Origins Canada - Open Records in BC

Origins Canada: Support for birth mothers and adoptees

Origins Canada:
Supporting People Separated By Adoption

Support for natural mothers, adoptees, and other affected family members.

Open (Adoption) Records: adopted persons and natural parents having the right to receive identifying information on the family members they lost to adoption. Adopted people receive a copy of their original birth registration in their original name (including the names of any natural parents on record) and a copy of their adoption order. Natural parents the birht registration and the adoption court order, containing their child's adoptive name. Names of adoptive parents are not released.

Open Records in British Columbia

Along with Alberta and Newfoundland, British Columbia (BC) is one of three provinces in Canada to currently have open adoption records. Ontario has passed open records legislation, to take effect in 2007, but the rest of the provinces have closed records. Canada is in the Dark Ages as the ONLY Commonwealth nation that still has provinces with closed adoption records! No province in Canada has completely open records as all open records legislation has been passed with veto provisions. Closed records laws violate basic hu

Assuming that no vetoes have been filed prohibiting release, natural parents of people born and adopted in British Columbia receive a copy of the adopted person's original birth registration, a copy of the adopted person's birth registration following adoption including any change of name consequent to the adoption, and a copy of the adoption order.

This follows the model for open records legislation set by Australia, where records are open in all states to both parents and adoptees.

{Unfortunately, the legislation in BC contains provisions for contact and disclosure vetos. We encourage the BC government to replace these with contact preference statements. It is also unfortunate that the legislation contains derogatory language towards natural parents, using a term ("birthparents") which labels them as being breeding stock whose sole role in the lives of their children is reproductive. We encourage the BC government to remove this derogatory language.}

How were Open Records legislated?

After much lobbying from adoption/reunion-related community groups, legislation was passed in 1995 to open adoption records in BC. The text of the second reading (the debate) in the BC Legislature can be read here. It took a total of two weeks to be passed, from first reading on June 21, 1995 to 3rd reading (vote) on July 4, 1995 and Royal Assent two days later.

The Hon. Ms. Joy MacPhail
MLA for Vancouver-Hastings, Leader of the Opposition House Leader of the New Democratic Party

The then-Minister of Social Services, Joy MacPhail (photo on right), recognized in the House debate that many mothers did NOT have a choice in losing the babies that under closed records they might never see again:

"The previous speaker suggested that there are maybe 50,000 women in British Columbia who may not want it to be known; that they would like to keep their past secrets. I would suggest to that hon. member that perhaps the reason that is so is that we have had legislation in this province and we have had an attitude in the fifties and sixties that took young women who happened to become pregnant, ripped them from their communities, put them in homes for unwed mothers, shut them away from their families and friends, punished them for this horrible thing they had done, literally took their children from their bodies and threw a piece of paper in front of them to be signed, and then expected those women to go back as if nothing had happened. Maybe that is the reason some women in British Columbia are frightened. But I maintain that that is exactly why we need to take this legislation out of the fifties and bring it into the open, to celebrate a society that supports women and children ... -- and that supports access to identifying information.

"I believe that if we open those records.... Yes, women or children who do not wish those records opened may register that. But if we open those records, we will finally have pulled back the curtain of an incredibly judgmental society that has kept the whole issue of adoption and the children born to [natural] mothers -- especially young [natural] mothers -- in the dark all these years.

"This may not seem to be a big issue to many people, because when you look around now, our society is supportive of young women who choose to keep their children. Many of them do keep their children. Many of them continue with their schooling; many of them have access to supportive families, supportive communities and supportive services, so that they may raise their children. That was not the case in the fifties and sixties, and that is exactly the situation in which the legislation we have had until this time is steeped."

"What we've got here is a shift to legislation that facilitates more open and more honest adoptions. It gets rid of a lot of the pretences of the past that hail from a time that my colleague so eloquently spoke of: a time when it was practically a crime when a woman had a child out of wedlock. Those women were marginalized and judged and treated in a way that was, in my view, reprehensible. Both the woman and, in many cases, her child suffered for years if not throughout their lives from the effects of that kind of oppression and its consequences."

BC's Open Records Legislation:

British Columbia's Adoption Act
[RSBC 1996] Chapter 5, Sections 63 to 67:

"Disclosure to adopted person 19 or over:

"63 (1) An adopted person 19 years of age or over may apply to the Director of Vital Statistics for a copy of the following:

(a) the adopted person's original birth registration;
(b) the adoption order.

(2) When an applicant complies with section 67, the Director of Vital Statistics must give the applicant a copy of the requested records unless

(a) a disclosure veto has been filed under section 65, or
(b) a no-contact declaration has been filed under section 66 and the applicant has not signed the undertaking referred to in that section.

Disclosure to [natural] parent when adopted person is 19 or over

64 (1) If an adopted person is 19 years of age or over, a [natural] parent named on the adopted person's original birth registration may apply to the Director of Vital Statistics for a copy of one or more of the following:

(a) the original birth registration with a notation of the adoption and any change of name consequent to the adoption;
(b) the birth registration that under section 12 of the Vital Statistics Act was substituted for the adopted person's original birth registration;
(c) the adoption order.

(2) When an applicant complies with section 67, the Director of Vital Statistics must give the applicant a copy of the requested records unless

(a) a disclosure veto has been filed under section 65, or
(b) a no-contact declaration has been filed under section 66 and the applicant has not signed the undertaking referred to in that section.

(3) Before giving the applicant a copy of the requested record, the Director of Vital Statistics must delete the adoptive parents' identifying information.

Disclosure veto and statement

65 (1) Either of the following may apply to the Director of Vital Statistics to file a written veto prohibiting the disclosure of a birth registration or other record under section 63 or 64:

(a) an adopted person who is 18 years of age or over and was adopted under any predecessor to this Act;
(b) a [natural] parent named on the original birth registration of an adopted person referred to in paragraph (a).

(2) When an applicant complies with section 67 (a), the Director of Vital Statistics must file the disclosure veto.

(3) A person who files a disclosure veto may file with it a written statement that includes any of the following:

(a) the reasons for wishing not to disclose any identifying information;
(b) in the case of a [natural] parent, a brief summary of any available information about the medical and social history of the [natural] parents and their families;
(c) any other relevant non-identifying information.

(4) When a person applying for a copy of a record is informed that a disclosure veto has been filed, the Director of Vital Statistics must give the person the non-identifying information in any written statement filed with the disclosure veto.

(5) A person who files a disclosure veto may cancel the veto at any time by notifying, in writing, the Director of Vital Statistics.

(6) Unless cancelled under subsection (5), a disclosure veto continues in effect until 2 years after the death of the person who filed the veto.

(7) While a disclosure veto is in effect, the Director of Vital Statistics must not disclose any information that is in a record applied for under section 63 or 64 and that relates to the person who filed the veto.

No-contact declaration and statement

66 (1) A [natural] parent who is named in an original birth registration and who wishes not to be contacted by the person named as the child in the registration may apply to the Director of Vital Statistics to file a written no-contact declaration.

(2) An adopted person 18 years of age or over who wishes not to be contacted by a [natural] parent named on a birth registration may apply to the Director of Vital Statistics to file a written no-contact declaration.

(3) When an applicant under subsection (1) or (2) complies with section 67 (a), the Director of Vital Statistics must file the no-contact declaration.

(4) The Director of Vital Statistics must not give a person to whom a no-contact declaration relates a copy of a birth registration or other record naming the person who filed the declaration unless the person applying has signed an undertaking in the prescribed form.

(5) A person who is named in a no-contact declaration and has signed an undertaking under subsection (4) must not

(a) knowingly contact or attempt to contact the person who filed the declaration,
(b) procure another person to contact the person who filed the declaration,
(c) use information obtained under this Act to intimidate or harass the person who filed the declaration, or
(d) procure another person to intimidate or harass, by the use of information obtained under this Act, the person who filed the declaration.

(6) A person who files a no-contact declaration may file with it a written statement that includes any of the following:

(a) the reasons for wishing not to be contacted;
(b) in the case of a [natural] parent, a brief summary of any available information about the medical and social history of the [natural] parents and their families;
(c) any other relevant non-identifying information.

(7) When a person to whom a no-contact declaration relates is given a copy of a birth registration under section 63 or 64, the Director of Vital Statistics must give the person applying the information in any written statement filed with the declaration.

(8) A person who files a no-contact declaration may cancel the declaration at any time by notifying, in writing, the Director of Vital Statistics.

Applicant must comply with Vital Statistics Act

67 A person who applies to the Director of Vital Statistics under this Part must

(a) supply any proof of identity required by that director, and
(b) if the application is for a copy of a record, pay the fee required under the Vital Statistics Act."

How to apply for identifying information of family you have lost:

Complete details on applying - for adoptees ages 19 and above and natural parents of adoptees age 19 and above - are available at http://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/adoption/#access . The application form is available for download in PDF format.

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