A Montreal woman who spent 13 years trying to adopt a child is calling on the Quebec government to make it easier to facilitate adoptions from the United States.
“If (women) are infertile they are denied the option to adopt from our closest neighbour,” Marissa Dubrofsky said. “It’s deplorable, it’s unfair, it’s unjust.”
Dubrofsky has teamed up with her local Liberal MNA in the Darcy McGee riding, Elisabeth Prass, and together they have launched a petition at the national assembly, calling on the government to make international adoptions easier.
The online petition points out that Quebec is the only province in Canada that does not allow international adoptions from the United States. It asks the minister responsible for social services to change the rules for international adoptions to make it more accessible to Quebec families and to provide families that manage to adopt abroad with access to the same health care as birth parents as soon as the child arrives in Quebec.
“It was such a hellish process for us, so I vowed I would do whatever I could to change the rules so that Quebec families had the same access to the United States as other Canadians do,” Dubrofsky said.
The petition was launched last week. Dubrofsky is hoping for 5,000 signatures.
Dubrofsky was told 13 years ago she would likely never have children naturally, after suffering from endometriosis and infertility for years. She resigned herself to adoption. At the time she was single, and said she looked at international adoptions, because doing so within Quebec is very difficult. She hired an agency and had three failed adoptions: one in Russia, one in Bulgaria and one in Mali.
“The international countries have their own restrictions. Some counties won’t let you adopt if you’re not Catholic. Some won’t let you adopt if you aren’t married,” Dubrofsky said. “The United States does not have any restrictions.”
But because Quebec does not allow adoptions from the United States, four years ago, after she got married, she and her husband Neil Dubrofsky moved to Cornwall, Ont., so they could live as Ontario residents and adopt a baby from the United States there.
“It was not easy, it was not easy, and it was a burden that should have not been placed on us,” she said.
They adopted their baby Ryan from Florida last year. They brought him back to Quebec in the fall.
Dubrofsky says a Canada Border Services agent classified their son as a tourist, so he was unable to register for RAMQ services. She says it took about eight months before he was granted a medicare card.
“We are not given the same health-care rights as other parents,” Dubrofsky said. “When you naturally deliver the CLSC comes within a few days. I would have given any amount of money for us to have the opportunity for someone to help us.”
A spokesman for the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec told Global News in an email that adopted children are normally processed quickly if they are registered with RAMQ.
“The child is eligible for health insurance on the date of arrival in Québec but the parent must register him with the RAMQ. To be able to register, we need the original of one of the documents confirming the adoption and the original of one of the following documents: either the copy of the Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR) or the Permanent Resident Card,” said spokesperson Caroline Dupont.
“We start processing the card application when we have received all the necessary documents. Processing times may vary depending on traffic but generally do not exceed 60 days.”
The Secretariat a l’adoption Internationale — the Quebec body responsible for adoptions in Quebec — did not respond to Global News’ request for an interview by deadline.