Human Resources Committee on April 19th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you, Mr. Vellacott.

We'll go to Monsieur Paillé, please.

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak, Madam Vice-Chair. I am not a regular member of this committee, so this is a timely opportunity for me. The question arose as to whether the committee had the authority to consider this matter. Yet, here we are having this discussion.

I have firsthand experience with this issue. I have a Peruvian-born son is will soon be 30 years old. Thirty years ago, that is over a quarter century ago, Quebec had full jurisdiction with regard to the adoption procedures that we followed. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to you that we favour the status quo. That brings me to the matter of principles.

As many people have realized, international jurisdictions are quite clear. It is the responsibility of the “adoptive” country to verify if the parents are qualified to adopt children. Obviously, in my case, the answer was yes. Peru, not Quebec or Canada, was responsible for verifying that there were no restrictions on adopting the child. In such instances, it is a matter of preventing kidnappings and the kinds of rumours that may have circulated in the past. These countries are free to agree to or to oppose the adoption, to allow or not to allow people to remove children from the country. That is their prerogative. It is important to check everything carefully, because a child cannot be returned. Adopting a child is not a short- or medium-term commitment, but rather a lifelong one. The adopted child does not come with a guarantee and you cannot send a child back to their country of origin, like you would return a parcel through the mail.

Some very simple, basic principles need to be applied here. First of all, it makes no difference whether a child is a biological child or an adopted child. I've never seen any difference between my children. Some are my biological children, while other have been adopted. The adopted child should not be treated any differently. That child knows that he has been adopted, that the size of his hands, the colour of his skin, the shape of his eyes and the colour of his hair are different. He does not need to be made to feel different because of administrative procedures. If the mother of an adopted child receives less in the way of employment insurance benefits than a mother who gives birth to a child, then the adopted child will be made to feel that he is worth less. And the outcome will be same if a mother received specific benefits associated with an adopted child. Adopted children will think that it cost more to meet their needs. Regardless of what you do, the adopted child will always end up feeling as if he his second class. The same is true for the parents. As I see it, from the moment an adoption takes place, the person becomes a parent, end of discussion. There is no worse insult than to say to parents that one of their children is adopted, while the other is their biological child. At least I would consider that to be the worst offensive remark that anyone could make to me.

However, with respect to the tax credit to cover expenses, that is a different story. The expenses associated with a foreign adoption are staggering, whether it be the legal costs, translation costs or some other expense. However, once that child becomes part of the family, he must never be treated differently. Otherwise, the adverse effects on the child are enormous.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Unfortunately, Mr. Watson, Mr. Paillé used all of his time to ask you his questions. I understand that you have to leave as well, but I'd like to give you an opportunity to respond and, then we'll carry on.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think it was by agreement that we would conclude at 4:15 to allow committee business at the back end.

I'm respectful of the committee's time—

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I was not aware of that.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

—but allow me to make one concluding comment. I mentioned it in my speech as well. There is no difference between biological or adoptive parenting or in terms of the value of a child, whether biological or adopted, and I think we can all agree on that.

I think one of the questions for the committee to grapple with is how we look at fostering greater attachment in situations of adoption. There are some real challenges there. Perhaps the supports don't recognize at this point the sufficient time and ability to undertake that, so that may be a consideration.

In the end, I think we can agree that governments have an interest in the strongest family attachments possible. That has a great positive and overwhelming net benefit to society.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much, Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you for being here. We appreciate your time.

We will ask our witnesses from the Adoption Council of Canada and the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa to come forward at this time. We have a few questions for them as well.

I'd like to thank our witnesses, Laura Eggertson and Barbara MacKinnon, for being here on such short notice.

Just so committee members are aware, there is an exhibit this week in Ottawa called the “Heart Gallery of Ottawa”. The Adoption Council of Canada is here. We felt that if we had a bit of time we'd make some time to hear from these folks on adoption and on the exhibit they've brought forward.

Thank you so much for being here.

Some information for the members has been distributed, and hopefully that will put this into some context, but what I'd like to do is just give the witnesses an opportunity to briefly share what they're doing. Then we'll have a brief opportunity for just one round of questioning.

We'd like to have the chance to hear what you're doing in Ottawa.

[Laura Eggertson, Board Member, Adoption Council of Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Barbara and I are going to share some time here, but I just want to start by saying that we really welcome the committee's decision to look at this whole issue of what the federal government can do to support adoption in Canada. We do feel that a number of areas would really benefit from this study, and we would be happy to get back to you in more detail about those issues at a different time.

But today, we'll just tell you a little bit about the Heart Gallery. The Heart Gallery is a concept that was pioneered in the United States. The Heart Gallery of America began in 2001 in New Mexico. The idea is that local photographers donate their time to take portraits of children who are waiting for permanent families. These are children in foster care.

This has been quite successful in the United States, so we looked at doing it here because we need more innovative tools and solutions. There are many thousands of children in foster care who are legally free for adoption across Canada, but our domestic adoption rates are stagnating. They really haven't risen over probably the past decade, if not more. They're roughly in the range of 1,700 to 2,000 per year. We need other ways to attract potential adoptive families and to match these children with those families.

That's why we decided on this. We spoke to the Children's Aid Society here in Ottawa, because we are here in Ottawa. The Adoption Council of Canada is a national organization, but it's headquartered in Ottawa. We also knew that the Children's Aid Society here had a good track record of trying new things, reaching out, and being quite aggressive about trying to recruit parents. We hope this will be a pilot project.

On Thursday night here on Parliament Hill, we launched the gallery. We had portraits of 18 different children from right here in Ottawa who need permanent families. Some were in sibling groups; I think we had three sibling groups. Others were single children in need of permanent homes. The idea is that this gallery will tour--hopefully--in some federal government buildings, municipal buildings, private companies, or office buildings, to attract a different audience of adoptive parents and families who might not have thought about adopting these particular children, who might not have thought about opening their homes to another child in general, and who will then follow up with the Children's Aid Society here to go through the appropriate process if they decide they would like to adopt.

That's the idea behind the Heart Gallery. As I say, it's been quite successful. Some jurisdictions in the United States have seen the numbers of calls and requests from potential adoptive parents doubling. There have been matches made, with as much as 50% of the children pictured in the galleries placed or potentially matched in some areas, and between 25% and 40% in other jurisdictions. That's why we decided to do it here. We hope it will spread across the country.

[Barbara MacKinnon, Executive Director, Children's Aid Society of Ottawa]

I want to follow up on why the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa decided to participate in this exciting initiative. It really is about the fact that we persistently struggle in finding adoptive families for older children and sibling groups. When children come into care they often experience positive growth while they're in foster homes, but regardless of how positive their experience is, they are always wanting a “forever family”.

For them it is about what is going to happen when they leave care, when they leave the system. Who is going to be at their graduation? Who is going to help them move into their first apartment? Who is going to be there when their first baby is born? Who is going to help them figure out their finances? All of these are things that those of you who are parents in this room know. You parent forever, and children want to be children forever and have that support.

We are constantly challenged to find people who are willing to open their home to older children; there is this classic kind of picture of adoption with babies. So because of that, this innovative process was introduced to us by the Adoption Council of Canada. We were quite excited about it, because we've found that what works best for recruitment is child-specific recruitment--in other words, creating that personal connection. We know, with the studies in social marketing, that the use of Facebook and pictures is a way of creating a connection. We were very pleased when this option came forward to us.

I think the piece we liked the best, and what was really positive for us, is that the children we approached to see if they were interested in being a part of this gallery felt very excited about it. They felt that they were part of the process. They first of all have to agree that they want to participate.

When older children are in adoption, they can be your partners in finding the adoptive family of their choice. This gallery provides them the option. They have these pictures that capture the essence of who they are. They write their own little biography about who they are and what they can offer family, recognizing that they have something to bring into a family. As well, they have the opportunity to really feel they are trying to make a difference to their own lives.

It has been a very positive experience to date in terms of the reaction of the children to this process, so we're feeling very positive. We hope that in your discussions there is the recognition that there is something different about adoption and that there is a need for children to be adopted, that every child in Canada needs a family, and, within that, that we need to be creative about how we find those families and how we support those families in preparation and the ongoing role of being an adoptive parent.

We look forward to seeing the results of your report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much.

Certainly you have a lot to offer all of us when it comes to adoption issues. When we're doing our formal study on this, I think it would be very beneficial to bring you back and have you prepare a report for us.

We're going to have only one round of questions. I will give each group seven minutes.

If you'd like to divide it between the parties, you could all ask a question and still get to the committee business we'd like to do.

Mr. Savage, you will have seven minutes. If you'd like to divide it, you could.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I'm very happy to share the time with my colleagues.

Thank you for coming here today. Some of the questions that I would ask you are questions we would ask you as witnesses in this study, even though we're just at the beginning of it.

I think there are people who would be surprised to hear that there are a lot of children waiting to be adopted. There's a sort of a common feeling out there that it's hard to adopt a child. Can you give me a sense of how long it takes, of how many children are available and what is the process is for adoption? It probably makes sense to look at Ontario, since that's where we are.

Can you just give me a sense of the numbers of children waiting to be adopted at different ages and how long it takes to adopt a child?

[Laura Eggertson]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for the question.

First of all, let me explain that we have a hard time getting good statistics in Canada about adoption, particularly about domestic adoption. Part of the problem is that every province, of course, keeps its own statistics and classifies the children perhaps a little differently in terms of their legal freedom for adoption.

I can tell you, according to some old statistics, that we think there are between 70,000 and perhaps 100,000 children in care, but not all of them are legally free for adoption. We figure that between maybe 30,000 and 40,000 are legally free for adoption across Canada. In Ontario, the latest figures from the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies say that there are about 9,400 children and youths who are legally free for adoption. That's from infants all the way up to 18-year-olds.

[Barbara MacKinnon]

If I may, I will just add that the majority of children who are available for adoption through children's aid societies are older. The average age for when a child comes into care as a crown ward is usually between nine and eleven years; they've been in and out of care for periods of time before they have legal status as a crown ward of the province. There is a small group of children who are under the age of six; they're babies and they become adoptable earlier. But then there is generally a much larger group of older children.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

So generally infants are quite easy to place...?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

Yes, very--we don't have to use these types of strategies for the younger population.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

So if we don't have a lot of statistics and surveillance on where we are on adoptions and how many children are available, or if you're saying we have old statistics, one assumes, then, that one of the purposes of a study would be to identify that as a weakness and do something nationally to understand where we are, province by province or region by region.

[Laura Eggertson]

Madam Chair, collecting those figures, identifying them, and having them broken down by age and status across each province would be extremely useful to everyone in the adoption and research community.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I wonder, then, if we're looking at the issues of adoption as raised by Mr. Watson, if there is a jurisdiction--a country, state, province, or somewhere--that does a very good job at this and that we would want to look at and perhaps talk to. Do you know of any?

[Laura Eggertson]

There are many jurisdictions that are doing a good job, both inside and outside of Canada. There are many best practices, as was discussed by Mr. Watson today.

I'm particularly familiar with what's going on in the United States right now. They have been much more aggressive with many of their recruitment ideas in many U.S. states. For instance, there's an agency in New York City called “You Gotta Believe!” and its sole purpose is to move young people who are aging out of the foster care system and place them in permanent homes. They have found adoptive families for young people who are 18, 19, 20, or 21.

Generally in Canada--and maybe Barbara can correct me--there has been a feeling amongst both the general population and the workers in the children's aid societies that these young people, these teens, are not adoptable, but I think we can change that. Certainly the Adoption Council of Canada has a philosophy--and I think it's shared by the Children's Aid Society here in Ottawa--that no child, no young person, is unadoptable.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I saw on your website, I think, something along the lines of there being some 300 teenage children in British Columbia available for adoption. It said that there are no unwanted children, there are only unfound parents, or something to that effect. Is that one of your--

[Laura Eggertson]

I think that's particular to B.C., but it's exactly the same philosophy. In fact, it's our belief that when families find out who is available specifically through some of the pictures, the photo listings, and the portrait gallery, they are drawn to individual children and young people, and that makes it much more real for most people.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you.

We'll go to Madam Beaudin, please.

Monsieur Paillé?