Bill C-14 (Historical)

Nicole Girard

In fact, the current act gives equal treatment to children born abroad to Canadian parents and children who are adopted abroad by Canadians and acquire citizenship directly. As well, children born in Canada to Canadians and children who are born abroad to Canadian citizens and naturalized are treated equally with regard to transmission of citizenship.

This is as a result of two fairly recent changes to the Citizenship Act. In 2007, Bill C-14 gave parents who adopt children abroad direct access to citizenship. Previously, there was a two-step process. Parents first had to sponsor a child for him to obtain permanent residence in Canada and then apply for citizenship. In response to calls from parents for faster, more direct access to citizenship, the law was changed to allow parents to apply for citizenship directly, without having to go through the permanent residence stage. When the law changed for the second time more recently, on April 17, 2009, the changes imposed a first-generation limit on children born or adopted abroad, once again to minimize the difference in treatment between children born abroad to Canadians and children adopted abroad by Canadians who access citizenship through the direct route.

Nicole Girard

The explanation goes back to the amendments to the law that I described. These amendments were made in response to criticism from adoptive parents. Before the law was first amended in 2007, some parents were critical of the fact that they had to go through the immigration process and then the citizenship process. With Bill C-14, the comparable groups were children born abroad to Canadian parents and children adopted abroad. With the subsequent changes to the law, including the first-generation limit, the two groups were treated the same way. We continue to minimize the difference between these two groups of people born abroad. Moreover, I think that before the 2007 changes, the court had ruled that the two groups were comparable.

Elspeth Ross

The problem with Bill C-14 is that it was supposed to make it equitable and faster to come home with your adopted child from another country and have the citizenship automatically. Some people are choosing not to go that route, and there are two reasons. One is that there's a possibility of not getting through. People stall in other countries for a long time in not being able to get the automatic citizenship. So some people would choose to adopt by the old way and go the permanent residency route instead. Some people are advising that people should go that way instead.

The second reason is that the automatic citizenship means that for internationally adopted children, if they live outside the country as adults and have children, their children won't be able to be Canadian citizens. This was something that totally caught everybody off guard when it happened. It was completely another issue and was entirely caught up in a different problem, and adopted children got caught in it. Our joy over Bill C-14 turned to dismay, although we were extremely happy over the deportation provision that it brought in so that criminality couldn't be a reason for sending them away afterwards.

Wesley Moore

First, regarding Bill C-14, as I alluded to in my opening remarks, there is an issue with it. We went through the Bill C-14 route when we adopted our son from South Africa last year. It was a wonderful experience, in that we came home with a Canadian passport. We came home with the shiny white temporary passport, and we appreciated that route.

The ability for him to carry on citizenship is an issue that came with that bill. As I alluded to, we have a biological son who is now almost four months old, and we have an adopted son who is three years old. If our biological son were outside of the country he could pass on citizenship, and that's great. If our adopted son, who is from South Africa, were outside the country, he could not pass on citizenship to his children. That is a substantive issue. The legal standing in Canada is different, and it should be remedied.

I may be unique in the fact that I did not experience a need for a substantive amount of post-adoption support. I know there are a lot of issues that come with adoption, especially of older children. I know you've heard a lot of stories. What I find to be a bigger issue with adoption, frankly, when you go internationally, is the upfront costs. International adoptions cost about, as I said, $20,000 to $50,000. For instance, to adopt from South Africa we had to spend almost a month in South Africa. It was a wonderful place to spend a month, but it was a month abroad. If you adopt from Russia, you have to fly there two or three times in the adoption process. That's expensive. To adopt internationally is cost-prohibitive.

As I said, there are 30,000 children, so it depends on what your calling is and on whether you feel you're called to adopt domestically or called to adopt internationally. That's a personal and individual choice.

Elspeth Ross

Three minutes is enough.

I have the same recommendations as the Adoption Council of Canada because of the lack of information: stats, publishing, and what not. But I have some new recommendations for you.

One is that the government support or preferably adopt Bill C-569 of MP John Rafferty, calling for a national strategy for FASD to commit the government to develop a national plan for treatment and prevention, which we don't have at the moment.

On citizenship, Bill C-14, from 2007, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, was applauded for bringing equality to adopted children. It did the opposite. Lawyers from the Canadian Bar Association recommended that adoptive parents use the permanent residency route instead of the direct citizenship route because the new faster route has no appeal. Now adoption advocates are recommending the permanent residency route again because the other creates a two-tier system. Now I have the same recommendation that the Adoption Council of Canada had: to amend the regulations accompanying Bill C-37 so internationally adopted children have the same legal status as children born in Canada and are permitted to transmit their citizenship by descent to children born abroad.

One thing that Bill C-14 did right was to ensure that adopted children can no longer be deported for criminality if their parents did not obtain their citizenship. Before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in June 2006, an official from CIC said "...to respond to charter concerns, all adopted persons would no longer be prevented from acquiring citizenship for any criminality...”. She said it was an equity matter.

In June 2008, the first of a number of adoptees who were under threat of deportation received their Canadian citizenship. A few of us protected Gilberto Currie, adopted from Brazil. We protected him for five years and kept him from being deported to Brazil until the bill was passed. We do not know how many adoptees could have been in the same position.

The fact that people are still choosing to adopt internationally by the permanent residency route leaves the possibility that parents may not obtain citizenship for their children, which can create great hardships if the adoption fails. Children who come to Canada to be adopted and whose adoptions break down before they obtain citizenship are still under threat of deportation today. This must be stopped. Canada must not bring children here in inter-country adoption only to send them back to a country they have not seen since childhood, where they know no one and do not speak the language.

Mario Perez came to Canada from Mexico to be adopted at the age of five and was deported to Mexico in 2006 at the age of 22. Efforts to prevent this failed, and he still wants to come back. We are now supporting Tina Desrosiers, who came to Canada—