Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to follow the hon. member. I think this is a very important measure that the member for Essex has introduced. In fact, I noted a press release that he sent out on October 30, 2009, where he called on Parliament to examine current federal support measures available to adoptive parents and their children. He said:
Let us agree there is equal value for parenting whether one is biological or adoptive. And let us also agree there is equal value for children whether biological or adopted. And let this fundamental accord ultimately find full expression in the policy choices of government.
I thought that was very well put and a very good introduction to what he wants to do here. The resolution itself reads:
That the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development, and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be instructed to examine current federal support measures that are available to adoptive parents and their adopted children, recognizing and respecting provincial and territorial jurisdictions in this regard and, following completion of its study, report back to the House with its findings.
He is recommending that the committee look at the process and experiences of adopting families within the existing framework with an eye to ensuring that the federal government is providing full support to all Canadian families while recognizing the respective provincial and territorial jurisdictions.
For the 23 years that I was a member of the provincial legislature, I did see many developments in the adoption area. Certainly, many constituents would come to my office to deal with the problems that they had. There was a myriad of problems that people would run into. However, I do want to draw attention to some of the history of adoptions in this country, even in the working lifetime for most people in the House. In Manitoba, we basically had a government-supported policy of encouraging the adoption of aboriginal children not only outside their reserves but outside the country.
Many aboriginal children were adopted into the United States. It was mainly the northern United States. It was only a matter of 15 or 20 years later that an inquiry into the process showed that the results were not the way we wished they would all be. There were some very good success stories, but there were also some very bad stories that came out of this. There were different types of abuse, children being forced to work in slave-type conditions and so on. Of course, that pointed to adopting a more rigorous process for accepting adoptions. That is another complaint that I have heard over and over again.
People think the process is too complicated. On the other hand, it has been admitted that this complicated process is there for a reason. Errors have been made in the past and the results have shown that. While we might have 80% or 90% of cases or higher where people are 100% qualified and above board, there is always going to be a small percentage of people who take advantage of the system and abuse the rules. I guess that is the same with any area of legislation and the law.
We basically set up laws to govern that 5% or 10% who do not follow the rules. All we have to do is look at all the security regulations that we are all having to deal with today at the airports and even in the Parliament Buildings. We find ourselves putting elderly people through radiation scanners, scanning them and making them strip down before they enter buildings. All of this came about because of one example of somebody who got into a building and did some bad things. I suppose there are a certain amount of regulations with which we are always going to have to deal.
With regard to the adoptions that I was referring to in Manitoba, when a number of these people were being repatriated to their birth parents, because that is what happened in some cases, a lot of requests and inquiries came to my office from people trying to find their children and vice versa, people trying to find their birth parents. That became another big issue where I probably think we lost some friends over because the birth mothers did sign off at the time when they gave up the child, but after 10 or 15 years the birth parent wanted to find out what happened to the child so they came to the legislator's office. I am sure all MPs have had people ask them for help in trying to locate their children, or vice versa, people trying to find a parent.
We had a law in Manitoba that said that once parents signed off on the adoption, they had no right to find out where the child was or who adopted them. Just in the last five, six or seven years, the Manitoba government and perhaps other governments have taken measures to make it easier for people to get reunited and to track down their birth mothers or their children. Of course the rule has been put in place that both parties must agree to this before they are allowed to get together.
Sadly, there are examples of where one of the two parties does not want to co-operate and then we find a certain gentleman in my office trying to find his daughter. The searches are made and then it comes back that the birth daughter did not want to find her father. That is even more heartbreak on his part. I have not checked in lately to see how well he is doing with that. It is a very complicated and stressful issue.
The member has taken a great step here and he recognizes that the adoptions are more of a provincial issue, but it is certainly incumbent upon a federal government to look at these issues and to look at all sorts of equality issues.
Our member, the NDP member for Burnaby—New Westminster, has a bill before the House, Bill C-413, which would amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code to ensure that adoptive parents are entitled to the same number of weeks of paid leave as the biological mother of a newborn child. I have assisted him in introducing some of his petitions supporting his bill in the House.
The member for Burnaby—New Westminster has a very interesting and comprehensive petition that he has passed around and submitted literally hundreds and hundreds of names. We have sent around petitions for signing and, out of a group of eight or ten petitions, the two petitions that seem to be the most popular that people grab are the air passenger bill of rights,which I must say is certainly popular, but the--