Dear Minister Finley,

Today on our yahoo adoption forum we decided to all write letters to Minister Finley and our local MPs in the hopes to shorten the time it takes to pick up our adopted children. I know that not everyone reading my blog is familiar with the bureaucracy that is involved with adoption, but in Canada the wait time after court date is up to 6 months long! In the US.... it is 1-4 weeks! The last time our yahoo forum got together and signed a petition, the government actually referenced us in an announcement that they had on the Canadian Immigration website when they announced Bill C-14. From this, I know that the government really does listen to its people, so today I wrote a letter in the hopes that they will listen again.

If you don't know what to write and you are considering turning off your computer right now because this is boring you, then please simply copy and paste the sample letter I have below. It will only take 2 minutes!!!

Email it to: Minister@cic.gc.ca and CC it to your local MP. To find your MP's email address go to:
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC

By the way, this is who you are writing to:



Sample letter (feel free to add your own personal touch!)

Dear Minister Finley,

I am writing to express my concern about the time it is taking for Ethiopian children adopted to Canadian families to obtain a Permanent Resident Visa or Citizenship paperwork. It appears, after much research, that the reason why children that are legally adopted by parents in Canada are not coming home is simply because there isn't enough human-power at the High Commision in Nairobi to process their visas or citizenship papers. Shortening this time period does NOT in any way compromise the ethical investigation that goes into each child referral. This investigation (2-3 months) is what takes place before the court date that determines whether the child can be adopted. This time frame is acceptable, the possible six months afterwards is not.

Recently, with China beginning to make it extremely difficult to be able to adopt, many families are now turning to Ethiopia. As a result there is a backlog that reaches up to 6 months after court date, for a child to come home. Children are staying in institutions when they have parents at home in Canada that simply are not allowed to go and pick them up because of immigration. No other country takes up to six months to process the adoptions of Ethiopian children. The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Ireland, Finland and Spain all process adoption visas within 1-4 weeks of the Ethiopian court date, not 4-8 months. I won't even begin to get into the long-term effects on the children that do not begin attachment in the early months of their lives. Lastly, Ethiopian adoptions are on the rise and many adoption agencies do not see it slowing down in the near future. Let's not wait until next year to realize that we needed to hire more people. Let's be proactive and start now. Please make this a part of your "priority" that you have already promised as a government to adopted children abroad.

We strongly urge the CIC to employ additional staff to process the immigration paperwork for adopted children at the High Commission in Nairobi. The CIC must support the health of these orphaned children by getting them home in weeks, not months, after the court decisions.



Sincerely,



***Thank you so much for doing this!!! If we get a response I will let you know.