Evidence of meeting #45 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
The ages where children are in care is one big issue that could be a federal benchmark.
But for adoption, specifically, I know for instance here in Ottawa...Gatineau is very close, it's right next door, but if you want to adopt a child in Ottawa and you live in Gatineau, you work in Ottawa, and your life takes place in Ottawa, that's considered an international adoption. You then have to pay for your own home study, and it's not--
Conservative
As an Individual
Yes. That is one thing that is a huge barrier. There are children who need to be adopted, and it shouldn't matter what province you come from. There shouldn't be those types of barriers. But Quebec is specifically different in that way, where you would have to pay for your own home study and all of that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
I think that is news to all of us.
I'll go to the next person.
Madam Beaudin.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
Let's make sure that everyone has their translation on.
We'll just pause for a moment and the clerk will make sure that everybody has the right channel and the volume.
Bloc
Josée Beaudin Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
In your lives, you have shown a great deal of resilience, and that does you honour; I applaud you. It is clear to see that you have become three accomplished young women and one accomplished young man with plans, and, above all, with dreams. In my mind, that is what really counts.
I have a question for Alisha, just to make sure I understood. You make a distinction between being in a foster family and the time when you could be adopted. Did I understand your situation correctly, Alisha? Am I right that you were in foster care for eight years? I seem to be hearing you say that you no longer have any contact with that foster family? Have I got your life story right?
As an Individual
I think I understood that question.
I was in a foster home for eight years, so I was drawing that distinction between adoption and foster care. I didn't have that permanent family. If I had had an adoptive family, maybe things would have been different and I would have someone I could go and talk to for certain things, and I'd feel like I belonged somewhere and that I meant something to someone.
Bloc
As an Individual
No.
I go back once in a while to see my foster family. I have more contact with my foster sister because she is the same age as me, so we've kind of grown up together and we're almost like friends. So sometimes I see them, but as I mentioned, it's a different scenario when I go there. She's actually specifically said that I am a guest in her home. And you know, you don't want to feel like a guest with someone you've lived with for eight years of your life. That's just not what it is. They were my family almost, and to have them say you don't belong there anymore, it really hurts.
Bloc
Josée Beaudin Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
I understand. You are essentially becoming a support and an example for other children who have to live through situations like you did.
We have met with a lot of witnesses who have talked to us about steps that could be taken to help the parents. You lived through the situation as children. My question goes to all four of you.
What would you like to change in life as you have led it? Having seen adoption from the inside, what in your experience as adopted children would you like to change?
As an Individual
Thank you very much for that question.
For me personally, because my foster dad was in the midst of retiring, it was a huge financial strain all of a sudden. He wasn't expecting the retirement. It was more of a forced situation, which left him in a position financially where he couldn't adopt me. So to see even a portion of the support that's offered to foster parents go to adoptive parents, at least to allow them that adjustment period, would have been a large support. That would have meant that at 19, when I wanted one family heirloom—I wanted just a connection with that family who had been there my whole life—it wouldn't have been taken from me.
What Alisha said is incredibly powerful: “almost family”. Why should we ever have to say “almost family”? We should have a family. That's just it. We are social beings who deserve to have that. We have to remember as a society that sometimes the dollars and cents.... At the end of the day, it's to spend that time with our family, to be connected to somebody. We shouldn't have an “almost family”. If there's power to somehow change that so people can have “forever family” and have somewhere to go to for support....
Bloc
Josée Beaudin Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you.
I have a quick question. What made it work in your case? How do you explain the fact that you have become young adults with dreams and with plans?
As an Individual
I can tell you it's been a lot of struggle. Again, I'm 32 and I sit in a classroom with many 19-year-olds who have many family supports or other 19- or 20-year-olds who don't. I'm 32. I'm up against a lot of people who do have the support to be in university, but for me, it's a lot of struggle. I have to work. I have to volunteer. I have to care for my children. So something is lacking sometimes. I don't spend as much time with my children as I wish I could. I do it because I have to. I have to get ahead and I have to be able to help other people in similar situations. But some of us don't have the fortitude to do that. Some of us need that time.
We've gone through a lot of things in our lives. For me personally, it was sexual and physical abuse. To have time to actually just be present in my own life would be a huge support, a huge help. There's a lot of healing time that we miss out on. How did we come this way? We're a very resilient people. Some of us are willing to get up and fight every day, but there are some people who are not. Again, I bring you back to our prison systems and our streets when we're talking, where 70% or more of those people didn't have families.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you for coming today. I know it takes a lot of courage to come before a committee such as this and tell your story--so very personal, the intimate details about yourself. I just want to say that we appreciate you doing that and coming forward, because when you do, we learn here, and hopefully we can together make recommendations to the government that will create a situation that will make it possible for more young people to have forever families.
We've heard a lot of recommendations. We heard here this morning how employment insurance could be extended to make it more possible.... The challenge seems to be, in many instances, a question of resources, of being able to afford another child and all that comes with that, of being able to somehow afford the support and training needed to actually do it effectively. People asked for that--families who came, foster parents who came--and they said if they just had access to more training, they'd be able to do it better and therefore be willing to do it more often, and all that.
Jon, you mentioned that you had a troubled adolescence. Were there things missing in the community, the bigger context, that could have been there to make possible for you to...? Yes, all kids get into trouble, but maybe not go so deeply into it, and maybe participate in a more constructive way in the community, and in that way have support for your adoptive family to.... They have a piece they need to do, but the community has a piece that it needs to do.
Were there things missing in the community that we could recommend or suggest here that would be helpful in terms of the whole adoption scenario?
As an Individual
In the community, I can't think of too much. I know one of the things that really led me down that path was moving around to all these different families and not getting the help I needed. No one really checked in with me.
The first foster home I went to after the accident was Jehovah's Witness, so I was not allowed to go to therapy. And Children's Aid never really forced that on me. It seems almost obvious that it should have been forced after what I went through, and not just with the accident; there was all types of abuse going on prior to that with my mom's boyfriend.
Now that I think back, that CAS didn't mandate that I should be sent to therapy is kind of shocking. I think a lot of the troubles I ran into are associated with all those issues that were never really dealt with.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
You're saying, first of all, if you had been mandated to go.... The other question is that sometimes in my own community, when somebody is diagnosed as needing therapy, finding a therapist, being able to afford the therapist, and all that kind of thing, becomes an issue as well.
Miranda, in terms of your situation, I am wondering how important it is to you now to be somewhat rooted in your story, your culture, your history, your people. Is that an important issue for you?
NDP
As an Individual
When I went back to my reserve, I felt more connected to my background. In Ottawa, I know there are communities and community centres and everything, but I don't know.... It was hard when I was in my adoptive family. It was hard to go there with my adoptive mother. I don't know how to explain.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
But it was important to you to have that connection, to understand your story, where you came from, in terms of being all that you want to be.
As an Individual
Yes, it still is important. And I want it to be important to my kids, too.