Adoption Council of Canada/ Conseil d'Adoption du Canada

CITIZENSHIP BILL TO HELP ADOPTED CHILDREN

Among federal legislation to be debated this fall is Bill C-18, the Citizenship Bill. When the House resumes Sept. 15, C-18 will pick up where it left off at the summer recess on June 13, 2003. Deliberations will continue at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, followed by third reading. (Second reading was Nov. 8, 2002.)

As with all legislation, the bill becomes law after it's passed by both the House of Commons and the Senate and receives the Governor General's Royal Assent. Predictions are that C-18 should pass the House and Senate by fall 2003.

Bill C-18 is very similar to bills C-16 and C-63 which preceded it. It would grant Canadian citizenship to children adopted abroad by Canadians living in Canada. It would also allow Canadians living and adopting abroad to get citizenship for their child, even though the child doesn't live in Canada.

Under the current immigration process, parents-to-be must apply to sponsor their child for permanent residence in Canada. After the child enters Canada as a permanent resident, they may apply for citizenship on the child's behalf. (Adoptive parents are exempt from the usual three-year residency requirement.)

C-18 provides that, for all adoptions after Feb. 14, 1977, a child adopted abroad becomes a Canadian citizen "upon application". The child would not first have to become a permanent resident, but the parents would still have to apply for citizenship on behalf of their child. In contrast, since Feb. 27, 2001 in the United States, children adopted from other countries by U.S. citizens get automatic U.S. citizenship.

The current citizenship law requires that children adopted abroad become permanent residents before gaining citizenship. But children born abroad to a Canadian parent are automatically citizens. This implies that:

Adopted children are treated differently from biological children born abroad to Canadian citizens. The Federal Court had said that distinctions based on "adoptive parentage" violate the equality rights provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Children adopted abroad by Canadian parents who continue to live abroad cannot become permanent residents in Canada and so cannot become Canadian citizens.

In its Clause by Clause Analysis of C-18, Citizenship and Immigration Canada says:

"The proposed Act eliminates many of the distinctions that the current Act makes between biological children and adopted children born outside Canada. It safeguards, however, the integrity of citizenship by requiring that the adoption has created a genuine parent / child relationship and has not been arranged for the purpose of getting around Canadian immigration and citizenship laws. It also ensures that the adoption was made in the best interests of the child. This criterion will enable the Department, through regulations, to have a formal requirement to have a home study and a medical examination. However, this will be used only as an information tool for the provinces and the adoptive parents and not as a reason for refusing citizenship to the child. The best interests criterion will also allow the Department to take measures to counter child abduction and trafficking."

The legislation will benefit Canadians who adopt abroad and live outside Canada, since they currently cannot apply for citizenship for their children (because to apply for citizenship a child must be a resident in Canada). To deal with this issue, pending passage of the new legislation, a special policy issued on July 16, 2001 allowed Canadians living and adopting abroad to get citizenship for their child.

In its Legislative Summary of C-18, the Parliamentary Research Branch comments:

" ... children adopted abroad may become Canadian citizens upon application, without having to first become permanent residents. ...

" ... the adoption provisions in Bill C-18 apply only to children whose adoptions were completed abroad. They do not apply to children sponsored to Canada for the purpose of adoption in this country. These children must still become permanent residents before being admitted to Canada. Members of the Committee pointed out that in Quebec no international adoption is complete before the child arrives in Canada and the adoption is approved by a tribunal. At the time that Bill C-16 was under consideration, it appeared that negotiations between the federal government and Quebec had broken down, but they have since resumed.

"From 1996 to 2001 inclusive, almost 13,500 children who had been adopted abroad or were to be adopted in Canada were landed. Of these, most had been adopted abroad. Still, in that period, more than 1,000 children, representing 8% of the total, came to Canada before the adoption was finalized. (That figure is slightly skewed by higher percentages in 1992 and 1993; typically, either 6% or 7% of the total are children coming to Canada to be adopted.) These children will be unaffected by Bill C-18 and must still become permanent residents."

Permanent residents of Canada may apply for citizenship after living in Canada for three years.

For details on government bills, see the Parliament of Canada site at www.parl.gc.ca/common/Bills_House_Government.asp

For the status of House Business, see the Parliament of Canada site at www.parl.gc.ca/37/2/parlbus/chambus/house/status/statuscov-e.html

Source: Adoption Council of Canada, www.adoption.ca
Copyright 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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