By Robin Summerfield | Calgary Herald
CALGARY, CANADA — A Toronto-based mining company has donated $100,000 to care for 43 Ethiopian children whose adoptions to Canadians were jeopardized following the bankruptcy of an Ontario-based agency.
The money will keep the Addis Ababa orphanage afloat until those children come to Canada to live with their new families, authorities said.
When contacted Saturday in Toronto, Yamana Gold Inc.’s CEO Peter Marrone said his company made the $100,000 donation after its vice-president of communications Jodi Peake, who adopted an Ethiopian boy last year, told him of the bankruptcy and plight of the children in the Addis Ababa orphanage.
“My immediate reaction was the protection of the children, that the children were taken care of,” Marrone said.
That bit of good news came as 40 adopting parents met Saturday in Calgary during an emotional meeting to get answers and plead with Alberta’s head of adoptions to help complete their adoptions with Cambridge, Ont.-based Imagine Adoption, which was placed into bankruptcy July 13.
“We cannot be pushing through paperwork faster than normal because then it could appear that we might be kidnapping children that should be staying in Ethiopia,” Anne Scully, who oversees all domestic and international adoptions for Alberta Children and Youth Service, told the crowd who was emotional, heated and tearful at times during the two-and-a-half hour meeting.
Scully said the province is working closely with Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services, as well as Canadian Citizenship and Immigration, to get answers and move adoptions forward as efficiently and quickly as possible.
“I wish we had better answers, more answers,” Scully said.
In a news release, bankruptcy trustee BDO Dunwoody promised — if all regulations had been followed — to manage all 400 outstanding Canadian adoptions regardless of their state of completion.
“It’s really about being effective. These (parents) have a serious problem and they need to advocate,” said Michael Greene, an immigration lawyer offering advice at the meeting.
He said the government, the bankruptcy trustee and other agencies clearly want to help their families and that’s in their favour.
“I think there’s hope for them,” Greene said.
Of the 64 Alberta families who were clients of the agency, six had been matched with overseas children. Of those, five adoptions have been finalized through the courts.
Those families must now wait for passports or visas to be issued by the High Commission in Nairobi.
“I would like them to do more for the families but I just don’t know what that ‘more’ is,” said Shawn Bertin, 37, said after the meeting. He and his wife Dolores, hoped to adopt an Ethiopian child.
Dolores took some comfort in connecting with the other local families who’ve also been effected.
“We’ve been feeling isolated. It’s good to know we’re not alone,” she said.
Other families were just happy to have Scully addressing their concerns in person.
“We still have a little bit of hope and we’ll continue on until someone tells us not to,” said 35-year-old Alison Bruha, whose was expecting to be matched with an baby boy from Ethiopia imminently when the agency went under.
“The bottom line is we want our families completed,” added Tammy Vlieg, 36, who started the process with her husband to adopt an Ethiopian infant or two siblings 20 months ago.
The couple are also in the midst of finalizing the domestic adoption of their five-month-old daughter Josina, who they received two days after she was born.
“If I didn’t have my daughter I would be a basket case,” Vlieg said.
Waterloo Regional Police launched a fraud investigation last week into Kids Link International, which operated as Imagine Adoption.
The agency has a nearly $400,000 operating shortfall and an additional $800,000 expected claim by families, according to bankruptcy documents.