Yan Ma, 50, (right) is dying of pancreatic cancer and the government has twice denied her son Dayou, 28, (left) a visit. (HO/Dave Abel/SUN MEDIA)

She's a dying refugee claimant mom who wants to see her only son one last time before she dies.

But the Canadian government has twice refused to allow Dayou Li to travel from Shanghai to Toronto to see his terminally ill mom, Yan Ma, 50.

Now Ma, living in a Chinatown rooming house and dying from advanced pancreatic cancer, is pleading for help.

"My hope is that my son will look after me in my remaining days and also look after my funeral," Ma said in her native Mandarin, adding she's too weak to go back to China.

Speaking through translator Peikang Dai, a pastor at the Shenzhou Presbyterian Church where she is a member, Ma said she has only a few weeks to live.

The claim is backed up by letters from two doctors, Dr. Asha Patel, of the University Health Network, and Dr. Samir Grover, of St. Michael's Hospital, provided to the Sun by Dai.

The letters urge Canadian immigration officials to allow Li to visit because Ma's advanced cancer is inoperable.

It's been a rough year for Ma. She arrived in Canada in June on a two-month visa after her Canadian husband, Peter Lee, died suddenly of a stroke in Toronto in April.

On July 14, Ma was diagnosed with cancer and given three to four months.

Asked if she moved to Canada because of our universal healthcare system, Ma said she didn't and that the cancer diagnosis was a complete shock.

"She was very healthy," Dai said.

The only thing Ma wants in her dying days is for Canada to grant her son permission to visit.

Since September, Li, who lives in Shanghai with his girlfriend, has twice been denied a temporary resident visa.

"I want to see my mother and I want to look after her before she dies," he said in a phone interview from China.

According to Li's Sept. 15 and Nov. 4 visa rejection letters, the Canadian government stonewalled him because immigration officials were concerned he might not go back to China.

Li, also speaking Mandarin through translator Dai, said he would return home to his girlfriend and job as a supervisor at a retail store.

Li spoke of how he cried in front of the Canadian immigration officials who denied him.

As for Ma, after she married Lee in 2006, she still required clearance to come to Canada and had to wait years while living in the Chinese city of Guilin.

In late 2008, she was granted a permanent residency visa, but she didn't receive the notification letter and missed the expiration date. The visa was cancelled.

After she was granted a two-month visa earlier this year, Ma arrived in Canada in June and made a refugee claim.

She claims that as a Christian, she faces persecution back in China.

Ma also said she filed the refugee claim because she needed more time in Canada to deal with her husband's death. Citizenship and Immigration Canada would have a comment on the case today, spokesman Karen Shadd said.