Alberta adoption hopefuls in limbo after Ont. firm falters
Alberta adoption hopefuls in limbo after Ont. firm falters
Province to aid broke agency's applicants
By Robin Summerfield, Calgary HeraldJuly 16, 2009 7:22 AMBe the first to post a comment
Delores and Shawn Bertin hold some of the paperwork they received from the adoption agency imagine adoption, which went bankrupt monday, leaving about 400 prospective families uncertain about their applications to adopt.
Photograph by: Ted Rhodes, Calgary Herald, Calgary Herald
CALGARY - The Alberta government has promised to step up and help victims of a faltering adoption agency, which was taken over by bankruptcy trustees this week.
On Monday, business was halted at Cambridge. Ont.-based Kids Link International, leaving about 400 Canadian families and their adoptions in limbo.
Bankruptcy trustee BDO Dunwoody has been assigned to go through the agency's accounts and will update the families Friday.
Alberta Children & Youth Services, the ministry responsible for overseeing international adoptions in the province, was also blindsided by the agency's financial troubles and learned through local adoption agencies Monday that something was amiss.
The province has since e-mailed all of the Alberta families affiliated with the agency, promising to help facilitate their adoptions and track down more information.
"I really feel like we're making progress," said Cathy Ducharme, spokeswoman for Alberta Children and Youth Services.
In Alberta, there are six families using the agency who have been matched with Ethiopian children but have not yet legally adopted the youngsters, Ducharme said.
About three or four additional families in the province have legally adopted their children via Kid's Link and its affiliate Imagine Adoption but were waiting for the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi to issue travel visas or passports, she said.
To that end, the province has asked that office to expedite the documents, Ducharme said.
"What we're really hoping is that families don't give up and they don't panic," she said.
Countless other families, who would have already invested thousands of dollars in deposits, legal fees and home studies, are in the queue waiting to be matched with children from Ethiopia.
The future of those adoptions, which cost on average between $15,000 and $25,000, are also up in the air.
On Wednesday, a grassroots campaign to raise money for the caregivers and children at Imagine Adoption's orphanage in Addis Ababa was launched by one adoptive couple (ourfourmiracles. blogspot.com).Other families are vowing not to give up the fight to adopt.
"We're not just disappointed, we're devastated," said Shawn Bertin, an Imagine Adoptions client in Calgary.
Between failed fertility treatments and now international adoption fees, the 37-year-old and his wife Delores have spent between $35,000 and $40,000 trying to make a family. They had not yet been matched with an Ethiopian child.
Like other families, the couple wants answers from the agency owners, who arrived in Africa on Monday just as news of the bankruptcy was breaking.
"We trusted them with our lives, with our family, with our hearts and this is how they treat us, this is how they treat other families and this is how they treat the children they are supposed to be helping?" said Delores.
The Bertins don't care about the money, they just want a child to adopt, Shawn said.
According to legal documents posted on the website, the agency has $1,086,004 in liabilities and $723,004 in assets, leaving a $363,000 deficit. An additional claim of $800,000 has also been put forward by the bankruptcy trustee BDO Dunwoody for the families.
"This really is a wake-up call, if you will--that these kinds of things can occur and families need to understand that no one is immune. You have to be really cautious and careful," said Roberta Galbraith, a co-founder of the Canadian Advocates for the Adoption of Children, the Manitoba-based agency that also handles international adoptions.
Galbraith said her agency, which has been doing international adoptions for more than 20 years, would not be able to take on Imagine's clients and would be waiting for direction from the Ontario ministry and the Ethiopian government before offering to help.
But Galbraith assured adoptive parents that the kids at Imagine Adoption's transition home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, would still be cared for by that country's Women's Affairs Ministry, which regulates international adoption.
Meanwhile, another adoption agency owner said the incident tarnishes all Canadian adoption agencies.
"Who's going to trust a Canadian now. Our reputation is harmed," said Wendy Robinson, director of Christian Adoption Services in Calgary.
"I feel terrible because I've been recommending them, but nobody saw this coming."
There are about 200 international adoptions in various states of progress in Alberta.
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