I am the director of TDH pour les enfants Quebec and TDH Ontario. I'm a clinical psychologist, and I've worked in adoption since 1974. I've personally supervised about 2,000 adoptions in that time. My husband and I have five children, four of whom are adopted, two of them internationally. I've seen a number of changes to the immigration process over these years.
Some years ago, removal of the restriction that adopted children were subject to medical screening in the same way as other immigrants was a recognition at least that these children had similar status to birth children. But the adoption community was still acutely aware that there was a huge difference between the way adopted children were perceived in terms of immigration practice and the way that their natural-born counterparts were. If a Canadian parent gave birth to a child overseas, that child was immediately recognized as a Canadian citizen, but a child adopted by Canadian parents overseas had to follow much the same procedure that any immigrant would follow, except that the application was fast-tracked so it was not so long.
In the eyes of the adoptive parents, the process that they had to go through meant that Canada still considered their adopted children to be less than fully their children. Still, our adopted children were expected to become Canadian citizens and live productive civic lives to the benefit of themselves, their families, and Canadian society in general. Recently, the Citizenship Act of 2007 resolved the long-standing issue of felt injustice for adoptive parents. The process that they had to undergo in order to obtain Canadian citizenship for their child was now closer to the automatic citizenship granted to children born to Canadian parents overseas by the introduction of the process of what now is called the direct citizenship route.
Thus it was with great enthusiasm that we welcomed this law that came into effect in December 2007, which at last recognized the equality of adopted children to birth children and gave them the right to apply for immediate citizenship. The prerequisites were simple. One of the parents needed to be a Canadian citizen, and the adoption had to be a legal adoption recognized by the Canadian province in which they were resident. The process was eagerly embraced by parents, and to date we as an agency have had some 100 children come to Canada under the new direct citizenship route, and perhaps 200 others in application for the process.
It came as a great shock and disappointment to learn that within months after the coming into force of this welcome new law, a bill was introduced, passed, and received royal assent, a bill that would take away the full privilege granted by the law of 2007 and create two tiers of citizenship. Any adopted child whose parents would follow the direct citizenship route would lose the right to pass on that citizenship under circumstances that were not extraordinary: giving birth to or adopting a child outside of Canada.
The unexpected attack on these children by the new legislation has somewhat stunned us. We feel that we have been misled and betrayed by the government, that our adoptive children are being unjustly and unfairly discriminated against. We firmly believe that these current prescriptions of the law are contrary to the rights of their parents as Canadian citizens. The recently implemented changes to the immigration legislation were made under circumstances that tend to make it more difficult to note, much less interpret, their far-reaching implications for adopted parents and children.
Thus, I am here to request that the Canadian Parliament rectify what we all hope was an inadvertent negative effect on the rights of adopted Canadians. The purported reason for this new law was in part to prevent generationally passing on Canadian citizenship to those who had no significant investment in the economic, cultural, and social life of this country. But in the case of adopted children, this is far from the truth. Such a child may come to Canada as an infant and a Canadian citizen, spend his or her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood in Canada, and then for any number of reasons that could affect any of us, this young Canadian has a child outside of Canada and finds that this child is not to be considered a Canadian citizen, or worse, may find that the child is stateless. This is not only unjust, it is disrespectful and even cruel treatment of these children who have grown up as Canadian citizens trusting in fair treatment from their government. It makes them second-class citizens.
The impact of the new legislation is to threaten and restrict the activity of adopted children who will be in the active workforce within the next two decades. Under this new legislation, it would be ill-advised for children adopted by Canadian parents since April 17 to take jobs in Canadian corporations, universities, and educational institutions, NGOs, international organizations such as the UN, and other positions of significance in the world. Yet exceptions are made for diplomatic and military positions. If any of these people dare to take jobs overseas, move there temporarily, and either have or adopt a child while in that foreign country, their child will be deprived of his or her full citizenship rights. That is unfair, discriminatory, and arguably contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The new legislation creates two-tier citizenship in Canada, a concept that is repugnant to most Canadians.