ACC OBJECTS TO ALBERTA'S BILL 24On May 15, 2003 the Adoption Council of Canada (ACC) wrote to Alberta's Minister of Children's Services to try to get an Alberta law changed to remove a provision which would deny some adopted adults knowledge of their adoption. ACC objected to an amendment to Alberta Bill 24, the Child Welfare Amendment Act 2003. In her letter to Iris Evans, minister of Alberta Children's Services, ACC Chair Sandra Scarth said that ACC sees Bill 24 as "generally progressive", but that the amendment is "regressive" and will negatively impact adult adoptees and the entire adoption community. The amendment affects some adults who do not know that they were adopted. Under certain circumstances it would prevent them from learning the identity of their birthparents, or from finding out that they were adopted. Ms. Scarth stressed that one mission of ACC is to promote openness and honesty in adoption, and one of its goals is to achieve open access to adoption records across Canada. ACC could not support a provision to withhold knowledge of an adoption from the person adopted. She wrote that the amendment allows adoptive parents to deny their adopted adult son or daughter access to information which is "their birthright". In no other Canadian jurisdiction do adoptive parents have the right to veto their adult child's access to information. And no biological parents have such power over their adult children. Moreover, progressive jurisdictions around the world have made open access to adoption records the standard practice, she said, citing Australia, Finland, England and Scotland. Ms. Scarth asked the Alberta government to withdraw the amendment before enacting the legislation. In her June 4, 2003 reply, Iris Evans said the legislation addressed one of the concerns which arose from the public consultation -- that when it came to accessing adoption records there must be a balance between the need for privacy and the need for people to obtain their personal information. Minister Evans wrote that the amendment to which ACC objects was meant to address "those rare and unique situations where the adoptee does not know about the adoption and the release of identifying information would be extremely detrimental to the adult adoptee." She said that the Alberta government would consider the ACC's concerns when writing the policies and procedures for implementing the legislation. These would be finished in the upcoming months, in time for proclamation of Bill 24 in 2004. For the status of Bill 24, see the Legislative Assembly of Alberta at www.assembly.ab.ca/pro/bills/ba-status.asp?SelectBill=024 To read Bill 24, see www.assembly.ab.ca/pro/bills/ba-bill.asp?SelectBill=024 The amendment to Bill 24 is at www.assembly.ab.ca/pro/bills/ba-amen.asp?SelectBill=024&Amendment=1 For an update on Alberta's Child Welfare Act Review, see www.childwelfareact.gov.ab.ca/update.html The existing Child Welfare Act is at www.qp.gov.ab.ca/documents/acts/C12.cfm For more information: Adoption Council of Canada, #210, 211 Bronson Ave., Ottawa, Ont. K1R 6H5, 1-888-542-3678, acc@adoption.ca, www.adoption.ca HISTORICAL SUMMARY Alberta's Child Welfare Act covers child protective services, adoption services and services to children with disabilities. In June 2001 the Minister of Alberta Children's Services, Iris Evans, launched a review of the Act. She named Harvey Cenaiko, MLA for Calgary Buffalo, to head the review. To get input from Albertans, the review undertook a community consultation involving over 140 meetings and over 600 submissions. The Child Welfare Act Review's recommendations are contained in the report "Strengthening Families, Children and Youth". Among the recommendations are:
Based on the recommendations, Bill 24, the Child Welfare Amendment Act 2003, was introduced in the Legislative Assembly on March 4, 2003. The bill progressed as follows:
The April 29 amendment reads in part:
Reaction to this amendment was swift and negative. In an email message to the adoption community on May 1, 2003 Michael P. Grand qualified it as "outrageous". Dr. Grand, a co-director of the National Adoption Study of Canada, wrote concerning subsection (9), "It would establish in law that it is acceptable practice for adoptive parents to not tell their children that they have been adopted. Furthermore, it would allow adoptive parents to control the flow of information pertaining to their ADULT adopted children. Consanguineous parents do not have such a right. Neither should adoptive parents." He called on the adoption community to voice its opposition to the amendment. In a further message on May 2, Dr. Grand commented on subsection (10), which would allow an adoptee to lift the adoptive-parent-imposed disclosure veto: "How would the adult adoptee know that s/he was adopted and that a veto was in place if s/he had never been told of the adoption and was unaware that a veto had been placed without his/her knowledge? You can't lift a veto that you don't know is there." Also on May 1, Marilyn Shinyei wrote to both the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald. She is an adoptive parent, director of the agency Adoption Options of Alberta, and past president of the Adoption Council of Canada. She wrote in part:
The May 3 Edmonton Journal carried the article "Restrictions on adoption reform bill meant to protect adoptee". The article cited Ms. Shinyei's objections and quoted Sandra Klashinsky, executive manager of the Child Welfare Act Review: "Some adoptive parents will be able to prevent their children from contacting their birth parents, even after the children become adults, under an amendment to the Child Welfare Act. But the province will rarely use the new restriction, which applies to cases in which the child's family background involves rape or incest, said Sandra Klashinsky ... The change to bill 24 allows adoption records to remain sealed if adoptive parents convince the province that the adoptee is: not aware of the adoption, and the impact would be extremely detrimental to the adoptee if he or she were identified to the birth family. ... The exception applies only to children's services adoptions made before January 2005 and only when those children become adults, she said. After that, the new child welfare act reform Bill 24 will open up adoption records when an adoptee reaches 18. There will be no more vetoes, Klashinsky said, and birth parents and adoptees can read their own adoption files and meet, if both sides agree." Source: Adoption Council of Canada, www.adoption.caCopyright 2003 Adoption Council of Canada. Reproduction permitted, if credited "Source: Adoption Council of Canada, www.adoption.ca". Please make a request to reprint, so we can track the use of ACC news items. Send your request to acc@adoption.ca.
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