Canadian Children's Rights Council

Child Rights Virtual Library and Resource Centre

Finding your birth parents

  

Adoption disclosure law backed

`We're moving forward': McGuinty

Bill not expected until next year

The Toronto Star, Richard Brennan, Queen's Park BUREAU, Nov. 23, 2004

Premier Dalton McGuinty yesterday vowed to bring in an adoption disclosure law that would make it easier for birth parents to find the children they gave up for adoption.

"We're going to move forward with this," McGuinty told the Legislature yesterday.

His response was prompted by questions from NDP MPP Marilyn Churley (Toronto-Danforth), who has tried unsuccessfully for years to get a private member's bill passed that would open up the process for parents and children.  More ..
 

The Story of the Killing of Innocent Canadian Children

Butterbox Survivors:

Life After the Ideal Maternity Home:

Since the 1992 publication of Butterbox Babies, the Ideal Maternity Home in Chester, Nova Scotia, has become synonymous with illegal adoptions and suspicious baby deaths. Much attention has been given to the neglect of infants at the Home, the exorbitant fees paid by adoptive parents, and the secretive nature of the transactions. But what became of the children who were adopted? What effect did their shaky beginnings have on their later lives? Were they loved and cherished, or mistreated and ignored? Did they feel like "family"? Did they always wonder who they were? In this comprehensive book, author and Survivor Robert Hartlen has compiled the personal stories of thirty six of the adult adoptees who survived the Ideal Maternity Home. Here we share in their most private memories and experiences; the painful struggles to come to terms with being adopted, the epic searches to find birth families, and the heartening sense of a surrogate family many adoptees found in fellow Survivors. Also included are stories of some of the birth mothers who gave up their children, and of some of the adopted mothers who claimed the babies as their own. Underlying all the stories is the terrifying realization that except for an act of fate, or of grace, these Survivors might have shared an unmarked grave with their innocent fellow infants known and remembered as the "Butterbox Babies." At once uplifting and disquieting, these stories not only force us to confront a painful chapter in Nova Scotia's history, but also challenge us to reconsider the whole notion of "family."
Published by Nimbus Publishing

This is an uplifting story of human triumph; it is about overcoming adversity and discovering the truth about your life.   More ..