Human Resources Committee on Dec. 14th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

That's all your time, Mr. Watson. Thanks.

We're going to have a five-minute round, but before we do I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to follow up with Ms. Girard.

We heard testimony from a father. He and his wife had adopted a child internationally--I think he was from South Africa. Then very soon after they had a biological child, so he was able to really give us the comparison. He said, “I have two sons, and they are not equal. When they grow up one will be able to pass on his Canadian citizenship to his children; my other son will not be able to.”

To us in this committee who have heard that, there does appear to be a problem in terms of equality. When parents adopt a child, we would like to see them be able to experience equality.

I'm not sure if there's a solution to that, but maybe you can think about that, and at some point in this meeting you can let us know if you think there would be a solution to it that wouldn't have to involve changing our entire Immigration Act. That is something that is an issue for us.

Do you have anything in response, off the top of your head?

[Nicole Girard]

There are maybe just a couple of points I would like to make. That's one perspective on the issue, certainly. Those are concerns we are aware of at CIC.

The other thing to be aware of is that the law does provide for equal treatment, but it's an issue of who the comparator groups are. Currently the Citizenship Act looks at the comparator groups, as I was trying to explain earlier, perhaps not very clearly, in terms of treating those who were born in Canada and those who are naturalized in Canada equally, as far as their ability to pass on citizenship goes. If their future children are born abroad, they are citizens. The law also treats equally those who are born to Canadians abroad and those who are adopted abroad, who go through the direct route to citizenship.

Something else to be aware of is that adoptive parents, in many cases, have an option open to them, which Canadians living abroad do not. For Canadians living abroad, if the Canadian is born or naturalized in Canada, their child is born abroad as a citizen, and they're impacted by the first-generation limit. A parent living in Canada who's adopting internationally can choose either to apply to bring the child in as a permanent resident of Canada--so if the child is being naturalized through that route, the child would be able to pass on their citizenship--or to bring them through the direct route to citizenship, in which case they're impacted by the first-generation limit. That's not an option that's available to the parents whose children are born to them abroad, because they're citizens from birth, but they're impacted by the first-generation limit.

I'm not sure if that's a little bit clearer, but hopefully it provides a broader picture.

[Rénald Gilbert]

If I can add, this is not really an adoption question, because there are a number of families who have natural-born children where some are born abroad and some in Canada. This is the case for many of my colleagues who work in the foreign service, for instance, who have children who can pass their citizenship to their children and others not. So it's not a question of adoption; it's a question of passing to a second generation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

For clarification, I have one more very quick one for Mr. Paquette.

We heard testimony from a woman who talked about a program that she went to, I think it was in Toronto, and she thought it had been subsidized by a program through HRSDC. Are you aware of any program, any time in the last 10, 15 years, that did support adoption that was funded federally? I think that's something we're trying to get a grasp on as well, if there was any support at any time for adoption from the federal government. And again, if you need to get back to us that's fine.

[Jacques Paquette]

HRSDC has provided some funding for projects; some of them were related to adoptions. I think there's a significant difference between ongoing funding for an organization, for example, and some funding for a project. So I think there was a reference to a project that, if I recall, was three years long. We do some multi-year funding, but that was a specific project with a beginning and an end. That's probably what the person was referring to, I think, when she said that the funding was ceased, because the project was in our term completed, and then that was it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Okay, good. So it probably would be worth it for us to just take a look. Maybe you could provide for us what kinds of short-term projects were funded through the federal government, even in the last 15 or 20 years, if you're able to.

[Jacques Paquette]

Yes, we'll go back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much.

Thanks to the committee for indulging me.

We have a five-minute round that we'll try to complete.

Mr. Savage.

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

I'm going to have a question and then I think Mr. Garneau has a question.

One of the things we've heard both on the issue of international adoptions and adoptions within Canada is the issue of database information that's available to potential adoptive parents. In terms of international adoptions we've heard that some witnesses thought that a database with updated information on the requirements of each country, protocols, and that sort of thing either doesn't exist or it's not robust enough. And the other one is, within Canada a national database with information regarding the number of children available, how long they've been waiting, etc., where they are, what their other situations are--do they have siblings--that sort of stuff would be helpful if we had more of a database on both types of adoptions.

Perhaps I'd start with CIC and ask HRSDC if they had anything to say on that.

[François Weldon, Acting Director General, Social Policy, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

The department has funded the Child Welfare League to actually be able to begin to construct comparable data across the country, across the various adoption systems that exist across Canada. It's not specific to adoption-ready children, as you were alluding to, but there is, by virtue of the simple complexity of parameters around child welfare systems across the country, a fair bit of diversity across those jurisdictions. So what we have provided is some funding to a national agency that can start to build a system by which that data that exist at the provincial level can actually start to be populated in a comparable national database.

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

Okay, I think that's fine for now. The fact that you're on that is helpful.

I'm going to let Mr. Garneau ask a question.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you.

My question is for Madam Johnston and deals with child and family services, welfare services.

I understand some of the provinces use directive 20-1 and that some of the other provinces use the enhanced funding approach. I'd like to have your opinion on the benefits and drawbacks of each of those formulas and on which method has proven to be more successful in addressing funding in an equitable manner.

[Odette Johnston]

We have six provinces that have moved to the enhanced prevention-focused approach, and those include Alberta, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, P.E.I., and Manitoba. Ontario is under the 1965 welfare agreement, so they don't use directive 20-1. They do provide some prevention services within that particular agreement.

That leaves British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Yukon that still have to make the transition. In Newfoundland and the Yukon, the services are provided by the provincial governments and we reimburse them for actual expenditures for maintaining children in care.

Under the enhanced prevention-focused approach, we introduced three streams of funding: operations, prevention, and maintenance. We also provided some additional supports within each of those streams and then it's up to the recipients to manage within the funding.

With the six provinces we've already moved forward on, we're investing $100 million of additional resources into first nations child welfare on reserve. We have reached about 68% of the first nations children on reserve through that approach.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Am I to conclude from what you've said that this enhanced funding approach is really supplanting or is a better approach than directive 20-1?

[Odette Johnston]

It does replace directive 20-1. Under directive 20-1 we provided operations and maintenance, or the cost, for maintaining children in care, and we base that on actual expenditures. But they couldn't move within the funding envelope.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you, Mr. Garneau.

Mr. Vellacott.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Nicole and Rénald, if I could go back to the citizenship question again, I'll sketch a scenario. If a girl is adopted from China—so she then has Canadian citizenship—and she grows up and marries and has a child in the country, that child of that Chinese girl has Canadian citizenship, right? The child is born in Canada to that adopted Chinese girl.

[Rénald Gilbert]

Any children born in Canada are Canadian.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Exactly. So then that adopted Chinese girl goes back to China and she is there for a period of time—a work program or something—and she has a child in China. The child of the adopted Chinese girl does not then have citizenship in Canada, correct?

[Rénald Gilbert]

It depends on how she came to Canada. If an adopted child came through the immigration route—they came as a landed immigrant and therefore they are being naturalized after arriving in Canada—there is a second-generation possibility. If they are naturalized while they are abroad, they are in the same situation as any other Canadian who is born abroad.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I see. So it's the naturalized situation, whether in or out of the country, that then creates the difficulty. If they came in by the fast track, if you will, for their citizenship, then that stops at that adopted Chinese child and her children. So China now is kind of a limbo land, because China probably doesn't accept that child born to this adopted Chinese girl as a citizen either.

Would that be correct? That little baby does not have Canadian citizenship or Chinese citizenship.

[Nicole Girard]

There are a couple of other factors in the mix. One is that you can derive Canadian citizenship, from birth, from either of your parents. You have to consider the other parent in the mix. If the other parent in the mix was born or naturalized in Canada, then the child born abroad would be a Canadian citizen through their other parent.

If that's not the case—the other parent is a foreign national with no ties to Canada—then the option for the parents, if they're wanting to return to Canada to live, is to sponsor that child for immigration to Canada.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Right. I guess we have this difficulty in part because.... Remember the situation in Lebanon? There were a lot of concerns expressed at that point. “Citizenship of convenience” I think was a term that was used. Is it because of that? Is that why we have this issue of people having “citizenship of convenience”, or dual?

[Nicole Girard]

On the more precise history of the first-generation limit, the intent was to ensure that citizenship couldn't be transmitted to endless generations of Canadians living abroad. In terms of what was behind it, under the previous legislation, before it was changed, there was a connection test for those born abroad in the second generation and beyond. If you were in that situation, before your 28th birthday you were required to apply to retain your Canadian citizenship. The connection test was to demonstrate that you had lived for at least a year in Canada.

The people affected found those requirements problematic. They said they weren't aware of them or didn't understand them. They didn't file their applications on time. In some cases people were losing their citizenship by operation of law because they weren't filing applications in time and meeting the requirements.

That created problems for those people and for the department. The stakeholders asked the government to replace the connection test and those retention requirements with something that was simpler, clearer, and easier for people who were affected to understand. So the forward-looking connection test was replaced, when the law changed in 2009, by the first-generation limit.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

On the Chinese gal who was adopted in Canada, has citizenship in Canada, goes abroad, has a child there, and the father is not naturalized or a Canadian citizen, what is the route for that child to obtain citizenship in Canada?