‘Birth tourism’ crackdown

‘Birth tourism’ crackdown gets frosty reception from B.C.

 

Province expresses concern about financial and administrative costs associated with federal initiative

 

BY PETER O'NEIL, VANCOUVER SUN SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

 

‘This is opportunism … We will find a way to try to prevent it,” said federal Immigration Minister Chris Alexander Monday about so-called ‘birth tourism.’

Photograph by: Frank Gunn , THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — The B.C. government has joined Ontario in questioning the potential cost of the Harper government’s plan to crack down on so-called “birth tourism” — female foreign nationals who deliberately deliver their babies on Canadian soil in order to obtain citizenship for their infants.

The provincial governments’ skepticism is endorsed by a number of immigration experts who say the problem isn’t nearly significant enough to warrant costly new measures that will impact numerous Canadians, and not just foreigners.

They cite an internal federal document made public last month stating that fewer than 500 infants a year, out of a total of more than 360,000 births, could be considered so-called “anchor babies” who could some day help their parents emigrate to Canada.

But federal Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said Monday that Ottawa is forging ahead.

“This is opportunism. It is people taking advantage of our system,” Alexander said.

“We will find a way to try to prevent it.”

B.C. Jobs Minister Shirley Bond told The Vancouver Sun in an email that her office has written to the federal government seeking greater “clarity” about the proposal, which was first floated in 2012 by former Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

The B.C. letter was intended to “express concern about any financial and administrative costs that may result from this policy shift,” according to Bond, who added that she expects Ottawa to provide “adequate notice” of any changes.

The federal government is concerned about the phenomenon that has resulted in maternity clinics in Toronto and Vancouver telling Chinese nationals that birth in Canada could make the child eligible for Canadian education and heath care.

The tactic allegedly achieved greater popular currency in China after the 2013 film Finding Mr. Right (in China it was called Beijing meets Seattle), a film made in Vancouver about a Chinese woman who goes to a Seattle maternity centre to give birth.

The Harper government is trying to find a way to require, as most European countries as well as Australia and New Zealand do (but not the U.S.), that babies born in Canada only obtain automatic citizenship if at least one of their parents is a citizen or permanent resident.

But federal-provincial cooperation is necessary because province-issued birth certificates are required to obtain numerous federal and provincial social services — things like health care and education from the provinces and obtaining a passport from the federal government.

An internal 2012 document obtained under the Access to Information Act and made public last month said the most efficient option would be to ask provinces to modify birth certificate systems in order to include an indication that the holder is a Canadian citizen.

That would require provinces to determine that at least one parent was a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.

A second option, not requiring direct provincial cooperation, would require all Canadians to obtain proof of citizenship from the federal government in order to get provincial and federal services.

That proposal would also be expensive, would open the door to greater fraud, and could cause problems for provinces being forced to provisionally provide health care to children who don’t have citizenship proof, according to the 2012 document obtained by former senior departmental official Andrew Griffith, author of Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias — Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism.

Ontario’s Liberal government, in a 2012 letter also obtained by Griffith, bluntly rejected Ottawa’s plan.

“There is not enough evidence to justify the effort and expense required for such a system-wide program change,” wrote a senior official to a top federal bureaucrat.

Vancouver-based immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said Alexander is the fourth minister — two Conservatives, two Liberals — who have tried to launch a “tourism babies” crackdown since the early 1990s.

“There is no issue here,” he said, adding that the heavy new bureaucratic burden and stringent rules will inevitably open the door to a floodgate of lawsuits filed by people denied their citizenship documents.

“This is the ultimate ‘Unemployed Immigration and Citizenship Lawyer Relief Act,’” he joked.

Vancouver lawyer Lawrence Wong said the actual number of “birth tourist” cases may be significantly lower than 500, since the figure would include refugee claimants and people legitimately in Canada on work permits or student visas.

Experts also said that the actual benefit of “anchor babies” is unknown and perhaps overstated, since someone with Canadian citizenship would still have to move to Canada and meet income and residency requirements before they can join the many Canadian citizens already applying to sponsor their parents and grandparents to come to Canada.