Ottawa urged to bring stranded couple home

“Bring them home.”

That was the chorus on Tuesday after the Star highlighted the plight of a Canadian couple stranded in India for nearly five years because the government won’t issue citizenship or travel papers for their son who, due to a fertility mix-up, is not genetically theirs.

“Why is the CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) so heartless and not allowing them to bring this kid back home,” asked MP Olivia Chow, the NDP’s immigration critic. “There should be more compassionate consideration,” she said, adding bureaucracy can sometimes destroy families.

In Montreal, Liberal immigration critic Justin Trudeau said too many Canadians are experiencing problems abroad and “it seems the government chooses which Canadians to help.

“Immigration and consular services have totally failed this couple.”

Trudeau said he will be asking Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for information about their case to see if more can be done.

“We can’t let them languish like that,” he said.

The couple, who unsuccessfully tried to have a baby, went to India more than five years ago and hired a surrogate. The eggs were donated by an unknown woman and fertilized by the husband’s sperm; the surrogate was pregnant with twins on the second try.

The twins, a boy and a girl, were born in March 2006. When routine DNA tests were requested by Canadian officials in order to bring the children home, the couple was shocked to discover the boy was not genetically related.

The couple has been stranded in southern India ever since, living illegally and raising the twins.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada says citizenship is automatically granted only if a genetic link is confirmed between a child born abroad to a surrogate and a Canadian parent.

The couple’s lawyers, Kelly Jordan and Michael Battista, obtained a “declaration of parentage” from an Ontario family court judge in August and forwarded it to Canadian immigration officials, but have so far heard nothing.

Adoption is not an option for the couple, Jordan said, because they would have to begin the process here in Canada and leave their son behind. “And international adoptions typically take well over a year,” added Jordan, who specializes in family law and assisted reproductive technologies.

“He is their son — they will not leave him.”

Jordan said they have not made application for consideration on humanitarian or compassionate grounds.

“We are asking CIC to issue citizenship documents on the basis that a child-parent relationship was established when a judge ruled that they have been parents of the child since birth,” she said.