Adoptive families take a stance on Bill C-14

In June 2007, Bill C-14 An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act (Adoption) was passed by both Houses of Parliament and received Royal Assent. This Bill did away with the need for internationally adopted children to apply for permanent resident status to come to Canada and instead spelled out that they could receive Canadian citizenship if certain conditions (relating to the best interests of the child, the fulfilment of legal requirements, and it being a bona fide adoption) were met.

For the past four and a half months, the adoption world has been anxiously awaiting the publication of the regulations spelling out how the new procedures would work. A draft of these new regulations was finally made public in the Canada Gazette of November 3, 2007, and interested parties invited to comment on them.

Families who are adopting from Ethiopia have taken the initiative to prepare a response to the regulations. While we are supportive of the Bill, and while the procedure and supporting documentation required for this new process appear relatively straightforward, we nevertheless have concerns relating to how long it takes to bring our children home.

The introduction to the proposed new regulations states that "It is anticipated that the applications for citizenship will be completed in a similar time frame as the immigration permanent resident applications" and again "As this is a new service line for citizenship, service standards are currently under development."

These statements are of little comfort, given that the “service standard” for permanent resident visa applications is for a decision to be made within six months. Adoptions from some countries (notably China) benefit from very efficient processing that enables a permanent resident visa to be issued within four working DAYS. If citizenship applications for adopted children receive similar treatment, nobody adopting from China will be upset.

However, adoptions from most other countries do not benefit from such efficient treatment for permanent resident visa processing. PR visas for adopted children are supposed to be expedited, but the meaning of “expedited” varies from country to country. For adoptions from Ethiopia, it is currently taking up to four MONTHS (and counting) from the time the visa application is received at the Canadian Consulate until the visa is issued. (Note: that is based on the stats for me and two other families, whose applications were received at the consulate 11 weeks ago and whose children’s medical forms have not yet been sent to Addis. Once they reach Addis, it will take another seven weeks for the visa to be issued, based on current processing timelines.) If citizenship applications for adopted children receive similar treatment, nobody adopting from Ethiopia will be happy.

We believe that it is in the best interests of our children to bring them home as quickly as possible so as to minimize the time they spend in an institutional setting. (Even a very good institution is still an institution.) It is in the Canadian government's power to do so; they merely need to establish a specific service standard for processing the new citizenship applications and then stick to that standard.

(We also believe that the variable treatment in different countries for processing permanent resident visa applications for adopted children is not fair or equitable, and that CIC should establish consistent standards that will result in equitable treatment no matter what country a child is adopted from.)

Therefore, we prepared a position letter outlining our concerns and the rationale behind them, and invited adoptive families to send letters of support for the position.

(19 Nov: I've removed the position and support letters from this blog. If you'd be interested in seeing one, feel free to e-mail me and ask for a copy.)