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Today is Monday, April 19, 2010 and this is the 11th meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
Our agenda for today is as follows: Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study of the Federal Support Measures to Adoptive Parents.
I would like to point out an error in the French version of the document.
I will read the motion that was adopted and we can then get down to work. The motion reads as follows:
The following motion was adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities:
Extract from the Minutes of Proceedings
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
It was agreed, —That the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development, and the Status of Persons with Disabilities 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.
The committee will now hear from Mr. Jeff Watson, MP for the riding of , on the motion in question.
[English]
Mr. Watson, I think you have a proposition to make to us.
:
Thank you, Madam Vice-Chair.
Thank you to the committee, first of all for your patience in awaiting my testimony. As you may well know, last week I was ill to the point where I couldn't be in Ottawa, so I appreciate your patience and flexibility in accommodating my appearance here today.
I also want to thank the committee for in effect resurrecting my former motion, Motion 386, and for maintaining unanimity in doing so. I appreciate that the committee now owns the substance of the motion as its own, and I'm excited that we're able to move on and begin some of that study.
I have a few thoughts to share that hopefully will give some direction and I'll be pleased to take your questions afterward.
By now, of course, many of you will know my own story. In 1970 my biological mother came to Canada from Croatia four months pregnant with me. Because of some of the difficulties she faced being in a new country--language barriers and many other things--she made a choice, a difficult choice, to place me with what was then the Roman Catholic Children's Aid Society for adoption. I was adopted as an infant only a few weeks after my birth in 1971, so issues surrounding adoption certainly are very close to my heart on a personal level.
I have long had a dream, probably since childhood, that Canada would be a place that would welcome and affirm the worth of all children, particularly those who find themselves without parents, that is, children who are born in Canada, and children from countries all around the world who cannot be placed with families in their own countries.
As an observation on where we find ourselves today, I think the infrastructure, if you will, surrounding adoption in Canada was created for a mid-20th century reality, but not necessarily for 21st century realities. Just as one illustration, I think we are going to be faced—particularly with climate change producing more dramatic crises—with an increase in humanitarian challenges in the 21st century. The example around Haiti and the earthquake, while that may or may not be linked to climate change, showed us, however, that when governments are focused on removing obstacles, we can respond quickly to those who are already in the queue for adoption. But I ask the question: how do we create an infrastructure for adoption so that we don't have to react?
This raises, of course, a prime question for the committee in its study, one that I've grappled with as an individual member. I certainly respect, first of all, the privileges of a committee, but also the jurisdictions of both the federal and the provincial and territorial governments; that is, how do you examine federal supports in isolation without looking at the infrastructure of adoption in Canada? The infrastructure, if you will, the delivery of adoption, rests in provincial and territorial authority, so how does one square the circle?
After thinking about this for some time, I think it's appropriate for the committee to make a comprehensive study of the infrastructure of adoption and the supports around it, to make observations, but ultimately to make a recommendation to the federal government to make it part of an agenda, perhaps within 12 months of the report being issued, to sit down, either as a first ministers item or with the relevant federal minister and provincial and territorial counterparts, and to examine how the two levels together can renew the mid-20th century infrastructure of adoption to support 21st century realities.
Beyond that, there may be a few other areas. I'll mention them in brief for the committee to consider.
One, the committee may want to look at immigration policy for the federal government and whether we need to create, in order to respond to humanitarian challenges, an adoption class at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. It's an issue that I have recently brought to the attention of the minister and his policy people. I am personally interested in whether that can be functional.
Also, the committee may want to look at how we can encourage the adoption of older children. It's a particularly troubling trend that everybody wants a young child. Those who are older come with more challenges. How do we make it easier for families to take in older children? We may want to look at what supports we give adoptive parents to cope with the difficulties and challenges around adoption. I'm talking about post-adoption services and who funds them. Ultimately, how do we recognize the equivalency of parenting and child value with respect to special EI benefits?
Finally, as a broad encouragement to the committee, I encourage you to consider a landmark study. Think big, if for no other reason than to raise the profile of adoption throughout Canada and place the appropriate affirmation on the value of each and every human being. It is a rare opportunity to look at this topic. I encourage you to be bold, courageous, and thorough, but to ensure that government responds effectively, it is also important to keep recommendations focused and not so numerous that they become a recipe for ineffective action.
With that, I will thank the committee for letting me appear. I will answer what questions I can. I know that stakeholders who come after me will certainly have much greater statistical knowledge and will be able to respond, but I will do the best I can.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair. I may be sharing with Mr. Savage.
What you're saying brings back an interesting comment for me. I visited Bangladesh recently. One of the questions that came to me repeatedly when I was there, from media and from a couple of ministers, was whether Canada was prepared to accept climate-change refugees--families, as well as children.
I suspect that at some point if there were a crisis of some kind, like the tsunami or the earthquake in Haiti, there might be children who would need to be helped through adoptions and what have you. That brings in the element of immigration and refugees, so the Canadian government probably has a role to play in creating some sort of section to deal with climate change refugees or disaster situations for children and adults. Have you thought about that aspect of it and how the refugee angle would work?
You said it would require special EI benefits for these parents. Are you referring to something different from what exists now in EI for birth parents and adoptive parents, something that would require changes?
There are always major concerns by the countries from which these children come. When I was the Minister for International Cooperation and visited developing countries in Africa and other places, the major concern was that the developed countries were always keen to take children, but those countries didn't want lose their children. They didn't want them to be sent away en masse to other countries. They wanted to raise them. They wanted help to keep their children.
So that's another way of looking at it. There is a bit of an ethical issue that we really need to look at that is very real. I think we need to address that as well as the other.
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Thanks to the member for that series of questions. I'll try to do the best I can.
Obviously for humanitarian crises, we're not just talking about climate change. There may be other situations that arise: famine, natural disasters, or war. These, of course, are situations that produce a number of parentless children.
I think one of the important reasons for examining how we do adoption is to reconcile... I shouldn't say reconcile, probably, but renovate. It is to renovate, ultimately, how we do adoption here in Canada to accommodate the reality that these are increasing trends. Is the current system nimble enough, if you will, to respond, and are the supports sufficient to allow that to happen?
I encourage us to think proactively about these situations rather than reactively. I think we did a fair job with respect to Haiti, but that was responding to a situation. How do we look ahead now, knowing these situations will occur in the future? Can we create a system, together with our partners at the provincial and territorial level, that will allow us to respond nimbly?
The other issue, of course—and I think I made mention of it in my comments—is that obviously, as a priority, you want to see children placed with families in their own countries, but where that can't happen, can our system accommodate bringing them into families here who would like to adopt?
With respect to the other issue, I'm getting at an equivalent benefit to maternity. I think the government has made a step forward in the sense that the self-employed now have the opportunity to opt into parental maternity benefits. The next obvious question that has to be asked, both for the self-employed and for those who are not self-employed, is: should we be looking at some additional benefit that would, through special EI benefits, recognize that there are significant challenges to adoptive parents and children in forming attachment? They need sufficient time and means to do that, in my opinion.
I think that was an area that, as I heard in the speeches at second reading, there was a unanimous thought around. I suspect that will emerge as a recommendation from this committee in whatever report comes out, but there are real and significant challenges, both for parents and for children, in forming those attachments in a situation of adoption. For biological children, some of that attachment begins during the pregnancy, so you have—
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Watson, I was going to talk about my experience with adoption here and get your view on that. I have both a brother and a sister who have adopted, one here in Canada, one in China--different circumstances, but in some cases, similar challenges.
I want to get a sense from you of what you expect of this committee. You've outlined it a bit, to be bold, etc., but when this came to the House, I had a chat with you about this because I wasn't sure exactly where this was going to go, and I think it's a worthwhile study. But this committee does have a number of things on its plate. What are your expectations? What would you like to see the committee do in terms of time in studying this motion?
:
Thank you to the member for the question.
I don't know if I have the exact cost, because that will vary by jurisdiction, but it can be a significant cost, particularly when you're getting into international adoption, which can be extremely costly. You could be running as high as $30,000 or $35,000 for an international adoption. But certainly it's not unrealistic to be spending $10,000 to $15,000 with respect to adoption. I think there are other witnesses who can provide more detailed information by jurisdiction on how that goes.
There will be some opportunity for this committee as well to take a look at adoption across the country, and one of the reasons that I think it would be good for this committee is that best practices can be looked at as well. In particular, the Province of Quebec is quite ahead of the rest of the country in this regard, and there may be some lessons learned for the committee in looking at how they handle the issue of adoption.
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You have partially answered my question and since our time is limited, I would like to ask you one final question, if that's okay with you.
I agree that financial considerations are important, but I would also imagine that you would like parents to have access to services before and after the adoption. Quebec treats adoptive parents the same way as biological parents. Adoptive parents have access to parental benefits. Before and after the adoption, they are even eligible to receive psychological support from our youth centres, as well as being eligible for a refundable tax credit covering 50% of adoption-related expenses, up to a maximum of $10,000.
What concerns me in particular is the fact that your motion claims to recognize and respect provincial and territorial jurisdictions. If this committee is prepared to hear you and recommend measures, I'd like to know if you are prepared to allow Quebec, in this motion, to have the right to withdraw unconditionally from any proposed measures with full compensation.
I have a series of questions. I will ask them all and you can pick one.
Right now some parents have been waiting for their adoptions from the country of Nepal. They were told there is a suspension going on. Some of these parents have been waiting for many years. For this country, Nepal, perhaps there were some problems previously, but some of the 2009 adoptions need to be finalized. My office received some calls about that, so I am using this as an example of occasional situations where Canadian families who want to adopt children from some countries lose that opportunity. This could be one of the areas we could study, but Nepal is definitely a problem.
The number two area that I can flag is that the immigration committee last year discussed the issue of how second-generation children, if born abroad, could become non-citizens. For example, if I am born outside of Canada and my adopted child happens to be living in Beijing and has a child there, my granddaughter will become stateless. She will not be a Canadian citizen. That would apply only to adopted kids who come into the country as landed immigrants. This is an area that's a problem. A lot of parents with adopted kids say that it's not fair for their children if they end up having children outside Canada. This is a second area that we might consider.
There is a third area that may be worthy of discussion. I know that a lot of the children's aid societies across Canada--especially the one in Toronto, for example--are looking for foster parents, especially in some of the ethnic communities. Some kind of countrywide promotion of people who want to be foster parents may be an area that this committee or the federal government can look at.
The fourth area that I think may be of interest, and on which I want your comment, is that I know that a higher percentage of teenagers who are from foster homes sometimes get into trouble and end up leaving home. Some of them have great difficulty finding housing when they turn sixteen, so housing for kids who are from adopted or from foster care homes is an area that this committee can possibly look at.
I thought I would present those four areas that came to my mind and see if you can comment on any of them.
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Thank you to the member for the questions.
I'm not sure that I've considered all of those issues myself in putting forward the study. Let me just say first and foremost that ultimately the committee can and will determine in which direction they can go.
There are probably 50 or 100 different issues that have some bearing on adoption or are at least peripheral to it. My overarching sense of this--let me come back to that for a moment, if I could--was that we could examine the system both in terms of federal supports and in terms of the adoption system itself with an eye to seeing how that can be renovated to the new realities. My concern is that the system has some deficiencies, ultimately; it was created for a different time period. Some of these areas may get looked at by the committee. I don't know what you're going to ultimately choose, but how do we bring that system into the 21st century?
Ultimately, I think, I would like to see this put high on the agenda for either a first ministers meeting or for the relevant ministers to begin to look at how we would do this in partnership, because it can't be done in isolation. I know that the study will make recommendations to the federal side only, but looking at how we bring this into the 21st century will require a partnership moving forward.
Those were my original considerations, but it will touch on a number of areas, obviously. It could touch on areas like immigration policy. I think I mentioned in my opening statement the particular concern about how we encourage the consideration of adopting older children. There is typically a preference among parents for an infant or for someone young enough... There are all kinds of challenges.
At one point in our quest to adopt children, my wife and I considered, because my wife is a sign-language interpreter, whether or not we would consider a young deaf child, or an older deaf child, for that matter, because of our ability to meet the language needs. This could go in a number of directions, and I'll be interested to see what the committee ultimately settles on.
If I may add to that, I know that Mr. Savage asked about duration. I don't know how many meetings this will take, but I just don't want it to be a quick study that could miss some of the meaty substance of some of these issues. I know that the calendar can get quite crowded, but hopefully there will be a good amount of time spent on this, both to give it profile and to get into some of the weighty issues in front of the committee.
The other and perhaps more difficult aspect is the issue of international adoptions and creating a specific class with respect to the classes in immigration. From everything I've seen, adoption is being handled provincially, through each of the provinces, and they have, I suppose, differing rules and procedures. Essentially, they do have the fact that it must be in the best interests of the child or the children, and that's fair.
The federal government has been involved primarily post-adoption, after the province, with respect to citizenship. Its involvement has been particularly in that area, and sort of augmenting what the provinces do, what they're able to do, and I guess probably what constitutionally they have a right to do.
So if you're going to move from that provincial jurisdiction into creating a new adoption class, it would seem to me that there might be some constitutional issues we would have to study. Perhaps, depending on what the constitutional issues might be, any venture by the federal government into the adoption process might then require a form of collaboration or agreement with the various provinces, and therefore may not be something that can be done directly by legislation.
So that's a more problematic area, as I see it, but would you want us to study the constitutional possibilities, including the collaborative approach that might be taken with the provinces to achieve this unique class of adoption?
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Thanks to the member for the question.
Obviously there could be some real technical challenges. I'm not aware of all of them, nor am I aware of all the ones you mentioned specifically. The principle at play here is partnership, I think. Each level of government has a role to play with respect to adoption and fostering the necessary kinds of attachments. How do we respond to some of the humanitarian challenges as well?
I'm not necessarily suggesting that the federal government move into provincial areas. What I'm suggesting, certainly, and what I think the committee would be well within its right to suggest, is to first of all examine these studies. Don't be afraid of looking at some of the tough areas.
Ultimately, it would be fruitful to have either the relevant ministers or the first ministers have some discussion at some point about how we deliver adoption in Canada. What better way is there to respect the jurisdictions and yet foster the necessary partnership--if possible--around this topic than to have that happen at some point? I think it would also give some serious profile to adoption in Canada.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for sharing your time, Mr. Komarnicki.
Thank you for coming here, Mr. Watson, and also for bringing your lovely bride with you, and for your passion for the issue.
All around the room we have stories of families, some of whom have not been able to have children and have tried to through in vitro fertilization, and others who haven't been successful there and have gone to adoption.
I have limited time. You mentioned the cost, which is something that has always boggled my mind. People always say that throwing more money at the problem is a solution. From your experience, what is the major delay and what is the reason for the high expense for processing adoptions? How can we work together to streamline, from the federal perspective, a more efficient process?
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Sorry, but may I make a very quick comment?
The Chair: Sure.
Hon. Maria Minna: Thank you, Madam Chair.
I don't want to sound insensitive, but it seems to me that the only role the Government of Canada has here, given that this is provincial jurisdiction, is the immigration role, which is what we do now. We only act on immigration now once the province has already done the family study; when the family has been approved, then we do the immigration thing. I know, because I've gone through it recently in my riding, that we don't approve the immigration until the province has done its piece. So that stays about the same.
The only other thing would be the EI, if we wanted to look at expanding it, but I don't see any role here that would be required other than what already exists.
So I'm not clear about what we're being asked to do here. That's my major comment. Because I think we have it, really, except for the EI part, which I suppose we could discuss.
I'm sorry, I don't mean...[Inaudible--Editor].
The Chair: Mr. Watson?
Yes. When we're looking at humanitarian situations, the primary consideration, of course, is not to run roughshod over any other country but to work in partnership with legitimate governments. The first priority has to be placing children from those countries with families in their own countries, but there may not be the capacity to do it. Beyond that, do we have a system that's nimble enough to allow us to then pair up families here in our country who are more than willing to adopt children from other countries and to give them the love, the attachment, and the affirmation they'd like to give them?
But the primary consideration has to be to place these children, where possible, with families in their own countries first. Beyond that, can we make that a reality here?
I don't know if that answers the question, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak, Madam Vice-Chair. I am not a regular member of this committee, so this is a timely opportunity for me. The question arose as to whether the committee had the authority to consider this matter. Yet, here we are having this discussion.
I have firsthand experience with this issue. I have a Peruvian-born son is will soon be 30 years old. Thirty years ago, that is over a quarter century ago, Quebec had full jurisdiction with regard to the adoption procedures that we followed. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to you that we favour the status quo. That brings me to the matter of principles.
As many people have realized, international jurisdictions are quite clear. It is the responsibility of the “adoptive” country to verify if the parents are qualified to adopt children. Obviously, in my case, the answer was yes. Peru, not Quebec or Canada, was responsible for verifying that there were no restrictions on adopting the child. In such instances, it is a matter of preventing kidnappings and the kinds of rumours that may have circulated in the past. These countries are free to agree to or to oppose the adoption, to allow or not to allow people to remove children from the country. That is their prerogative. It is important to check everything carefully, because a child cannot be returned. Adopting a child is not a short- or medium-term commitment, but rather a lifelong one. The adopted child does not come with a guarantee and you cannot send a child back to their country of origin, like you would return a parcel through the mail.
Some very simple, basic principles need to be applied here. First of all, it makes no difference whether a child is a biological child or an adopted child. I've never seen any difference between my children. Some are my biological children, while other have been adopted. The adopted child should not be treated any differently. That child knows that he has been adopted, that the size of his hands, the colour of his skin, the shape of his eyes and the colour of his hair are different. He does not need to be made to feel different because of administrative procedures. If the mother of an adopted child receives less in the way of employment insurance benefits than a mother who gives birth to a child, then the adopted child will be made to feel that he is worth less. And the outcome will be same if a mother received specific benefits associated with an adopted child. Adopted children will think that it cost more to meet their needs. Regardless of what you do, the adopted child will always end up feeling as if he his second class. The same is true for the parents. As I see it, from the moment an adoption takes place, the person becomes a parent, end of discussion. There is no worse insult than to say to parents that one of their children is adopted, while the other is their biological child. At least I would consider that to be the worst offensive remark that anyone could make to me.
However, with respect to the tax credit to cover expenses, that is a different story. The expenses associated with a foreign adoption are staggering, whether it be the legal costs, translation costs or some other expense. However, once that child becomes part of the family, he must never be treated differently. Otherwise, the adverse effects on the child are enormous.
:
Thank you for being here. We appreciate your time.
We will ask our witnesses from the Adoption Council of Canada and the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa to come forward at this time. We have a few questions for them as well.
I'd like to thank our witnesses, Laura Eggertson and Barbara MacKinnon, for being here on such short notice.
Just so committee members are aware, there is an exhibit this week in Ottawa called the “Heart Gallery of Ottawa”. The Adoption Council of Canada is here. We felt that if we had a bit of time we'd make some time to hear from these folks on adoption and on the exhibit they've brought forward.
Thank you so much for being here.
Some information for the members has been distributed, and hopefully that will put this into some context, but what I'd like to do is just give the witnesses an opportunity to briefly share what they're doing. Then we'll have a brief opportunity for just one round of questioning.
We'd like to have the chance to hear what you're doing in Ottawa.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Barbara and I are going to share some time here, but I just want to start by saying that we really welcome the committee's decision to look at this whole issue of what the federal government can do to support adoption in Canada. We do feel that a number of areas would really benefit from this study, and we would be happy to get back to you in more detail about those issues at a different time.
But today, we'll just tell you a little bit about the Heart Gallery. The Heart Gallery is a concept that was pioneered in the United States. The Heart Gallery of America began in 2001 in New Mexico. The idea is that local photographers donate their time to take portraits of children who are waiting for permanent families. These are children in foster care.
This has been quite successful in the United States, so we looked at doing it here because we need more innovative tools and solutions. There are many thousands of children in foster care who are legally free for adoption across Canada, but our domestic adoption rates are stagnating. They really haven't risen over probably the past decade, if not more. They're roughly in the range of 1,700 to 2,000 per year. We need other ways to attract potential adoptive families and to match these children with those families.
That's why we decided on this. We spoke to the Children's Aid Society here in Ottawa, because we are here in Ottawa. The Adoption Council of Canada is a national organization, but it's headquartered in Ottawa. We also knew that the Children's Aid Society here had a good track record of trying new things, reaching out, and being quite aggressive about trying to recruit parents. We hope this will be a pilot project.
On Thursday night here on Parliament Hill, we launched the gallery. We had portraits of 18 different children from right here in Ottawa who need permanent families. Some were in sibling groups; I think we had three sibling groups. Others were single children in need of permanent homes. The idea is that this gallery will tour--hopefully--in some federal government buildings, municipal buildings, private companies, or office buildings, to attract a different audience of adoptive parents and families who might not have thought about adopting these particular children, who might not have thought about opening their homes to another child in general, and who will then follow up with the Children's Aid Society here to go through the appropriate process if they decide they would like to adopt.
That's the idea behind the Heart Gallery. As I say, it's been quite successful. Some jurisdictions in the United States have seen the numbers of calls and requests from potential adoptive parents doubling. There have been matches made, with as much as 50% of the children pictured in the galleries placed or potentially matched in some areas, and between 25% and 40% in other jurisdictions. That's why we decided to do it here. We hope it will spread across the country.
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I want to follow up on why the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa decided to participate in this exciting initiative. It really is about the fact that we persistently struggle in finding adoptive families for older children and sibling groups. When children come into care they often experience positive growth while they're in foster homes, but regardless of how positive their experience is, they are always wanting a “forever family”.
For them it is about what is going to happen when they leave care, when they leave the system. Who is going to be at their graduation? Who is going to help them move into their first apartment? Who is going to be there when their first baby is born? Who is going to help them figure out their finances? All of these are things that those of you who are parents in this room know. You parent forever, and children want to be children forever and have that support.
We are constantly challenged to find people who are willing to open their home to older children; there is this classic kind of picture of adoption with babies. So because of that, this innovative process was introduced to us by the Adoption Council of Canada. We were quite excited about it, because we've found that what works best for recruitment is child-specific recruitment--in other words, creating that personal connection. We know, with the studies in social marketing, that the use of Facebook and pictures is a way of creating a connection. We were very pleased when this option came forward to us.
I think the piece we liked the best, and what was really positive for us, is that the children we approached to see if they were interested in being a part of this gallery felt very excited about it. They felt that they were part of the process. They first of all have to agree that they want to participate.
When older children are in adoption, they can be your partners in finding the adoptive family of their choice. This gallery provides them the option. They have these pictures that capture the essence of who they are. They write their own little biography about who they are and what they can offer family, recognizing that they have something to bring into a family. As well, they have the opportunity to really feel they are trying to make a difference to their own lives.
It has been a very positive experience to date in terms of the reaction of the children to this process, so we're feeling very positive. We hope that in your discussions there is the recognition that there is something different about adoption and that there is a need for children to be adopted, that every child in Canada needs a family, and, within that, that we need to be creative about how we find those families and how we support those families in preparation and the ongoing role of being an adoptive parent.
We look forward to seeing the results of your report.
Certainly you have a lot to offer all of us when it comes to adoption issues. When we're doing our formal study on this, I think it would be very beneficial to bring you back and have you prepare a report for us.
We're going to have only one round of questions. I will give each group seven minutes.
If you'd like to divide it between the parties, you could all ask a question and still get to the committee business we'd like to do.
Mr. Savage, you will have seven minutes. If you'd like to divide it, you could.
:
Madam Chair, I thank the member for the question.
First of all, let me explain that we have a hard time getting good statistics in Canada about adoption, particularly about domestic adoption. Part of the problem is that every province, of course, keeps its own statistics and classifies the children perhaps a little differently in terms of their legal freedom for adoption.
I can tell you, according to some old statistics, that we think there are between 70,000 and perhaps 100,000 children in care, but not all of them are legally free for adoption. We figure that between maybe 30,000 and 40,000 are legally free for adoption across Canada. In Ontario, the latest figures from the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies say that there are about 9,400 children and youths who are legally free for adoption. That's from infants all the way up to 18-year-olds.
:
There are many jurisdictions that are doing a good job, both inside and outside of Canada. There are many best practices, as was discussed by Mr. Watson today.
I'm particularly familiar with what's going on in the United States right now. They have been much more aggressive with many of their recruitment ideas in many U.S. states. For instance, there's an agency in New York City called “You Gotta Believe!” and its sole purpose is to move young people who are aging out of the foster care system and place them in permanent homes. They have found adoptive families for young people who are 18, 19, 20, or 21.
Generally in Canada--and maybe Barbara can correct me--there has been a feeling amongst both the general population and the workers in the children's aid societies that these young people, these teens, are not adoptable, but I think we can change that. Certainly the Adoption Council of Canada has a philosophy--and I think it's shared by the Children's Aid Society here in Ottawa--that no child, no young person, is unadoptable.
:
We will share our time, since I'm the adopted member of the committee for the day.
I find what you have done to be very interesting, and no doubt you will have answers to the questions that I am about to ask you, although I am a little skeptical. After reading the documents, a number of warning bells went off in my head. Given that 30,000 children are awaiting adoption, I'm concerned that a photo exhibit like this one will turn into a kind of market. No doubt when it came to photographing some children as opposed to others, you followed certain criteria. And no doubt that you will follow certain guidelines when the time comes to select the photographs of children that will be one display—I'm somewhat uncomfortable with that expression— in the exhibit. I'm sure that other criteria apply to the opening of the exhibit. As everyone knows, some spots on the exhibition floor are more important or popular than others. Not all exhibit spaces are of equal value. No doubt you have had to comply with the photographer's requirements, whether it be in terms of colour, or black and white photographs, size, and so forth.
I would like you to reassure me a bit on that score, since I'm concerned that the exhibition will be a little like the classified ads. I'm very skeptical about the whole process. That's my only question.
:
The challenge with doing a recruitment strategy like this is that you have to find the balance between making sure the message gets out there, which is that there are children who are looking for families, and creating those personal connections that will draw people in, and maintaining the integrity and privacy of the individual without putting anyone at risk.
The gallery we have is very beautiful. There is that kind of a mix, so I'm not quite sure if you're speaking of what we're doing... That's what we feel the major process is really about: what you do to prepare the children for it and the inclusion of them in that process. It's similar to what we do to include children in their journey towards adoption. It's a piece of that, to include them in the process, and to prepare them for the eventuality.
As well, a lot of it is about making sure that you do appropriate screening and have the checks and balances in place to ensure that it isn't a marketplace, that it really is more of a drawing of attention to a critical issue. But it's a constant balance that we take at the society, knowing that we could have more children adopted if we were farther out there in terms of trying different strategies, but wanting to ensure that every child does get adopted. Research shows that these methods are very effective at being able to do that.
:
First of all, thank you very much for coming here.
I think it's a little hard for us to envision this photo gallery. I'm concerned that families who claim to be interested... I don't quite see the difference between adoption, in your case, where you become a host family... However, if I understand correctly, you would like host families to be there permanently.
Are you not worried that all kinds of families might show up? What procedure will be followed if a family expresses an interest in adopting a child? What steps will be taken to ensure that this is a safe family for the child?
I would also like to know if you are satisfied with Mr. Watson's motion. Putting it another way, would you like the committee to bring in measures to encourage other families to adopt?
:
I'll answer the question about what happens once somebody identifies an interest.
We have an extensive screening process and an education process that families go through to ensure that they are ready to adopt. It ensures that they have a full understanding of the complexities and challenges of adopting older children and that they recognize the importance of respecting the child's history and where they have come from. It's an extensive training program as well as a screening program. All the appropriate checks and balances are in place in terms of safety and security issues, records checks, interviews, and resumés. It is a very challenging process.
The second piece is a really important piece. You can have people who are available and interested in being parents, but the most important piece is making sure that this parent matches that child and will be appropriately supportive in the development of the child, based on the needs and wants of that individual child. It's not just about having people come in the front door. There is extensive screening to make sure they are able to parent. Then there's another round of decisions about who they would best parent. Then there is the process of introducing them to the children and the children deciding whether these people are appropriate.
Compared to an international adoption, this is a much more intrusive process, here in Canada, that has a number of checks and balances in place.
:
Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Martin.
We see a number of potential barriers to adoption. I speak also as an adoptive parent and an adoptee. I adopted two older children through the Children's Aid Society here in Ottawa.
Awareness is one of the biggest barriers. As was mentioned, lot of people don't know how many children are available for adoption in Canada. They don't know the ages. They don't think that it necessarily would be possible for them to parent an older child. One of the issues is post-adoption support. There are ways... We have a couple of different adoptive parents support groups in Ottawa that are just volunteer-run groups, but they're doing a lot of parent-to-parent education. That kind of support, more widely available throughout Canada, is very helpful. Various supports in terms of...
We're not asking for special supports for adoptive parents in terms of EI. We would like equal supports for biological and adoptive parents. That means we would like to see not just the parental leave that adoptive parents can now qualify for, but also to have adoptive parents be able to qualify for the same number of weeks, because of some of the attachment issues that I think you've heard a little about. We can talk about that more at a later date.
Just the awareness, though, just promoting adoption as an option... When we talk about permanency, we're talking about legal adoption, but we also may be talking about kinship care among the aboriginal communities, legal guardianship, and custodial care. We have a number of options, but the intent is that children do not have to be moved from foster home to foster home throughout their time in the child welfare system.
Again, we have a number of areas where we think the federal government could be helpful, even just with a national campaign that would raise awareness of adoptive families, of people who have adopted and how successful that's been, to show that it is an option at different ages and stages.
:
That would be extremely useful, because the different provinces have different ideas about subsidies. There is nothing standardized across the country. Even within some provinces, there's nothing standardized.
For example, Ontario has no guaranteed subsidies if you are adopting a child with special needs, or an older child, or anything... In fact, I think Barbara will say that the children's aid societies do not have a budget per se. They do not have a budget item to provide those kinds of subsidies or post-adoption support. They kind of cobble it together sometimes, out of their own budgets, where it's needed.
But some other provinces... Alberta, I believe, has a guaranteed subsidy, for example, for parents who are adopting children with particular needs. One of those needs may simply be being an older child or in a sibling group.
So yes, there's a wide range of options across the country. In fact, Ontario had a report that came out this summer and looked at those issues. It's called “Raising Expectations”. It speaks to the issue just in Ontario, but it would be very helpful to know what the situation is in each province and to look at ways of equalizing that support.
Mr. Ben Lobb: Okay. Thank you.
:
Thanks for being with us. I look forward to your possible appearance again, Laura and Barbara, at a future time when we can get into more of the details of obstacles you presently see and some of the other difficulties in the system and where we might ease that.
I have a younger brother whose oldest is an adopted son. He's a wonderful teenaged young man at this point and is a great hockey player and all those kinds of things. They weren't able to have children, so that's why they proceeded with the adoption. After they adopted him, they conceived and had two children. Sometimes that's the way it works, it seems.
Anyhow, this gal was from the other end of the country, this young gal in her late teens, and she felt that she was not able to be the mom and provide the kind of support context for the young baby, so they made the choice. It was a good thing for her and, obviously, for them as well.
I guess that gets to my two questions. The second is about open adoption, its track record, and what you're finding to be the assessment of it over these many years. The other thing is, do you have ways, either through the Adoption Council of Canada or children's aid societies, of promoting adoption to university gals, late teenage gals, or otherwise--older than that as well--who are caught in unplanned pregnancies?
I appreciated your little statement before in terms of there being no unwanted child, only unfound parents, and I believe that really is true. When gals maybe don't feel able to carry...maybe that would be their first choice, but they feel they can't, or are troubled or uneasy with proceeding to an abortion, do you have ways to promote that in a university context across our country, to let them know of the real possibility of adoption, and the open adoption as well?
:
We do not currently reach out to university students or to anyone in particular to say that adoption is an option except in the sense that, as the Adoption Council of Canada, we try to promote adoption as an option to anyone. We represent birth parents as well as adoptees and adoptive parents.
Part of our challenge is funding. We don't actually receive any support from any provinces, with the exception of Alberta, which gives us $10,000 a year towards our Canada's Waiting Children program. We're constantly struggling to find funding.
We would like to be able to promote adoption as an option more effectively across the country to everyone; we're not going to target a particular population, I don't think, but we are looking at trying to raise the funds for a national campaign identifying, perhaps, prominent Canadians who have benefited from adoption, and making it more high profile as an issue. We would love to see people like yourselves talking about it more often, just talking about the issue of the children who are in child welfare systems across Canada and the fact they need homes.
:
Sure. I can speak to that. And Barbara is also an adoptive parent.
My children were eight and nine respectively when I adopted them. There are definitely issues of attachment, as was discussed. These children have known their birth families; it's not like the situation of an infant. I was adopted myself as an infant, but I don't have any memories of my birth family. Children who come into care when they have been in their birth families for some period of time, and who then eventually become legally free for adoption, have memories. They often have had visits in the past. They may have siblings. They may be separated from siblings. Their whole conception of family is a little more complicated, perhaps, than the situation when you're adopting an infant.
Primarily, in my view and in my experience, the issues that are difficult are issues of trauma rather than issues of adoption. The children don't come into the Children's Aid Society just because their parents were killed in a car accident, necessarily; there is usually some reason why they are not with their family of origin. Those reasons may be very difficult for the children. That is often what plays out in their adoptive families.
I think adopting older children can be extremely successful, but the parents need to be well supported. I did it as a single parent and I know that I had a lot of help from the Children's Aid Society here in Ottawa. It really made a difference for me.
The other thing is that issues can emerge, as they can for any children growing up in a family. Whether you are the biological parent or the adoptive parent, there are things you may or may not be prepared for, and you may need to be flexible. You may need to adjust your expectations and you may go through difficult patches sometimes, but with enough support, I think these can be very successful placements and adoptions.
On Friday in Halifax I attended a celebration of Canada's ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At that celebration, I spoke with some of the local folks who are also involved nationally. We've all been invited to attend a celebration of Canada's ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities next Wednesday, April 28, here in Ottawa, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The minister is going to speak.
What was mentioned to me was that a number of the leaders in the disability community, from across Canada, are going to be in Ottawa that day. That's a Wednesday. So I broached this idea with them and said that I would bring it up with the committee. I was wondering, if we don't have something pressing that day, whether it might be an opportunity to meet with some of the leaders in the disability community next Wednesday to talk about our study and to get their views on how we might go forward. I bring that up for your consideration. That's why it's time sensitive.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Looking at the motion, I understand where Mr. Martin is trying to go here. Obviously, to have a very accurate opinion or assessment, we would need to peel back the federal layers, the provincial layers, and the municipal layers to really have a good understanding.
I know that he speaks specifically here about the Government of Canada, but obviously, with provincial transfers... We may have poverty solved before we get the final answer on where these costs are. If there are specific areas that Mr. Martin feels passionate about and wants to know about, as part of our final suggestions with a report, that might be more helpful as a specific piece of it, whether it's the guaranteed income supplement, or housing, or something specific and identifiable that the government staff might be able to get back to us on in a timely manner.
This looks like a lifetime project here, so I think we should take that under consideration.
:
I agree with my colleague for those reasons. We can start wordsmithing the motion and never get it exactly right for everybody. What matters is the intent.
The other reason that I like the idea of including tax expenditures is that it's one thing we never look at. I remember dealing with this when I was on this committee, back in the nineties, believe it or not.
At that time, we asked Finance to produce all of the tax expenditures and they did, but there was very little evaluation as to whether they in fact impacted socially the way they were intended to or were meant to, and what the cost and the real impact were. For instance, certain credits affect only a small number, not what was intended, and what have you. And the cost to the treasury...because it's money that ultimately could be shifted in other ways as we look at a program.
To have this committee understand how the tax expenditures work is very important, I think. Just looking at that one piece, for me, makes this motion worthwhile.