Looking for Rebels Without a Cause

Something great happened today. Due to the hard work and persistence of a group of adoptive families, the Ontario Ministry's decision to require a 3-month wait before granting OHIP coverage to internationally adopted children has been rescinded.

However, there are still issues out there that need our attention. If you are skilled at battling bureaucracy, please consider directing your attention to one of the following:


1) We need to provide the same amount of leave to adoptive parents as to biological parents. If anything, babies that are adopted need MORE time with a parent at home, not less. Yet we currently offer a year of EI support to bio-parents while adoptive parents are only eligible for 7.5 months. A bewildered "Why?" gets the response "The other 4.5 months are maternity leave". As if that explains anything. If you find yourself thinking, as many do, that one shouldn't adopt if one can't afford it... that's not the point. We live in a democracy that has decided that we value our children enough to support a parent staying at home with them for a year. If this is what we want, this is what we should give to all of our children.


2) In the case of multiples we need to provide leave for both parents. If we put our twins in daycare, we would not be eligible for a "two for one" discount - so why is our government taking one? There is an Ottawa family fighting this battle already

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/11/18/ot-twin-081118.html?ref=rss

and I am astounded at the number of comments that suggest they should pay for a nanny, or that again, they shouldn't have had kids if they couldn't afford it. Again - we live in CANADA where we, the people, have decided that we will pay single mothers who have child after child PER CHILD to help support them. I have worked 17 years without collecting EI, my husband almost as much, and my parents have a total of 87 working years so far. No matter how many kids we have we will never collect as much as we have paid in. We are not asking for welfare - just for a small portion of what was taken to help in just such a situation.


3) We need to give our adopted children the same citizenship rights as our biological children. I shouldn't even have to type that sentence; why do our children need these labels? It is shocking and shameful that our boys' children will not be given the same entitlement to Canadian citizenship as everyone else's under certain circumstances. Here is more information, and a petition you can "sign" to help:

http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1473520&auth=

http://www.petitiononline.com/cexpat01/petition.html


4) We need to be allowed to name our babies. It currently takes one year of waiting before we can begin the costly and complicated process of changing our children's documents, including all of those issued by Canada/ Ontario, to their "Canadian" names. The same translated documents that were used to obtain citizenship are not acceptable for a nanme change and have to be redone by an "official governemtn translator". Many churches will not even baptize our children until after this process has been completed.

http://www.ontario.ca/en/information_bundle/individuals/119598

I would appreciate your comments on these issues, especially if you disagree, as if you have information that helps any of the above make sense I would love to hear it.