Hello All, this is Nicky’s sister, Ena. I am posting for Nicky because, as you know from Jrock’s post, she is currently en route to Ethiopia with our Mum.

First of all, thank you to all for your heartfelt thoughts and prayers (atheist or otherwise ;~D ). They are very much appreciated. Nicky and Jrock’s family are all a little shell-shocked at the moment, to say the least. Just a few days ago we were celebrating finally getting through court, and thank goodness they did!

Nicky and Jrock are both holding up remarkably well. Those of you who know them know that Nicky’s first instinct was to leap to action…which is why she will be the first among many to arrive in Ethiopia to claim her daughters. Jrock is being…well, a rock! Where Nicky is action in the face of chaos, Jrock is the calm in the eye of her storm.

Secondly, the real reason I am posting. Nicky would probably articulate this much more clearly than I, but here we go…

As many of you will have seen, the first of many articles around the Imagine fiasco has hit the web: the Globe and Mail came out with it this morning. If you haven’t seen it, here is a link:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/adoption-agencys-bankruptcy-devastates-families/article1217223/

While the article speaks to the monetary loss that many couples are facing in the wake of Imagine’s bankruptcy announcement, it does little to speak to the emotional loss of those couples in the pre-referral and referral stages of adoption. Our hearts go out to all of you.

It also fails to speak to the situation that families that have passed court now find themselves in. Nicky is lucky, in many ways. She can stay in Ethiopia as long as is necessary for Sugar & Spice to get their citizenship documents. Obviously this isn’t preferable, as it is hard both financially and emotionally for everyone involved. Jrock doesn’t know when he will be able to meet his daughters, and Nicky is essentially going to be a single mom in a foreign country! But many families will risk losing jobs the longer they have to stay in Ethiopia, as well as dealing with the rest of this. And from what I understand, it isn’t just families adopting from Ethiopia that are affected, either.

While I know that many of you are as shell-shocked as we are, or dealing with the possibility of an incredible loss, I want to urge all of you to follow Nicky’s lead and take action. Please write to your MP, Canadian Immigration, and whoever else you can think of to urge the government to support these families by ensuring a speedy process for those who have been through court. We are asking that in the wake of this devastating announcement by Imagine, they issue emergency passports and visas to all of the children who have been through the court process.  This would allow families to minimize the long-term impacts, both financially and emotionally, of this chaotic time. I am also urging the government to put priority on these cases in the citizenship process in order to minimize the wait for families wishing to bring their children home and have this all put behind them.

These children are already vulnerable and have experienced great loss. Allow them to come home as quickly as possible to start building their new lives with their loving parents.

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.ca

Make 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