The Idea of Canada by David Johnston

Author:David Johnston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2016-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

Fondly and with deep thanks,

David

Deborah Vuylsteke is a history teacher at St. Pius X High School in Ottawa. She has worked with officials at Rideau Hall to uncover the best resources and methods to illuminate for her students the role of the monarchy in Canada. The red and white ribbons Mr. Johnston refers to are those of the Order of Canada.

Thirty Thousand Kids

Resolve Canada’s adoption crisis.

To Laura Eggertson

Dear Laura,

Right at the top of my favourite personal characteristics is the fact that I’m a grandfather. My wife, Sharon, and I have twelve grandchildren. Our first two grandchildren are Emma and Téa. My eldest daughter, Debbie, and her husband adopted them from an orphanage in Colombia. I can’t imagine our family without them.

On one of our state visits to Latin America and South America, these two wonderful girls joined us in Colombia – their home country. The trip was the most memorable and rewarding of my tenure in that office, because it enabled Sharon, Debbie, and me to experience the girls’ native land and its people with them right by our side and also to see it through their eyes. (I should point out that Debbie covered her expenses and those of the girls when they accompanied us.) Our journey together also achieved something I didn’t think could be possible: it brought our family even closer together. So no one has to convince me about the benefits and blessings of adoption.

My family’s experience gives me insight and some authority on adoption in Canada. Before becoming governor general, I chaired Ontario’s Expert Panel on Infertility and Adoption. My work on the panel and my direct exposure to adoption since has led me to the following conclusion: we are failing many children in Canada. The statistics on adoption in Canada tell a harrowing story: some thirty thousand kids are legally eligible for adoption in our country; 41 per cent of young people in Canada’s various child-welfare systems have had at least one run-in with the country’s criminal justice system; 44 per cent of the kids in provincial and territorial child-welfare systems graduate high school; and a mere 5 per cent go on to post-secondary education (both figures I recall are well below the average rate); children who enter our country’s child-welfare systems at age five and younger have much higher rates of mental illness and suicide attempts than other children; 68 per cent of homeless youths are young men and women who have grown out of child-welfare systems without permanent families; and 73 per cent of those who have aged out of the systems are unemployed. The most glaring and troubling statistic – the one from which all other figures flow – is only 7 per cent of foster children are adopted into permanent homes. Ninety-three per cent age out as foster kids.

Our goal as a country, then, is obvious: get these thirty thousand kids out of the insecurity and instability of provincial and territorial child-welfare systems and into durable homes and loving families.

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