Citizenship Promises Not Kept
Jan. 21st | Posted by Nicky
11 comments
When Bill C-14 was passed by the 1st session of the 39th parliament and put into effect in December 2007, the government’s intent was to stop discriminating against children adopted by Canadian families, by granting the children citizenship before they entered the country, instead of entering as permanent residents and then applying for citizenship afterwards.
In the following press release from Canadian Citizenship and Immigration, ”Canada makes it easier for children adopted overseas to become Canadian citizens,” on December 20, 2007, “The new legislation allows children adopted abroad by Canadian citizens to obtain Canadian citizenship without first having to become permanent residents. As a result, the difference in treatment between children adopted abroad and children born abroad to a Canadian parent is minimized.”
The concern at the time was that the new process would slow down the entry of children to Canada. Adoptive parents’ were worried that their children would stay longer in institutional care waiting for paperwork, instead of joining their families and beginning the next stage of their lives in loving homes.
The government assured families that the best interests of the children would be met. (From the same press release:) “Now, Canadians will apply for their adopted child’s citizenship abroad rather than submit sponsorship and permanent resident applications. Parents will save time and have less paperwork as the steps are merged into one.”
Fast forward to January 2009. For children in Ethiopia being adopted to Canadian families, the Citizenship process is taking months; whereas the old Permanent Resident Visa process is taking weeks. At the encouragement of the federal government, many families chose the citizenship route and are now trapped into the new process. They are extremely concerned about their children waiting for them and wondering when their parents will ever come pick them up.
The intent of the legislation is not being met. Children are unnecessarily being trapped in institutional care, which is detrimental to their growth and development, and deprived of stable and loving homes, while they wait for paperwork to be processed at the Canadian High Commission office in Nairobi, Kenya. These children are legally Canadian citizens’ children – the parents have been approved by Canadian provincial homestudy processes and the Ethiopian court systems have done their due diligence in examining each child’s case before conferring guardianship on the parents. The wait is unnecessary, and discriminative.
The process simply must be sped up – the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration must make good on its promise to make Citizenship a speedy route for foreign-born adopted children to come to Canada. Months of paper processing are simply not acceptable.
If you feel the same way I do, please write your own letter or cut and paste portions of mine above. Send it to
The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1L1
Minister@cic.gc.caMake sure you also send a copy to your local Member of Parliament. You can find out their address here.
Also send a copy to the Prime Minister’s Office. It doesn’t matter that the Prime Minister might be changing – the office logs letters and those numbers determine the office’s priorities.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A2
pm@pm.gc.ca
Great post!
Though I’m not an adoptive or soon-to-be adoptive parent, I feel strongly about the rights of these families and children being preserved.
I will definitely be writing a letter to Jason Kenney, my local MP, as well as Stephen Harper.
GREAT!
Hi Nicky,
I hope you don’t mind, but your post was so well written that I have put it up on my blog, with full credit to you. Is that ok? I want to get the word out on this as well!!
Claire
Thank you for the update on the process, Nicky. I want my grandchildren to reap the benefits of becoming part of our family as soon as they can. I definitely don’t want them stranded in limbo while paper is shuffled from one pile to another. The last thing the adopting parents, children and extended families need is more waiting and another layer of stress.
My letters will be going out tonight … Tomorrow I’ll be updating my friends and asking them to write letters as well.
Sounds great, Claire!
Thanks Mom!
Well.. I will definitely write and am happy too (regularly bothering my MP is the only thing that I feel I can do now as part of this process). Feeling like I am doing something productive is way better than just waiting! Thanks for letting us borrow your very well written letter. A
PS. I’m looking for a “Rotex Retrospective” speaker for our outbound orientation weekend in March. Any ideas?
I am also in the process of adopting from Ethiopia (we’re at the waiting for government approval stage) & I have to thank you for bringing my attention to this issue. I’ll be sending emails to all the goverment officials you mentioned, and I’ve passed it along to other adopting parents in my area so they can do so as well. Thanks again for a great post.
And once again, adoptive children in one part of the world are treated differently than those in another part of the world…
My friends just (as in about yesterday) returned from China with their newly adopted son. They went Citizenship process. Their son received Canadian citizenship – and his facilitation visa – in less than a week. (That would be Part II processing, I believe. Part I would have happened in advance.)
Why is there such a HUGE difference in how CIC (visa officers working in embassies abroad) functions????!!??? Why can’t service standards in Nairobi be the same as those in Beijing??!!??? I fail to understand…
Letter heading out ASAP. Thanks for bringing light to the situation…..some things are hard to know until your actually in the process/needing them.
I have my letter sent! Thanks for posting this!
Thanks for this. I have attached to my post and also sent a formatted letter by email to all my fam and friends. Your letter was SO helpful.
Laura