Another year has passed and NOTHING

The final session of the Legislature has now started and will close before Christmas, again without making any changes to The Adoption Act.  For the past 6 years we have been led to believe that changes i.e. opening closed records, was imminent.  Well so much for promises and political double-speak.

The Ministry is continuing to maintain that opening the closed records in Manitoba will take place, but they are "committed to ensuring that all interests are being examined as part of the legislative review".  If all interests are being examined why has there been no discussions with LINKS since January 2007?

Well, they have been reviewing this for several years now and still can't seem to understand that their delaying action is adversely affecting the lives of hundred of people in the adoption community in Manitoba. In November 2007 LINKS were advised that the government was "gathering information from other jurisdictions" to "see if any of the new developments may be suitable to Manitoba". In November 2008 we were advised that "our government takes the issue of adoption very seriously and is still carefully examining the matter of changes".  It is hard to understand what they are reviewing.  British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Newfoundland/Labrador have opened all adoption records, past and future.  British Columbia opened their past adoption records in 1996, Alberta in 2004 and Ontario is the most recent.  Anyone can review the adoption law of these provinces and they do not take 6 years to digest if you know anything about the post-adoption world.

It appears the government is not dedicated to improving the lives of thousands of Manitobans.  It is a delaying tactic by people not committed, or a delay by those with a conflict of interest, or maybe it is a make-work project that can be dragged out to ensure you have a job, or by incompetence.  Whatever the reason for the delay it has gone from an acceptable length to a totally unacceptable and disgraceful length of time.

Hopefully open records getting close

 We have been advised that the Post Adoption Registry has instituted a priority contact listing for individuals interested in adoption information should the Province of Manitoba open its adoption records in the near future.  Requests for adoption information are considered a priority by departmental staff, and should adoptions be opened, PAR staff will be in direct contact with these individuals to assist with obtaining their desired information.  Should individuals wish to be added to the contact list, they are invited to contact Ms. Marguerite Lapka-Woytowich, Post-Adoption Specialist at 204-945-4272.

We were advised that discussion of changes to the Adoption Act would begin in late 2004 and completed in 2006. It is now June 2011 and we have been told for the past 3 years that the wheels were in motion to determine how and when the Act may be ammended.

An article in the Winnipeg Free Press August 8, 2008 mentioned that the Adoption Act, the Child and Family Services Act and the Authorities Act will be rewritten and may be amalgamated into one Act, and that this would be a 2-3 year project. The Post Adoption portion of the Adoption Act can and should be ammended now. Because of all the problems the government is experiencing with other areas of child care, adult adoptees are having to wait in line for something that should have been done years ago.

The final session of the present legislature has ended, and no changes to the Adoption Act have been made. It has been very discouraging for the past 11 years to have been told that the wheels are in motion for change, yet nothing happens. The politicians just do not feel that it is an important enough issue to garner them votes. Manitoba continues to lag behind the rest of Canada, and the world, with their antiquated post adoption legislation.

The next session of the legislature will not happen now until after the provincial election on October 4, 2011. The previous Conservative government left us with closed post adoption records, and the present NDP government has continued the injustice.

The end of another disappointing year

The 2010 sessions of the Legislature has now ended and still no change to the Adoption Act. After all the encouragement received from the government, only disappointment resulted. The process to change the Act began in 1999 and will have to carry on. The problem is that another election must be held on October 4, 2011, and if the present government gets defeated, then we start all over again.
The previous Conservative government refused to make the adoption records open retroactively, so wonder if they will have changed their thinking on this. If Bonnie Mitchelson, the minister in charge in 1999, gets to be Minister of Family Services, we will likely see no change under her leadership.
Our only hope is that the present government get re-elected so that what they are saying can be put into results, or that they open the records before the next election. This may be pretty hard to get through the legislature with the little time they sit in the spring and the fall will be a very short session.

Another disappointing year

The legislature has now adjourned for the summer, and there has been no announcement about opening the adoption law to make the adoption files from 1925 to March 15, 1999 open to those who deserve to have the information. It was one year ago that the government announced it was going to review the Act. I really don't know what there is to review. Other provinces and territories i.e. British Columbia, Alberta, Nova Scotia Newfoundland/Labrador, Yukon and now Ontario all have opened their adoption acts and made all adoption files open, both past and future. What is taking Manitoba so long to do what is right? In the meantime total strangers still have access to your personal information, and the law prevents you, the person whose life it affects, from getting that information. This makes absolutely no sense. It is very difficult to understand, in this society where the 'invasion of privacy' supposedly is held to be a crime, how the government's action can be justified.

December 2009

Unfortunately there has been no public announcement of any change to the Adoption Act. I have been reassured many times that change is coming, and soon, but when? It is very discouraging for adoptees to have some stranger have access to all their personal information, yet they are being denied this information. We certainly do have two-tiered and discriminatory practices within the Family Services. Other provinces have forged ahead and opened their adoption law to make it retroactive to include all persons adopted, not just those who were adopted after March 15, 1999. It has been 10 years since we were first assured changes would be made. What takes so long, or is there no will to make changes? We are told that we must consider those who do not want their files opened, so in the meantime the 95% or more who do want their information are made to wait while the feelings of the minority are being carefully considered. In a democracy the majority is supposed to rule, so why are we allowing the minority to deny us our information. Politicians are elected by majority votes, so why do they not accept the wishes of the majority when making or changing laws.

After holding many public meetings during the fall of 1997, it was concluded that open adoption laws were what people wanted. The new Adoption Act was written with open adoption laws for the future but not the the thousands of adoptees adopted prior to March 1999. It was the minority who opposed openness that ruled the decision.

Hopefully the government will do the right thing, and soon, and put this very important issue to rest by recognizing that adoptees and birthfamily members are not second-class citizens, but deserve equal consideration and given their personal information, information that is readily available to all other citizens, WHO THEY ARE.

Unedited version of CP release June 15, 2009

Manitoba considering opening up all adoption records going back to 1925

By Chinta Puxley

WINNIPEG ‹ Manitoba is considering opening up all adoption records going back to 1925, which some adoptees say would finally put them on par with others in North America, granting them the right to know their mother's name.

Manitoba passed legislation in 1999 that opened up its adoption records to birth parents and adult adoptees, but the access was not retroactive. For the last decade, adoptees and birth parents have lobbied to have the law changed so they have a right to their full medical and family history.

While some adoptees wonder why it's taking the province so long to consider full access, provincial officials say they are learning from others' mistakes and will launch a legislative review before making any changes.

"There is a North American trend to open records," said Janice Knight, Manitoba's manager of adoption and post-adoption programs. "We're moving into a whole different era and generation. People are asking about it and jurisdictions are moving to that. That's what Manitoba will be looking at."

Manitoba, which oversees about 100 adoptions a year, is proceeding gingerly in the wake of Ontario's court battle over similar legislation.

A group of adoptees and birth parents successfully challenged the Ontario law, saying it violated their right to privacy under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it did not contain a disclosure veto for those who didn't want to be contacted. The legislation was rewritten to include a veto and came into effect June 1, 2009. At least 2,500 people in Ontario have signed vetoes that keep their identities secret.

If someone in Manitoba was adopted before 1999 wants to find their birth parent, Knight said the province will contact that person on behalf of the adoptee. If they don't want any contact with their biological child, Knight said the province tries to get as much non- identifying information as possible, including medical history. "There are people involved who really believe that they have a right to know, but . . . we also, as a democratic society, have to balance rights," Knight said. "You can't force somebody to release privacy information without having their consent."

But some adoptees say they have the right to know who they are. Roy Kading, now in his seventies, tracked down his birth mother in 1977 without the help of the government. He said adoptees "live a lie" their entire lives without knowing anything about their background, including their mother's name.

"Why should you be the only person in North America who doesn't know your heritage? That doesn't know your birth mother, your birth father, your siblings? Why should we be different?" said Kading, with LINKS Post-Legal Adoption Support Group.

"Just give this block of people the right to have the same information that everybody else has the right to and that every other jurisdiction has given them."

Kading said he hopes the NDP government will eventually open up all records and extend access to the grandchildren of adoptees and birth parents trying to find out more about their family history.

"I hope they also open it up to grandparents," Kading said. "We have a lot of people who are grandparents - their son has died or their daughter has died, they've had a child and they have no rights. They can't do anything."

Manitoba's ombudsman's office and privacy watchdog declined to comment because it wasn't aware the government had a formal position on a further opening up of adoption records.

But Ontario's Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner says it's difficult for governments to retroactively open up adoption records when it promised people anonymity and sealed their records. "It's very difficult to retroactively open them up unless these individuals can be notified," said Michelle Chibba, director of the Ontario privacy commissioner's policy department. "These are extremely sensitive issues for these individuals. They've started a new life. They have been completely anonymous . . . How could you possibly make contact with those individuals to get their consent to open up these records?"

The Canadian Press