He was working in Haiti at the time, touring a hospital run by Canadian nuns. As he walked the halls he noticed a little boy was following him. As soon as Schemmer turned around, the boy bombarded him with questions. Are you from Canada, he asked? Can I go to Canada? I like the Nun’s from Canada, can I go visit them? Do you have candy?

“We didn’t really pursue him, it’s more like he pursued us,” said Heather Johnston, Schemmer’s wife.

The boy’s name was Patterson and at the time he was nine years old. He lived in the hospital orphanage because both of his parents had died of HIV aids. His aunt had tried to care for him, but she was poor and had many children of her own. Patterson became malnourished and was sent to the hospital to be treated. It was there that the nuns, with the aunts permission, took him into the orphanage. He had been there ever since.

“My husband came home and asked me what I thought. I had to take a day to think about whether I was ready to go through the teen years again. Then I just decided that Patterson, he needs a family,” said Johnston.

Unfortunately convincing his wife was the easy part. The hard part was about to begin, and has taken two years and counting.

“Basically I would say that Ontario is openly trying to discourage international adoptions,” said Johnston.

An arduous process

International adoption is a long and complicated process.  On average it can take two years. Mark is the Director of Legislation for the Office of Immigration in Canada, and asked to omit his last name so there would be no repercussions’. He said the current Canadian system for International Adoption is unreliable.

“There is no national understanding. Each province has its own rules and requirements regarding this issue. This means that if you start to adopt internationally in Ontario, and then move to B.C, it will cause a lot of problems,” said Mark.

The problems are growing. In 1970 there were less than 12 international adoptions in Canada. By 1991 over 2000 children were adopted per year from over 42 different countries, said Anik Barbier, the Adoption Program Administrator of the Children’s Bridge.

“The rates have increased in past couple of years. As for the amount of Adoption we complete since the Agency has been open we have completed 2900 Adoptions, with about 300 completed ones a year,” said Barbier.

This high amount may be considered strange, as the international adoption process – especially the one in Ontario – is exceedingly different and usually takes at least two years.

Red tape and regulations

Before anything can begin in Canada, the prospective parents must hire a social worker who is certified in doing home studies.

“I have been doing home studies for 10 years and not much has changed. There’s a standard approach to them. You go and take a look around, ask the parents questions, you do character references and police references – everything goes into it. Then we send all of that to Children’s aid,” said Linda Corsini, a social worker who is certified in Home Studies.

According to Mark, after this perspective parents have to meet two different requirements before they can adopt internationally. First, they must meet the requirements of their home province, and the requirements of the country they are adopting from.

“Some countries have really specific rules. In Peru the only children eligible are mentally or physically disabled. A lot of countries won’t allow for adoption unless both the parents have died. And then some won’t even let the child go if any relatives are still alive,” said Mark.

This is done to prevent child trafficking or slavery.  Each country has their own laws to satisfy authorities.

“Ontario made us produce over 80 documents – we have a binder filled with this stuff. Everything from financial reports, psychological assessments, medicals, personal and professional references. For us the big one has been we’ve needed a letter from every country we’ve lived in since we were 18 saying we’ve had no criminal record. We’ve lived in five countries and some of them have no criminal records because they are developing countries. It took us eight months,” said Johnston.

All of the different rules and regulations between provinces and countries may seem overwhelming.  That is why in 1996 the Hague Convention was signed by many member states of the United Nations. This agreement attempts to prevent risk to children who could potentially be adopted internationally, according to the International Protection of Children, Family and Property Relations website.

This agreement sets up a system between many countries where adoption is possible. It acts like a neutral third party, independently validating that the child is free for adoption and is not being abducted. Similarly, it validates the parents that are looking to adopt as well, confirming that they are capable of caring for a child.

Not every country in the world has agreed to the Hague convention however. China is an excellent example, and it means that the potential parents have to trudge through all the paperwork and restrictions on their own.

“For the countries that are not in the Hague Convention, I would say don’t adopt from there. It takes a lot longer and the parents don’t know if their child was abducted or sold by mom or dad,” said Mark.

Ontario had made this process a little more difficult though. Parents who want to adopt in Ontario must adopt through an agency that the Ontario government recommends. For Johnston, she only had one choice – the adoption agency called Tears for Jesus.

“This agency had no processes. They don’t speak French and they’re dealing with Haiti. It’s based in Cambridge Ontario which is far from us. We’ve been very frustrated. We eventually went to our MPP. He wasn’t happy we went to him, but eventually removed the privileges for the organization in Haiti,” said Johnston.

Ontario is the only province in Canada that has to pick an agency that the provincial government recommends. In some provinces it is much easier to adopt internationally. As of 2007, Quebec performs over 50% of all the international adoptions done in Canada. That’s about 2000 adoptions a year, and that is on the rise.

“Quebec is very good, they’re years ahead of the rest of the country. Actually, it took them a long time to sign the Hague convention because they didn’t see it as an improvement,” said Mark.

When all these parts are finished two certificates are handed out by the provincial government. The first says  that the family is free to adopt, and the second assures that the adoptee is free to be adopted.

However the process is not done yet. These requirements are only half of it. The second half is just plain old immigration and citizenship.

Citizen and Immigration Canada (CIC) is the final authority for this. The links need to be severed with the original parents of the child’s country, so there will be no chances of the child being used as leeway for the biological parents to get into Canada in the future. The adoptive parents need to prove that they are Canadian citizens in order to finish the process. Up until last year the adopted child could only be declared an immigrant and get a permanent visa. As of December last year though the adoptees can be declared citizens right away.

It is a bad idea to apply for both though, explained Mark. As one will cancel out the other and the process will take much longer.

For Johnston and Schemmer, the Canadian side of the process is done – including immigration (immigration was done early because they are moving to Africa). All they are waiting for now is for Haiti to finish their side of the paper work.

There are 20 steps left to be done. If things progress smoothly, Patterson should be with his mother and father in seven months, two years after he first asked Schemmer about Canada in the halls of the hospital.

“We went to visit him last summer,” said Johnston.

“Patterson was very much relieved that we hadn’t forgotten him.”