Provincial borders blocking access to open adoption records for some Canadians

Lisa Lamarche was born in P.E.I. but has spent most of her life in Ontario, having been adopted by a couple from that province when she was just six months old.

The Timmins, Ont. resident was able to track down her birth mother online. The two women had been searching for each other, and planned to meet last summer, until COVID-19 travel restrictions put those plans on hold.

But for Lamarche, it hasn't been enough to be able to find her birth mother. She also wants to see the information from her birth record, something official from the government, putting on paper the name she was given when she was born.

"I still want that concrete evidence of my past," Lamarche said. "I know it sounds silly, but it just kind of gives you more of who you are."

But even though every province in Canada has committed to open adoption records, Lamarche remains unable to obtain the document she's looking for.

Pointed in different directions

When she requested information from her birth registration from the P.E.I. government, the province told her she had to apply to Ontario, because that's where her adoption was finalized in 1977.

When she applied to Ontario, that province said the information must come from P.E.I., where she was born.

"When records were said to be open in P.E.I., I was excited," Lamarche recalls.

"I was expecting a letter to come in the mail and boom! There is the information that I wanted."

Lamarche said it never even occurred to her a denial was even a possibility. "They say 'open records,' okay, so I assumed that I would be able to get the information that I needed."

P.E.I. and other provinces have allowed adoptive children and birth parents to file vetoes to keep their information private, even as adoption records have been opened.

But that's not the problem in Lamarche's case.

Jurisdictional limbo

According to the group Origins Canada, a non-profit that helps those separated by adoption, Lamarche's file has landed in a jurisdictional limbo whereby some provinces say they aren't able to release information when adoptions cross provincial or national borders.

Inter-provincial information is not being shared when adoption records open.- Valerie Andrews

"We've run across this on a number of occasions in Canada, where inter-provincial information is not being shared when adoption records open," said Valerie Andrews, executive director of Origins Canada.

Andrews said this can have a significant impact on those searching for a child or birth parent because often the document that's withheld is the registration of birth. That piece of paper might be the only document to identify the birth parents and the child's name at birth.

"That's the exact information they're looking for," Andrews said.

She said her group has written to the Council of the Federation, the group comprised of all Canadian premiers, asking them to address the problem, which she suggested should be "a quick fix."

'Definitely a gap'

On Thursday, P.E.I. director of child protection Kelly Peck contacted some of her counterparts in other provinces and concluded there is "definitely a gap" involving some — or perhaps all — provinces and their ability to share birth information across borders from adoption records that have been unsealed.

The solution, she suggested, could take the form of federal legislation or sharing agreements among the provinces and territories.

The problem has increasingly come to light as more provinces have opened their adoption records, she said.

"Now that the issue will be more widely recognized, we can come up with a solution," she said, adding that everyone should have the ability to access their records regardless of where they were born.

Andrews said time is running out for children who were adopted during the post-war era to reunite with their birth parents. 

"The post-war mothers… they're in their 70s, 80s now," she said. "It's time that we have full transparency in adoption records across Canada.

"Not everybody wants a reunion, but people do want to have their personal information and they're entitled to it."

Journey not over without document

Lamarche said for the past five years she's been in regular contact over the phone with her birth mother. But she's waiting until she can come to P.E.I. to meet face-to-face before learning any of the details around her adoption.

"It's been a pretty big learning process for me," she said, piecing together the bits of her story and learning more about herself.

She said she's been undergoing counselling "to kind of deal with all of the emotions that come along with this… it's pretty deep stuff. It's been a kind of tough journey, but a good one."

For her, an important stop on that journey is written on that piece of paper no provincial government will let her have.

"I think it just makes it real," she said. "The information I have now ... it has my adoptive parents' names and my adopted name on it. But there is nothing really that said, 'This is the person who gave birth to me.'

"It's about knowing your past."

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