — allowed from within a specific population group, according to one memo.

There were concerns such a change might create a public-relations problem.

Canadians might consider it an abdication of the country’s efforts to help the world’s most vulnerable, according to the 2012 memo.