Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology
Issue No. 38 - Evidence - March 22, 2018
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 22, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day in public at 10:30 a.m. to continue its study on issues relating to social affairs, science and technology generally (topic: Canada’s post-war adoption mandate for unmarried mothers), and then proceeded in camera to consider a draft report.
Senator Art Eggleton (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
[English]
I am Art Eggleton, senator from Toronto and chair of the committee. I’d like the committee members to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman Montreal, Quebec and deputy chair of the committee.
[Translation]
Senator Poirier: I am Rose-May Poirier from New Brunswick. Welcome.
[English]
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine, B.C.
Senator Manning: Fabian Manning, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Dean: Tony Dean, Ontario.
Senator Omidvar: Ratna Omidvar, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: I am Chantal Petitclerc from Quebec.
[English]
The Chair: Today, we have the third and final session with respect to Canada’s post-war adoption mandate for unmarried mothers. We have four witnesses in front of us who will make opening presentations, and then we will ask them questions.
From the United Church of Canada, Reverend Dan Hayward; from Mouvement Retrouvailles, Caroline Fortin, President and Provincial Coordinator and Diane Poitras, an adopted person and member of Mouvement Retrouvailles; and from the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, Mary Ballantyne, Chief Executive Officer.
We’ll start with seven-minute opening remarks from the Reverend Dan Hayward.
[Translation]
Reverend Dan Hayward, Representative, United Church of Canada: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.
[English]
Between 2010 and 2012, staff of the United Church of Canada were contacted by various individuals and organizations concerned with the experiences of women whose children had been placed for adoption, particularly those who had felt forced to do so during the period from 1940 to 1980.
In 2013, the United Church established an Adoption Task Group to further investigate these concerns. An external researcher was contracted to compile a history of these church-run maternity facilities. That report describes the experiences of seven women who resided at these facilities during the 1960s and 1970s. They recounted stories of verbal and physical abuse, inadequate care, loneliness and shame. One woman compared the facility to a jail. They described being told that they would not be capable of raising their child and that adoption was the only option. They said that they were not informed of their rights.
The United Church ran dedicated maternity facilities in Toronto, Burnaby, Winnipeg and Montreal, and some other homes in mission facilities that provided a residence to pregnant women as part of their work.
The majority of these women who resided at these facilities were not married. Many were vulnerable. During the period between the end of World War II and 1980, most were pressured, coerced, and one might even say forced to place their children for adoption.
The prevailing view from the 1940s till the 1970s was that adoption was best for all parties because it gave new life to a child who would otherwise be stigmatized as illegitimate and gave the mother an opportunity to return to her family and community unaffected by the perceived misstep.
As well, both our churches and our society have often pressured adults to become parents. Those who are not parents and those who are unable to become parents may be told overtly or implicitly that their family is incomplete. For some adults, the choice to adopt is shaped by this pressure, by a desire to form a nuclear family. Adoptive parents may believe that they will receive support and affirmation as parents that they might not otherwise experience.
For some women, hearing these messages and being unable to have a child has led to questions about their role in church and society, and whether it could be God’s will that they should not be a parent. Unmarried mothers have sometimes faced similar pressure. As I said, women living in United Church maternity facilities and other unmarried mothers after World War II were told that they were not capable of being a parent or that their family was not suitable for a child.
We celebrate that Canadian society now recognizes more diversity in families than it once did. Many kinds of families are now recognized and celebrated within society.
Across Canada and throughout the world, some communities and families have been harmed by unethical practices of adoption. Both domestic and international adoption sometimes favour privileged adoptive parents above the wishes and dignity of biological parents and communities.
An attitude of cultural superiority has guided many of the people and agencies involved in adoption. Affluent adoptive parents, it has often been assumed, will provide a better life for a child than biological parents living in poverty. Single parents, racialized parents and parents living in poverty have often been pressured, coerced or forced to place a child for adoption.
In some communities, including some Indigenous communities in Canada, many children have been removed from a community through domestic or international adoption. In such cases, community members may be provided with incorrect information about adoption or otherwise pressured.
The removal of children from a single community has profoundly harmful effects. Children have a unique vocation within their community, and caring for children gives meaning and purpose to the life of a community. The removal of children leads to a loss of identity, purpose and dignity, and denies the community the unique gifts of the children. At worst, adoption can contribute to cultural genocide.
Nor is adoption always in the best interests of a child. According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, each child has, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. Moreover, in those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of Indigenous origin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is Indigenous shall not be denied the right in community with other members of his or her group to enjoy his or her culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion or to use his or her own language. Many children removed from their biological families through adoption have experienced a loss of identity and culture.
Many of the adoptees who submitted stories to us reflected on the question of identity and belonging. Some described a search for their biological family as a quest to learn more about themselves. Some described adoption as a loss of identity, while others experienced belonging in their adoptive family. Many describe their identity as complex and multi-layered. Some have also experienced abuse and neglect in institutions, foster homes and adoptive homes.
It is the responsibility of governments and child welfare agencies to ensure that foster homes and adoptive homes provide suitable care to children and uphold their rights.
Today, we have an opportunity to re-examine the role of families within our wider communities. Churches, in particular, have a role to play in encouraging families to support one another and to help the recovery of a sense of community. From Jesus, we learn about our responsibility to one another. We call on churches to care for families and to offer support to all parents, especially parents who are struggling.
We encourage honesty and truth-telling. Keeping secrets or blocking access to information harms children, families and communities. We believe forced or coerced adoption is unethical. We grieve with all of those adopted children and families who have been harmed by unethical adoption, who have been denied access to the truth, and who have been cut off from family and community due to adoption. We sincerely regret the role the church has played in unethical adoption.
[Translation]
The Chair: We will now hear from Caroline Fortin from the Mouvement Retrouvailles.
Caroline Fortin, President and Provincial Coordinator, Mouvement Retrouvailles: Good morning and thank you for having me today. You already have our organization’s brief. Some of it deals with the law in Quebec, so I won’t get into that today.
Most Canadian provinces have made changes to their legislation governing the confidentiality of adoption records, but because those changes are not consistent, they lead to discrimination. On pages 3 and 5 of our French brief, you will find some examples of that discrimination. Birth parents and the child who was put up for adoption did not choose adoption voluntarily. In most cases, the decision was imposed on them. Many mothers were abused, and subjected to psychological, emotional and physical torture in order to pay for their sin. They suffered scornful looks, hurtful words and the judgments passed by society and the people who ran the institutions that hid them. Painful deliveries were seen as a way to make these mothers pay for their mistakes. The only option they had after giving birth was to leave their babies in the hands of religious organizations, priests, lawyers and other somewhat reputable groups to place their children in good homes. Some of these organizations even received financial compensation for placing children.
How heartbreaking it must have been for these women to lose the child they had carried for nine months. How brave they had to be to entrust a piece of themselves to strangers. How difficult it must’ve been for them to go on with their lives without knowing the child they had brought into the world. They had to keep what had happened secret, never speak of it again, while being banished from where they lived so as not to bring shame on their family. At the time, such social secrets were controlled by the government, religious organizations and society.
The severing of the emotional bond caused by the total separation of mother and child has taken a serious toll on the individuals put up for adoption. The bond that forms in the womb is deep, and some are still struggling with the effects of that broken bond. They want to know who they are, who brought them into the world, and what the person who cared for them for nine months looks like. They have questions about their birth, and their medical and family history. The right to identity gives rise to all of these questions and more.
In addition, these forced adoptions of the past had an impact on other members of the family who had no say in the matter, having to carry the burden of the secret and live with the negative consequences on their own lives. The right to identity is the right of every human being, adopted or not, but a person is entitled to know that they were, in fact, adopted.
The registrar of civil status should, in our view, be able to disclose that information once a person reaches the age of majority and is no longer considered a child from a protection standpoint. Every province should provide all information available in the adoption records, in other words, a full copy of the records, including birth, baptismal and adoption certificates; the adopted individual and the biological parents are, after all, the main individuals concerned. In our view, post-adoption baptismal certificates are wrongly given legal status in order to erase all traces of illegitimacy.
The identity of the birth parent is the very identity of the individual put up for adoption. No disclosure veto should be allowed. A valid no-contact veto should list strong medical or family reasons and include information on medical history. In an ideal world, no veto would be allowed. Biological siblings and parents are an essential source of information for the adopted person. It is crucial that these people be able to get in contact with one another, without restriction. An adoptive parent whose adopted child has died should also be able to contact the birth parent to notify them and share information.
The right to identity should be the same no matter which province a person is born in. Whether single mothers gave birth in Quebec, Ontario or elsewhere in the country, they should all be entitled to the same right to know the person they brought into the world. Truth and identity should be universal rights that are respected and given precedence. Countless people turn to websites, social media and, increasingly, DNA data banks to trace their identity. The secret cannot be kept forever.
For decades, adoptions were forced on mothers who had to yield to religious, social and government authorities. They were ostracized, singled out, stigmatized and labelled as sinners. They were seen as a disgrace to their family. Why? Because they conceived a child outside the confines of holy matrimony. The harm that was done to thousands and even millions of Canadian women is irreparable. They are still paying the price today. Numerous mothers were forced to give up their child. Some believed that their baby had died at birth. Many were never able to see their child or hold them in their arms. Some did not even know whether their baby was a boy or girl. These women gave their consent under the thumb of the authorities, and many were not fit to make such a decision given their age or medical or psychological condition.
It is important to note that the consent forms made no mention of confidentiality or the right of revocation. The veil of secrecy should be lifted and the rights of these stigmatized women should be recognized. The decision to put their children up for adoption appears to have come solely from those in positions of authority, who saw single mothers and their children as signs of weakness, shame and impurity worthy of punishment.
Today, it is equally important to consider the medical dimension. Genetics can play a significant role in certain physical pathologies. What happens when a lack of information jeopardizes the health of a person put up for adoption or that of their descendants? What about all those erroneous medical records resulting from a lack of truthful information? They have every right to know their medical history.
It is imperative that the serious breaches committed be rectified. In jurisdictions with open records, no significant or negative consequences have been observed. Why would it be any different in Canada? Knowledge of one’s biological roots is a fundamental need of the human personality. Adoption record privacy gives rise to major identification challenges and treats affected individuals as exceptions, taking away their ability to know their true origins and pass on the truth. The right to equality and dignity is the right of every human being.
In conclusion, when all is said and done, the adopted person does not know the truth about their roots. That missing information should be available to everyone, without discrimination. The time for imposed ignorance is over. Adopting a child is a voluntary act. Conversely, being put up for adoption is not a voluntary act — neither at the time nor, for the most part, today. In both cases, the child should be the subject, and not the object, of the adoption. The child’s rights must be respected. Inevitably, giving birth to a child was and remains a happy event. Unfortunately, however, for many women, it led to great suffering, tremendous heartbreak and deep wounds, branding them forever. Certainly, the separation of mother and child is deeply traumatic and represents a lifelong burden.
A national apology is warranted for the wrongs of the past, in our view. For someone who did not have to endure this period of history, the sorrow is inconceivable. Just think, then, how damaging it is for the many who did. The time has come to give all Canadians equal access to the right to identity and the truth. Everyone must recognize the dignity of being a mother.
Diane Poitras, adopted person, Member, Mouvement Retrouvailles, as an individual: Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I appear before you today with the heart of an old orphan.
In honour of our meeting, I am wearing the identification number 6,076, which I was given the day after I was born at the Crèche de la Réparation orphanage, where I was given the name Jeanne d’Arc Blondin. I spent 139 days confined to that sad and gloomy orphanage, where every second felt like an eternity, especially when I cried of boredom. I wanted to die in my lonely existence as an orphan. One day, I flashed my best smile at two strangers looking to adopt a little girl. It was love at first sight. I was overjoyed to leave that unhappy place, where I was deprived of the love and care of my biological mother. That was the day I was spared the horrible and very likely fate of becoming a Duplessis orphan.
Around the age of 10, I learned about my adoption at school. It was impossible to obtain more information because all the records had disappeared. In 1991, I decided to submit a request for reunion. I received a document entitled “Summary of Family and Medical Antecedents.” At the age of 43, I learned for the first time that my birth mother had come to Canada pregnant after the war. She was Polish and had come from a refugee camp in Germany. In addition to speaking a number of languages, she was good-natured and intelligent, with a pleasant face.
I received advice from Polish associations and the Polish consulate. They suggested I seek out the assistance of highly proficient individuals in order to communicate with my mother in her native language. I had to meet with someone from the social services centre, where I was treated rather casually. I met with another social worker, who was fairly advanced in age, old-fashioned in her thinking, narrow-minded and very distant. She told me that she had experience working with mothers who had had to give up their children. She was a technocrat who clung excessively to the sacrosanct principle of confidentiality. Without saying so out right, she very subtly prepared me for a denial of my request. I was an emotional wreck on the way back to the hotel. It felt as though my broken heart was about to stop beating and my head was going to explode. I had experienced an episode of facial paralysis nine years earlier and certainly did not want to go through that again.
Later, that same French-speaking social worker met my English-speaking Polish mother. She then called me to tell me about my birth mother. My mother had refused to have an abortion and was convinced that I had died. This was yet another shock.
My medical questions went unanswered. My mother was shown photos of me at various stages of my life. I couldn’t even find out whether I looked like her or whether one of my children looked like someone in her family. It was unspeakably cruel. I felt as though I had been forced to give up my place in my family tree. When I later received a rejection letter, I was overcome by a flood of Polish tears.
The journey to find my mother was the most traumatic experience of my life, a complicated mess to untangle. According to the family and medical antecedents document, my mother was 29 when she had me, which meant she was born around 1920. According to her declaration of death, she died at the age of 84, so in 2004. Up until 2010, I was repeatedly told that no declaration of death had been filed. What is wrong with this picture? What’s more, I cannot go to the place where my mother was laid to rest to find peace.
Who is responsible for an adopted person’s right to health? My five-year-old grandson is autistic. Before Christmas, the doctor told us that he has neurological issues as a result of a reversed chromosome. Naturally, I was asked whether my family had a history of any such issues, and I gave the same answer I have repeated my entire life — my entire life, “I don’t know; I was adopted.”
Getting help from the Human Rights Commission and ombudsman is impossible. The underlying principle is this: an adopted person comes from nothing, and so nothing should be done to help them. Coming from nothing to spend a lifetime grappling with mysteries and lies is what full adoption is all about. My birth is my own, not someone else’s. My birth parents are mine by heredity; it is their blood that runs through my veins. The mystery surrounding my birth and existence has lasted long enough. It is a horribly violent blow to my intelligence.
I sincerely believe that the mother who gives birth to a child always leaves a faint trace of herself on that child. My whole life, I have tried to create the likeness of my birth parents in my mind, with nothing. I can try to paint that picture in my dreams, but when I look in the mirror, I don’t remember my birth parents, even though my entire being is a testament to their absence. Regardless of whether the truth about my birth is romantic or tragic, it is mine.
In Canada, everyone is part of the same human network when they are born. A true identity, dignity and human value define the birth of each and every one of us, which should not be shrouded in eternal mystery. From the orphanage to the Senate, my history will forever be rooted in anonymity. I sit here before you as the most orphaned of Quebec’s orphans.
Thank you for listening and for showing humanity. Adoptees are people too.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[English]
Our fourth witness is from the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, Mary Ballantyne, Chief Executive Officer.
Mary Ballantyne, Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies: I have been asked to discuss the issue of post-war adoptions of children born to single mothers in Ontario, and I am pleased to provide some information. I will sound like a real bureaucrat after hearing the stories today, but my intent is really not that.
OACAS is a membership organization that represents 48 children’s aid societies and Indigenous well-being societies in Ontario. Children’s aid societies there have the exclusive legal responsibility to provide child protection services, including adoption services to children and youth who are at risk or who experienced abuse and neglect. They also help families who are seeking extra support and assistance.
Adoption, as we know, it now differs from how it was practised over the past hundred years. Public stigma toward unmarried mothers existed both before and following the creation of children’s aid societies in Ontario. Communities were concerned for children living in what were seen as immoral circumstances. These children were sometimes removed to save them from what was believed to be a life of poverty or stigma.
In Ontario, as in the rest of Canada, many unmarried mothers relinquished their children for adoption under significant social pressure. The harsh judgment that unmarried mothers faced was due largely to society’s belief that the women were unable to make good parenting decisions and maintain emotional stability.
The stigma and shame of what was known as illegitimacy, along with a lack of community supports, prompted mothers who were often young to make desperate decisions. Many were placed in maternity homes, often run by faith-based organizations and were not permitted to see their babies when they were born. Clearly, this would be a significant trauma for these women.
Little support was provided to them, as it was believed that they were to be blamed for getting themselves into this predicament and that the women and their babies would be better off with stable married couples with means to care for the children.
Race was also a key factor. While Black children were perceived as unadoptable due to attitudes toward racialized unmarried mothers, a White unmarried mother was a candidate for rehabilitation through adoption.
Adoption practices have also had a significant negative impact on Indigenous children, families and communities. Children’s aid societies in Ontario have acknowledged with an apology the devastating effect and impact of the Sixties Scoop that has the remnants of these practices still in place today. Legislation and social systems regarding adoption were developed to respond to the public pressures and attitudes of the time.
In 1921, Ontario passed its first such legislation, the adoption act. This regulated adoption under the supervision of children’s aid societies, making them responsible for supervising placements and ensuring adoptive homes were suitable. It allowed for the child’s birth certificate to be legally altered and gave an adopted child the same rights as any biological child.
In 1927, this act was further amended, sealing the records of those involved in the adoption process. This reflected their view at the time that public knowledge about an adopted child’s status would undermine their adjustment in their adoptive family. It was also seen to protect the children from the powerful stigma of illegitimacy.
Having worked in the child welfare field for over 30 years, I acknowledge that this was the case. Even today, there is still the view that it is not in the child’s best interest sometimes to have access to their family’s history. I don’t agree with that. We are moving away from that, but I acknowledge it is still there.
Data provided by the OACAS by Origins Canada suggest that in Ontario between 1942 and 1971, over 96,000 adoptions of children born to unwed mothers were completed. We haven’t been able to validate the data but acknowledge the very large number.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the shame, judgment and discrimination experienced by unwed mothers began to diminish and the social acceptance of parenthood increased. Mothers were more frequently allowed to make informed decisions for themselves and their children. Children’s aid societies provided support for single mothers when they decided to raise children on their own.
They were many corresponding changes to the legislation during this time. In 1978, private adoption became a regulated alternative to public adoption. Children’s aid societies were permitted to provide adoption subsidy for children with special needs. The adoption disclosure register was also established, and specific rights for birth parents were outlines.
In 1982, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms prompted children’s aid societies to review adoption practices. Practices such as limiting the age, marital status or sexual orientation for prospective adoptive parents were deemed discriminatory.
In 1985, the Ontario Child and Family Services Act provided further private adoption regulations including, for example, that appropriate counselling should be provided for both the relinquishing parent and those wishing to adopt.
In 2012, the Ministry of Children and Youth Services provided additional policy direction and funding to support adoptions of older children and sibling groups through the implementation of targeted adoption subsidies. Attitudes, practice and legislation regarding adoption disclosure have also changed over time. The secrecy surrounding adoption has been a controversial for adult adoptees, birth parents and adoptive families.
In May 2008, the Proclamation of the Access to Adoption Records Act gave adopted adults and birth parents more rights to information and privacy, permitting them to apply for identifying post-adoption birth information. It ought to be acknowledged, though, that this information is often scant and sometimes difficult to access. The importance of openness and retaining important positive and supportive connections post-adoption has also become better understood.
In 2006, amendments were made to the Child and Family Services Act to allow for openness, whether written, verbal, face to face, direct or indirect. Further amendments in 2011 obliged children’s aid societies to consider openness in every Crown wardship matter.
In 2018, the new legislation, a child and family services act, will further expand openness, requiring children’s aid societies to consider the development or maintenance of connections for First Nations, Metis or Inuit children in their bands or communities.
In addition, the child welfare sector is on a journey to better understand how it can better support positive outcomes for various racial groups, including African Canadian children and youth in care. There is a one vision, one voice practice framework being implemented where racial, cultural and religious matching with kin families, foster care placements and adoptions are being addressed.
Today, in Ontario, adoption is seen as one of a range of permanency options for children’s aid societies to consider when making decisions about the best setting for a child or youth. Other preferred adoptions include kin families and customary care.
In 2016-17, children’s aid societies completed 775 adoptions. Over a third of these included openness orders.
Child Welfare tells us that between 2009 and 2017 the number of children available for adoption has decreased, according to the data. This is because the primary goal of children’s aid societies is to deliver services that focus on supporting families to keep their children living safely in their own homes or with extended family.
In conclusion, we believe that while society and social systems, such as children’s aid societies, have progressed with their views, attitudes and practices with respect to children and their families. We recognize that we are only on a point in the journey. We’d better recognize the impact of permanency and separating children from families. We are pushing ourselves to find better alternatives.
We acknowledge that child welfare has negatively impacted children and families through its historical adoption practices. We are finding new ways to listen to the voices of those with lived experience. We are working in collaboration with community and government partners to continuously improve our work going forward, including adoption services in Ontario.
I am happy to answer any questions about the role of children’s aid societies in adoption.
The Chair: Thank you to all four of you who have provided a lot of good information with a lot of passion and emotion.
Senator Seidman: Over the last three days, we’ve heard your words from the heart. As you have said to us today, mothers who were abused, coerced, denied and babies who were taken from their mothers never really knew why they were given up.
We really have to look at some action. We’re here hoping to make recommendations at the end of this study about what we can do to redress this terrible thing that happened.
Yesterday, we heard from the Australian Senate that studied the issue. The major themes in their report were apology, financial contributions, support services and access to information.
I would like to know what you say. I know it’s a big question, but perhaps I could hear from each of you one recommendation or one suggestion to us that you feel could be the most important thing we could put forward in our report.
Mr. Hayward: Certainly an apology is something that I know members of the committee are looking at. It is an option for the Government of Canada receiving your report.
Our denomination has considered that. We are now laying the groundwork for what we do in the future through a major report on theologies of adoption, which was adopted this year. It looks at a wide range of issues on adoption beyond the operation by the United Church at maternity homes in the post-war period.
An apology is a major step for both churches and government, and requires groundwork to be in place.
[Translation]
Ms. Fortin: I’m going to speak in French.
I think a national apology is very important, given how many people have been affected by forced adoption. However, it is now 2018 and many of the single mothers concerned have died, which means they will never receive the apology. It should be directed to everyone affected — biological parents, their children, their families, adoptees and those who were put up for adoption but never adopted. I think that’s an important step.
I also think it’s essential to go beyond apologies and ensure that every single person has the right to identity. This means making closed adoption records accessible and ensuring that the information is shared with the adopted person and biological parents. In Quebec, new legislation is coming into force in June. Information about birth parents will be made available to adopted individuals. Birth parents will be able to find out the identity of their child, but only with the adoptee’s consent, as is currently the case. Therefore, this does not constitute an open adoption. Both parties should have access to all records, which both I and Mouvement Retrouvailles believe belong to them.
Ms. Poitras: I completely agree with Caroline. I agree with the apology principle. I am still waiting, and my fear is that I will die without knowing. At my age, we cannot turn back the clock.
As for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I don’t feel that I am part of it because, in my opinion, we cannot be free without knowing who we are.
I agree with the apology principle and with giving adopted individuals an opportunity to obtain their file. However, I beg you to hurry up, as this is very urgent. I need to build a true legacy for my children and grandchildren. Yesterday evening, my grandson asked me whether I will know the name of my mother when I return. The grandchildren still don’t understand and have been asking me whether I will know the name of my real mother. I have two mothers. I never gave up on the mother I did not meet, and I have always loved her.
Urgent action is needed. I fought in Quebec for 25 years. Everyone knows about my biological history in Quebec, from members of Parliament, to ministers to journalists. It’s incredible! I feel like I am a second-class citizen. When you are asked who your mother is, and you say that you don’t know, when you meet someone at the consulate and tell them that your mother is a person without a name or face and is approximately this old, what do you seem like? I think this is the biggest humiliation we can experience. That is what I wanted to say.
[English]
Ms. Ballantyne: I think an apology is warranted, but I can only speak for Ontario. Any apology needs to have action following it. I don’t think, in Ontario anyway, the system is ready for the action that would need to occur in that way.
If you’re thinking about moving ahead with an apology, my recommendation would be that the child welfare systems across the country would need to examine the role they played. I believe, in Ontario anyway, that has not happened in a significant way.
As you know, we’ve been doing a lot of looking at the role we played in the lives of Indigenous children, families, communities and the whole group of young women several decades ago, and at the practices of those times. I was entering the system as some of those homes were closing, but it was very much a thing.
We haven’t examined it, so I would encourage your having the child welfare systems examine their role and then looking at the current practices. As I talked about in Ontario, many of these practices have progressed over time, so there is openness, disclosure and that kind of thing.
Have we done enough? Have we gone far enough in opening up the systems so that the secrecy and issues of identity are really being well enough addressed?
As I said, a third of the adoptions in Ontario since the new legislation has come in now have openness attached to them. What about the other two-thirds? What’s behind that not being there? That would be an example of where we might start in Ontario.
The Chair: Before I go to our next questioner, where did the money come from for these maternity homes?
You’ve talked in your report about the legislation in Ontario. A considerable amount of money, I am sure, came from the Government of Ontario. I don’t know where else it might have come from, but we’ve also heard that some money would also have come from the federal government.
Can you talk about where the money came from for these maternity homes?
Ms. Ballantyne: I could try to find that out, but I can’t give you the precise information. I imagine part of it is that the faith-based homes, I am assuming, would have provided that through their infrastructure.
Probably, some of it came from children’s aid societies getting their money from the provincial governments to pay for the homes.
I also suspect that some families paid directly because some of these young women would have been coming from families with significant means. I suspect it was a combination of that.
I don’t know the role that the federal government would have played because the federal government has not really funded child welfare, with the exception of the Indigenous world. That has mostly been a provincial initiative.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you so much for your generous testimony.
I would like to ask a question about what happens afterwards and the healing process. Of course, the historical, religious and cultural context in which the drama unfolded is explained. But what we have been hearing for a few days is that many mothers and adoptees experience trauma and abandonment — and sometimes even abandonment twice — when reunions fail.
I would like to know what happens in terms of support you are given or not given in the context of that trauma and the trauma you experienced. Based on everything I have read and heard, I feel that, for all sorts of reasons, this trauma is misunderstood. I would like to know what kind of psychological support is provided, if any. If there isn’t any such support, what is its importance? What should be included in our recommendations?
Ms. Fortin: If we are talking about past adoptions, since that is today’s topic, there is very little psychological support, except by organizations like ours, or like Parent Finders or Origins Canada.
Other mostly volunteer organizations can help people talk things out. I would say that, at Mouvement Retrouvailles, we don’t have medically adapted psychological support. Our support comes from the experience of adoptees and biological parents. We even have adoptive parents who come talk to other people. Sometimes, just the support and conversations with others and the knowledge that we are not alone in that situation can help. But I don’t think that is adapted support. In some cases, there is no problem, while in other deeper cases, people have to turn to individual assistance. In short, there isn’t much assistance in that area to my knowledge.
Of course, youth centres handle reunions in Quebec. There is very little follow-up after the reunion takes place. The idea is that everything is fine and that a reunion happened. The file is then closed and not discussed again. There is a bit of preparation, but it is insufficient. Some mothers refuse to meet their child because they are not prepared and have not had time to think about their response. Those women lived their entire life in secret. No one gave them guidance, and they never saw a psychologist. It was kept secret, and they could not talk about it. They did not want to talk about it, but they turn up with a request for a reunion.
In some cases, the procedure is handled humanely. The mother and the adoptee are given time. They are given time to think, so that they can make the right decision and absorb everything. However, a mother, for example, may receive a call, and things end there. She refuses because she does not feel ready. So the file is stamped with “refusal.” No follow-up is done.
We are talking about past adoptions. Today, the dynamic is different when it comes to adoption cases. People do not adopt for the same reasons. Past criteria cannot be applied. There used to be no follow-up, and there isn’t a great deal of it now. As you said, it may have been underestimated. I think it was indeed underestimated.
Ms. Poitras: There are really no assistance measures. I registered with Mouvement Retrouvailles at 25 years of age as soon as I had that famous document. I can personally say that I learned a lot from mothers who were looking for their child, were refused and were telling their story. Other adoptees would come tell us their story and show us their file. I have remained in touch with those people. I learned a lot from them, they were my best source of information.
I have been lucky in life. I have a good husband, good children and a nice career. I have been very loved. I have read a lot, and that is what saved me. I am not sure that psychologists are really trained to help adoptees and biological mothers. I am not saying they are not good, but that aspect has not been developed.
Quebec has given a sort of nobility to adoption. It is the Walt Disney of adoption. Everyone is happy. People get married, they want children, they adopt children. Our quest — what we want to know — is forgotten. In a way, it is normal not to know. Your mother refused, so you will not meet her — as simple as that. For me, Mouvement Retrouvailles was a source of inspiration. That organization helped me feel less alone. Often, when we search and find nothing, we return home and we are alone from our quest because we once again find ourselves standing before nothing. That’s all.
[English]
The Chair: Do either of our other two panelists want to weigh in on that?
Ms. Ballantyne: I would add that even with the moving forward of legislation for disclosure and the services provided that way, it is often seen as a discretionary service from the point of view of timeliness and that kind of thing.
In the world of child protection, when you have a worker who is making a decision about going out to look into a situation where a child is at significant risk or providing the disclosure services to a family looking for some form of reunification, that will not get top priority. Of course, prioritization always comes down to resources.
I wouldn’t say there has been a lot of significant resources put into it. I would concur that the supports to help families with reunification afterward are not well embedded into the system, noting that it can often take many months, or even years, for people to get to a place where they feel ready and okay about moving it forward.
It’s more treated as a one or two meeting piece. Again, it is a resource and, I would say, a priority-related issue.
The Chair: Reverend Hayward, did you have something to add?
Mr. Hayward: When our Adoption Task Group reported a number of years ago, they proposed that the church develop resources for use in liturgy to acknowledge the hurt, the pain and the hope for healing related to the separation of families through adoption and encourage congregations to provide opportunities for mothers and others affected by adoptive practices to tell their stories.
This can be part of a response to the trauma that may be associated with adoption although, of course, as senators know, only two-thirds of Canadians are Christian. The majority of Christian denominations have yet to grapple with the adoption issue, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The Chair: Given the size of the list and the time we have, perhaps we could to noon or a little thereafter.
I would like to invoke the one-question rule at this point, but if we can get to a second round I’ll put people down for that.
Senator Bernard: I will try to wrap my three questions into one.
Ms. Ballantyne, you mentioned that Black children were perceived as unadoptable. I am wondering what happened to those Black children who were perceived as unadoptable and in need of families.
I am also wondering if any of you know about the open-door society in Montreal that used to place Black children in adoption homes in the U.S. in the period between the 1960s and the 1970s when there were a lot of those adoptions. I am wondering what happened to those.
Ms. Ballantyne: Many of the African Canadian Black children who weren’t able to be adopted would have stayed in the longer term foster care situation, which is a precarious place for the children to be over the course of their lifespan because they never really move themselves into a family. Certainly more of them would have stayed in that situation.
Most often those who were adopted would have been adopted into White homes or culturally not relevant homes. Certainly we are learning lots and lots about the impact of that on those children.
To be totally honest, having really dug into the impact of African Canadian children during that period of time and where they would have ended up, we haven’t really dug into that in as big a way as we should.
Our focus has been on the kids who are currently in the system not placed into culturally relevant homes and probably more often disproportionately served by the child welfare system, trying to figure out what that is about and how we can have them be much better served within their own families and communities.
Senator Bernard: Can I ask a quick follow-up on that?
The Chair: If I do that, then I will break the rule, won’t I?
However, you did have a question about the group in Montreal.
[Translation]
Ms. Fortin: Honestly, that is not something I have really developed at Mouvement Retrouvailles. We know about the black market babies of the 1940s or 1950s. Yes, children would be born — both White and Black — and would be sold to rich Americans. When it comes to Black children in particular, I can honestly not answer the question. I have no idea.
[English]
Senator Bernard: As a best practice you mentioned that an apology without action wouldn’t be very helpful.
What would be some best practices that could follow an apology?
Ms. Ballantyne: Very quickly off the top of my head and based on some of what we’ve been talking about, adoptees are wanting to find their birth parents and birth parents are wanting to find adoptees. What is the resourcing there?
There needs to be a much better acknowledgment of the pain and trauma involved with that. When looking at those programs, we also need to look at the openness of adoption practices today and what we doing to move forward in Ontario with, as I said, two-thirds of those adoptions.
A lot of that is still very much based in the thinking that children will be better off moving on in their lives. It is a real rethink in the world of child welfare when looking at the cultural shift in the way we think about the needs of children and families.
Senator Raine: My questions were covered by Senator Bernard. To follow up, you say only a third of the adoptions in Ontario now include a commitment to openness. That tells me we really haven’t even started to fix the problem.
Would you agree there needs to be promotion, to mothers considering giving up their children to adoption, of the medical necessity for openness in the welfare of their child?
Ms. Ballantyne: First of all, most of the children coming forward for adoption now are not infants. They’re mostly children who have been in the child welfare system. They’ve been removed from their families because of issues of abuse and neglect in the families. The situation of young children coming forward for adoption is different.
Also, the openness piece is so that there is actually some sort of continued contact between the birth family and the child and the adoptive family over the course of that child’s life.
The concept of openness is to be considered for every child that moves from Crown wardship into adoption, but it is different from people afterward wanting to come back for disclosure. That is still very much the right of all of the children and families.
There is a very big shift in thinking about what is important for children when it comes to adoption. Actually having good connection to their roots and knowing their birth families are really important pieces.
It also calls on adoptive parents to look at their role differently because the child that’s coming to them, right from the start, has two parents, two families, and at how that gets incorporated into the life of that young person. It’s a very large cultural shift.
The reverend from the United Church talked about the concept of what makes a family now. We, as a society, need to keep promoting that a family doesn’t just have a mom and a dad. We’ve come a long way in some of those cases.
Supports are needed for a child that is born from one family and raised by another that actually intersect with each other. That’s something that hasn’t yet been as well recognized in society as it might be. The stories of those who have had this separation need to be told so that people work harder right from the get-go for those kids to have that connection.
Senator Poirier: My question is for Reverend Hayward. From my understanding of what we’ve heard, these maternity homes or the practice in adoptions of taking babies away from the mothers was a three-part partnership of religious organizations, the federal government and, in some cases, the provincial governments.
In your view was it one-third, one-third and one-third, or was one of these thirds the leader? Were the churches the leaders, or was it the federal government?
Did most of the level of funding for these maternity homes comes from the religious organizations, or did it come from the federal government?
Are you aware of how many other churches have followed the United Church in Canada? I congratulate you for working with the mothers and adoptees in offering an apology and counselling through the church? Are other churches doing that, or is it just the United Church at this point?
Mr. Hayward: Our archival research shows that none of the maternity facilities operated by the church are currently open, with the exception of the Victor Home in Toronto. It is now the Massey Centre for women that is completely different, offering counselling and working with girls and women. It did not break down funding.
For example, the Victor Home began with the Methodist church that entered into the United Church of Canada in 1925. Originally their funding was based on support from the governing church body, the Methodists and then the United Church, and donations and income from commercial endeavours.
While the residents were at the home, they would sew aprons that were sold to raise money for the home’s operations. Later there arrived not just support from the United Church, and particularly women’s organizations in the church and private donations and bequests, but also per diem grants from the Ontario government.
Our archival research for the report that we have was largely to produce an outline of the maternal facilities. It did not look at funding in detail, but the archives are still there. Of course, they date from an era when everything was done on paper. It’s based on how meticulous the directors and staff of the home were at documenting things, but it’s in the archives to be sussed out.
Senator Poirier: Have other religious organizations come forward and followed your suit in realizing that we should not be doing the wrong that was done at the times? Are they working with the women toward an apology from the religious organizations like you have?
Mr. Hayward: We have convened a number of ecumenical meetings of churches involved in operating maternity facilities.
For instance, not all Presbyterians entered the United Church in 1925 and there continue to be Presbyterian-run homes. To my knowledge, none has made an apology or produced a major report on the theology underlying the church’s attitudes toward adoption in the way the United Church of Canada has.
The Chair: I might add that other denominations were invited, other religious organizations, but they did not come.
Senator Poirier: They refused.
The Chair: They declined to come, except we got a written submission from the Salvation Army which has been distributed.
Senator Munson: Reverend Hayward, I am a United Church minister’s son and I was born in 1946. My father was in northern New Brunswick and then in Saint Lambert, Quebec.
I am going through my mind what kinds of attitudes were prevailing at the time I was born. Churches were powerful then in controlling people’s lives, both the Catholic and Protestant churches. I am thinking today what my father would be saying, or what he did, or what his attitude was like.
The attitudes of the day were: It’s like getting a spanking, although I was never spanked, and this is for your own good. To adopt a child is for your own good because the child will go to another family.
I don’t want to get emotional about it, but I have a very close friend, and I mean close, in New Brunswick who to this day still does not know who his mother is.
It’s 2018. I applaud the United Church, obviously. I have a vested interest in saying that. You talk about ecumenical and that sort of thing, but attitudes having changed. As we’re sitting here, this year, it’s a long time. As you can tell, being born in 1946, I too am getting older and I am concerned about Ms. Poitras and my Polish friends in Montreal. I am thinking about a few of my Polish friends.
Why, in the name of heaven, if I can use the word, can’t the churches sit down together publicly and work something out in a more ecumenical, open way? Why has it taken so long to move to a simple apology?
Life is more than an apology, reverend. We should be ashamed of ourselves that we are even having this discussion and opening it up at this committee to say that we will force or tell the government to please do this, and then have a prime minister who gets up and says it. I am just struggling for answers.
Mr. Hayward: Following on from my previous response, I would note that there were homes that the United Church operated in conjunction with other denominations or had significant funding or input from other denominations. I believe Elizabeth House in Montreal was a United-Anglican-Presbyterian operation.
Yes, it has been a long time but maybe not such a long time. I am in pastoral ministry. I deal with lots of folks every day who are of an age they could easily have been born in a United Church maternity facility in 1940 or even earlier. There are still people around, although, as we’ve heard, their numbers are getting smaller.
Our denomination has tried to be a leader on this issue. Of course, as Mary Ballantyne and I have said, any apology needs to be preceded by groundwork so that we know what we are apologizing for and the parameters of what the historic activity was. Also, it needs an action plan so it does not end with an apology.
Talking about the attitudes that prevailed at the time, I do not think the church was much different from the popular attitude about unwed mothers, as they were called. Some of this comes from Christianity itself and what has been an historic dualism between body and spirit where Christians have promoted a body averse culture which has been suspicious of sexuality.
I am sure your experience, being a United Church preacher’s kid, was that sexuality was not something to be talked about or acknowledged, in particular women’s sexuality. Pregnancy outside marriage, in particular, resulted in profound shame affecting both the pregnant woman and her family. The course of removing the shame was by placing children for adoption and removing the stigma from the children as they were removed from the community. Then the woman could return to her family. Perhaps, with all this having taken place in secret far away from prying eyes, the shame would be dispelled.
That was the attitude of the time. As we have said in our presentations today, that attitude prevailed in maternity facilities, hospitals and elsewhere until likely the late 1970s, until mothers keeping their children was made much more of an option than it had been previously.
Senator Omidvar: I am taken by your comment, Ms. Ballantyne, that apologies must be anchored and founded in some action.
Yesterday we heard from an Australian senator who presented their study. They had an apology in Australia, but the apology was the culmination of a national inquiry.
I am wondering what the responses of all of you would be to the notion of a national study or national inquiry. It would seek the truth on these questions. It would be centred around the stories and the narratives of the experiences of adopted children and their mothers, and examine the roles of the federal and provincial governments, religious organizations, institutions and child welfare.
That was the Australian model. Can you comment on that?
Ms. Ballantyne: There could be some merit in that for sure. It is not something, I can say in Ontario, anyway, and I am pretty sure across the country, that is getting a lot of time and attention right now in the world of child welfare. That’s not a good thing.
More and more what has been thought to be really good systems in Canada to care for those that it has deemed need care are being questioned with the fundamental world view that led us to behave in the way we have behaved over the last 100 years. There is a lot of Christianity tied up in that world view. It is around saving people. It is around we can do better for less fortunate people.
We’re hearing from Indigenous communities, African Canadian communities and other communities of women who at that time were taken advantage of: We know better about what will be good for you; therefore, we will be pushing you to sign your child over.
These inquiries into the institutions are good in that they are making us, as a society, reflect on what drives us, and therefore the programs we put in place, and how those programs are playing themselves out. There is some merit in it.
One group of people we also need to consider is the adoptive parents themselves. As I have been working in the Indigenous world around apology, many of the adoptive parents coming forward were also products of the time. In order for them to fulfill what was a societal norm, they thought they needed to have a family and that they were doing a good thing for children who perhaps wouldn’t have been able to have what they have.
Another body has been caught in this mix. I don’t know that it’s necessarily good for those who provided a loving home to leave all these inquiries feeling they have done wrong. Obviously, if they didn’t, that’s a different story, but many of them provided loving homes. On their reticence to support their adopted children in having contact with their own families, they haven’t received the supports to really do that, either. It’s a body of people that have also been caught in this web and should be considered not as perpetrators but as part of a system.
Senator Omidvar: I’d like to hear from the others on the notion of a truth-seeking inquiry. You can’t have reconciliation without truth. I wonder, Ms. Poitras and Ms. Fortin, if the narrative you have so powerfully shared with us has ever been documented in a meaningful way to be shared.
Ms. Fortin: I would say yes.
[Translation]
In fact, I think the apologies that could be made may have a very positive effect on all the provinces. That would give them a chance to think about the situation further, but it would also have an impact on mothers, by giving them an opportunity to step out of the shadows and see that they can finally rid themselves of that secret.
For many of them, the secret is so deeply rooted that they are afraid. I heard some mothers say to us that they thought they would go straight to hell when they die, as they had sinned. That had been deeply rooted in them since the moment they had to give their child up for adoption. So I think that apologies would be well received and would help them.
As for documentation, a variety of documents have been published, but those people still had to be able to talk about it or testify to it. As far as the shadows go, many are still in the shadows and have never wanted to talk about it. So it is difficult to say more about this or even obtain accurate statistics. The situation has been concealed for too long, and it still is today.
Although I have strayed somewhat from your question, I hope I was able to answer it.
[English]
Senator Omidvar: You were excellent. Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Ms. Poitras: Once again, I agree with Ms. Fortin. However, I do wonder how long a study would take and how many people would participate in it. In Quebec, would mothers step out of the shadows?
What I would like to tell you is that churches used propaganda to get children adopted. They advertised adoption. Right now, there is no more advertising. Those who have done everything to push people into shadows and into secrets are no longer there. The right methods are needed to get them to come out of the shadows.
In addition, I would like to clarify that media could provide solutions immediately. As I am saying, I agree with the study, but, for example, nothing has been done to play down the fact that mothers gave their children up for adoption. They have been left in the shadows. They have been veiled, and that’s it — no one talks about it anymore. We also need people to advertise to get them to step out of the shadows.
Nothing has been done either to make mothers aware of how significant a refusal is. It is terrible. I have met mothers and children who were refused, and that destroyed their life.
As for the importance of knowing the medical history, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that doctors who were involved in this situation — because doctors, lawyers and the church made up a trifecta — are not there. They are there to get health cards used, as that is profitable, but they are not in forums to ask questions on the biological mother's health. There is no publicity on that. For groups and colleges of physicians, or cancer and heart disease associations, adoptees do not exist. That is what I want to condemn.
There are also possibilities to participate in studies on certain diseases. In my case, I was refused some genetic tests because I did not have cancer.
Adoptees’ health should be taken seriously. Why not run an advertising campaign to say that it is important, to inform mothers and relatives? Senator Munson said earlier, “For the love of God!” I would say, “For the love of adoptees!”
[English]
The Chair: Are there any other comments from the panel on Senator Omidvar’s questions?
There being no other questions, thank you very much. You have well informed us on this issue and have been most helpful in the different perspectives you brought. We appreciate very much, particularly those who have gone through the experience as either as mothers or adoptees. We’ve heard from the two of you, and we’ve heard from others in this examination of the issue. The comments made were very heartfelt, and they are received in that way.
[Translation]
Ms. Fortin: If any other answers come to us when we go over the testimony from the past three days, could we send them to you?
[English]
The Chair: Yes, you could do that in writing. If you have something you want to add in writing, we invite any of our witnesses to submit further comments, if they wish, to the clerk of the committee, and then they can be distributed.
We will go into discussion about how we are to proceed, with the idea of coming out with an all right in a few weeks’ time. You don’t have a lot of time, but a little time to get some input in.
Thank you very much, again to the witnesses.
Colleagues, we need to stay in session, but we’ll go in camera to discuss the way forward with the particular issue, in terms of instructions to our staff on the preparation of the report.
(The committee continued in camera.)