Good morning.
How do we solve this crisis? We believe the only way is to remove the bottlenecks that are involved in adoption and to address the fear, the frustration, and the finances that challenge us around adoption.
Fear can be eradicated by federal programs that support adopting families, providing education for every challenge they will face in the adoption, from attachment disorder issues to fetal alcohol syndrome and learning disabilities. We'd like to recommend that the federal government establish a web-based resource centre to support questions and supply education in all the challenges that adoptive parents will face. We suggest webinars to provide continuing education and to support adopting families to solve problems long before they occur in the growth of the adopted child. This resource could also include interactive blogs wherein adoptive parents could create an online support group for all families of adoption. The purpose of these initiatives is to remove the fear that many families face toward adopting Canadian children.
Frustration in dealing with bureaucracy must be minimized by expediting the adoption process from its current one-year to three-year timeline. Our own adoption of our four children took over four years, and the process was emotionally draining, due to the periods of uncertainty that the adoption process might fail. Could you imagine being pregnant for four years and having to manage the emotional roller coaster of expecting your child's arrival in your family to be finalized?
We need to have a central database for all children eligible for adoption in Canada at the federal level, to track statistics and progress of the adoptions in Canada. At this time there is no central point at the federal level keeping track of Canadian children, both in foster care and those up for adoption. This is why we never really know at any time how many kids are totally in the system. At the provincial level, kids are lost in the system by moving between provinces, and provinces do not communicate in keeping track of the children at risk. We believe this is very alarming.
Finances tend to be a huge concern for families interested in adoption. There is often a misconception that adopting children in Canada can be very costly and range between $10,000 to $30,000, as it is in foreign adoptions. Further concerns are that parents will be unable to financially support adopted children for expenses over their lifetime.
We would recommend the federal government look at providing tax credits for food, clothing, and transportation costs, to offset the increased costs that are incurred by adoptive families.
Housing tends to be the greatest cost and concern for families, and we would ask that this committee look at a Bank of Canada mortgage at prime rate over the life of a child to age 21, to assist with the housing costs of a growing family.
Many families have great concern over financing post-secondary education, and a scholarship for adopted children would alleviate this concern. This support from the government would be of great encouragement for families to adopt children, by helping minimize their financial concerns around adoption.