The Public Citizen
Couple adopting child from Haiti get runaround under Citizen Act amendments
Why an Ottawa couple adopting a child in Haiti can’t get straight answers out of Immigration,
Why isn’t Citizenship and Immigration more forthright with Sarah Currie and her husband, Michael, that the little boy they are adopting from Haiti will not be admitted into this country as a Canadian citizen?
For almost 11 months, they have waited for some direction from the department. Bit by bit, though, the couple has come to realize that the 21-month-old boy will not be able to enter the country unless he is sponsored by them as a permanent resident.
That’s fine, but why didn’t Citizenship and Immigration tell them last summer?
Nevertheless, their heartache is bound to continue. Given the lacklustre speed of the Canadian bureaucracy, the couple believes it is likely the boy will have to remain in a Haitian orphanage well into next year, even though the adoption will be finalized by Haiti in the coming months.
The Kanata couple met the boy during a recent trip to Haiti.
His first name will be Smith, which is actually his second name and was given to him by his birth mother. Currie says he responds well to the name at the orphanage, so that is what he will be called here.
The couple found Smith to be a “sociable” boy who gets along well with other children at the orphanage. “He likes being tickled and being tossed up in the air,” says Currie. “He has a cute laugh.”
But the runaround from Citizenship and Immigration has turned a joyous occasion into a stressful one. It has been so aggravating and stupid at times that an information clerk even argued that 16 weeks was not four months when Currie called to inquire why the citizenship application was taking so long to be processed.
The delay is one issue. Ambiguously worded changes made to the Citizenship Act in 2009 are another.
The amendments were sparked by costs and public outrage relating to the repatriation of 15,000 people from Lebanon — who had dual Canadian citizenship — during the Lebanon-Israel war in 2006. The rescue of people holding onto the so-called “safety net” of Canadian citizenship cost the federal government $94 million. It was reported in the National Post that as many as 7,000 evacuees returned to Lebanon after the fighting subsided. They were criticized as “Canadians of convenience.”
Though Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the changes were brought forth to “protect the values of Canadian citizenship,” they consequently affected Canadians born abroad, such as Currie and her husband, who served on three tours in Afghanistan. At the request of National Defence, Currie is unable to reveal the surname of her husband, a decorated veteran.
Under the amended act, Currie, 34, and her husband, 33, are considered “first-generation Canadians born abroad.” They were born in the same hospital in Lahr, Germany (they met and married in Canada years later). Currie’s father was a Canadian infantry officer stationed in Germany at the time; Michael’s parents were Canadians teaching the children of military personnel at Canadian Forces Base in Lahr. Under the old rules, their children, regardless of being born abroad or adopted from abroad, would have been considered Canadian citizens. But under the amended act, they are not. The intent of the changes was to prevent Canadian citizenship being passed down through generation after generation not born or living in Canada.
The federal government did plan another amendment before the former Conservative minority fell in 2011. The change would have recognized children born or adopted abroad by federal public servants or armed forces personnel as Canadian citizens, too.
Currie says she checked on two occasions with Citizenship and Immigration be- fore she submitted the application. She says she was assured both times: “‘You’ll be fine. You can pass on citizenship.’”
That was also the opinion of an immigration lawyer she hired. She says that in her case, as her father was posted overseas, there was no choice as to where she was born, and, as she wasn’t entitled to German citizenship, she could not be considered a first-generation Canadian born abroad.
When she filed the application late last July, she says, she was told it would take eight to 10 weeks to be processed. When she checked after that time, she was informed she would have to wait another eight weeks due to a backlog.
She says she was getting extremely concerned because adoptive parents she was communicating with online had their applications approved in the initial time frame of eight to 10 weeks.
Currie says they sought the help of Carleton-Mississippi Mills MP Gordon O’Connor in mid-December, but the office of the Conservative Minister of State and chief government whip did not make any headway. She also emailed Kenney and Na- tional Defence Minister Peter MacKay. She was basically told to be patient.
Currie says her sister wrote 42 MPs born outside Canada for help. Only one, Scarborough-Agincourt Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, contacted Currie, and he is still trying to get a definitive answer. Karygiannis asked Kenney’s office to make a decision, one way or another.
“I didn’t care if it was yes or no,” says Currie. “I just wanted a decision. I knew what my next step would be” — submitting the second part of the citizenship application or a sponsorship application. “They were so really cagey (with Karygiannis.)”
Karygiannis says he was told “to stick in your ear and go blow it. There was no willingness from (Kenney) to help us.
“Had they told them straight off the bat, ‘Sponsor the baby,’ it would have been over and done with.”
Karygiannis, who voted against the 2009 Citizenship Act amendments as a member of the Commons citizenship and immigration committee, says he predicted at the time that situations similar to the couple’s would arise.
“Oh yeah, you’re a Canadian,” says Karygiannis. “You can go abroad and give your life up for Canada. We’ll put you in harm’s way. But we won’t (give your child Canadian citizenship).”
Kenney’s office and Citizenship and Immigration were asked to comment, but neither had provided a statement by late Wednesday afternoon.
Currie says she finally believed the matter was resolved when, on May 21, she checked the status of her application online. It indicated a letter had been sent April 10, providing a decision. Currie called Citizenship and Immigration because more than a month had passed from the time the letter was supposedly mailed. She says she was told a computer error had shown the application as having been approved and a letter being sent.
This was incorrect, she was told. The application was still “in process.”