By Jessica Hellen
Kate MacLellan adopted her two daughters from outside Canada, but when she tried to adopt again she found it to be expensive.
“There’s just so many fees involved,” she says, referring to international adoption costs like home studies, court appointments, adoption agencies, travel time and social workers.
“You cannot put a price on the life of a child, but you would like to be able to feed and clothe the child when they come home.”
But a recent move by the provincial government has made adopting a child from abroad a bit less costly.
Marie Bountrogianni, minister of children and youth services, eliminated provincial processing fees for international adoption following the tsunamis in southeast Asia.
Since 2000 the government had charged $460 for international adoptions involving relatives and $925 for all others.
Eliminating these fees had been a campaign promise for the Ontario Liberals.
“It was always something the minister had plans to eliminate,” said Andrew Weir, spokesperson for Bountrogianni.
MacLellan says eliminating the fee was “long overdue.
“Any little bit they can do to help lower the cost of adoption I think is fabulous,” she says. “But it’s unfortunate that it takes a natural disaster to do away with the fee when it was promised before.”
MacLellan spends a lot of time with adoptive parents as a volunteer for Ottawa’s Open Door Society.
It is a non-profit group that serves the adoption community by running playgroups, education workshops, parties and a parents-in-waiting group to connect people through adoption.
Adoption Practitioner Linda Corsini says the cost of an international adoption varies from country to country.
She says most families adopting from abroad choose China, which can cost between $20,000 to $25,000.
She says adopting a child from the Caribbean can cost anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000.
“It’s not something that there’s a set price for,” Corsini says. “It depends on the country and the program.”
MacLellan says a lot of couples who try to adopt have struggled with fertility treatments, and have already spent a lot of money.
“If you ask a couple after [adopting a child], they would say it was worth every penny,” she says. “But more of us would adopt more children if it wasn’t so cost-prohibitive. The more costly it is the less children people end up having.”
Corsini says the processing fee was “an abomination.”
She says families adopting internationally receive no government assistance. As well, couples adopting domestically did not have to pay the fee.
“It was like holding families for ransom in a sense,” Corsini says.
“It was like saying, if you want to adopt internationally this is what you have to do first. It was a wonderful day when they lifted it.”
Weir says that although thousands of children have become orphaned by the tsunami disaster, the countries will first have to determine if the children have any family in the area, before Canadians can try to adopt them.
“When that happens we want to make sure that [Ontario families who want to adopt the orphans] face as few hurdles as possible,” he says.
Both MacLellan and Corsini say there is much more the government can do.
They support a private members’ bill put forth by Conservative MP Jay Hill last October for an adoption tax credit. The credit would allow adoptive parents to deduct up to $10,000 in expenses when filing their federal income tax return. Quebec already has an adoption tax credit in place.
“Even a $5,000 tax credit to sort of defray the cost a little bit would be phenomenal,” MacLellan says.