A Richmond woman seeking to end so-called birth tourism has over 1,000 signatures on an electronic petition set to be introduced in the House of Commons.
Kerry Starchuk wants the Liberal government to end automatic citizenship for babies born in Canada to foreigners, unless one of the parents is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. Canada and the U.S. are the only G7 countries that allow birthright citizenship.
Starchuk said the house next door to her home of 28 years is operating as a maternity motel for pregnant women from China.
There is no official data about birth tourism. However, Richmond Hospital reported 299 non-resident births (295 to Chinese mothers) out of a total of 1,938 births for the year ended March 31. That is nearly one out of every six babies born at the hospital.
By comparison, Statistics Canada reported in 2012 that only 699 of 382,568 births across Canada — or about one out of 547 — were reported by mothers who were not Canadian residents.
When Starchuk toured a reporter around her neighbourhood June 4, one obviously pregnant ethnic Chinese woman in a long blue and white maternity dress walked outside of the house accompanied by a male escort.
“I want neighbours, I don’t want people that are coming and going that have no connection here,” said Starchuk, who has campaigned for English to be added to Chinese-only commercial signs in the predominantly Chinese Vancouver suburb.
Starchuk’s Petition e-397, sponsored by Richmond Centre Conservative MP Alice Wong, needed to collect 500 valid signatures by Oct. 14 in order to be referred to the House of Commons for the Liberal government to respond. It took less than three weeks since the June 16 launch for over 1,000 citizens to sign up. A signatory must enter his or her full name, province, postal code, telephone number and email address for verification by the Clerk of Petitions.
According to the text of the petition, “The practice of ‘Birth Tourism’ can be very costly to taxpayers since it is used to ensure that after the child reaches 18 years of age Canada’s education system can be used at a publicly subsidized cost, and he/she can sponsor his/her parents and many other family members, thus taking advantage of Canada’s public health system and social security programmes such as [Old Age Security] and the [Guaranteed Income Supplement].”
“I don’t have a problem with a baby, but I have a problem with the long-term consequences,” Starchuk said. “If you’re coming here to have a baby and the baby is going to be here to use a lot of the services, and there’s no commitment until the kid gets older, then there is more take than there is give.”
The chief executive of the SUCCESS multicultural agency said only new immigrants and permanent residents are eligible for federally funded services.
Queenie Choo said SUCCESS serves new immigrants and permanent residents, but it would be wise for government to collect more data on birth tourism.
“It’s important to look into what are the facts or fiction to determine the direction of the policy by the government,” Choo said. “Determining this should be allowed or not allowed is different from somebody caring for the women.”
Earlier this year, the Liberal government rescinded a former Conservative government bill that proposed not granting citizenship to newborns of non-residents, unless the baby would become stateless.
A Chinese-language website for the house next door to Starchuk advertised accommodation last fall for as low as $35 a night. Van858.com, which is registered to one of the owners of the house, is active, but it displays only a blank page and an access forbidden message. A 2008 website for the house, under the name Vancouver Home Hotel, remains online.
The house was known as the Vancouver Home Hotel as far back as 2008. City of Richmond spokesman Ted Townsend said the owners were given advance notice of illegal suite inspections in September 2011 and May 2016, but no bylaw violations were found. A business called Tao Ran Immigration Service was licensed to operate there in 2008, as was Oriental Education Group in 2010. Townsend said there are no current business licences at the address nor are there any applications for a business or a bed and breakfast.
“In both incidents, we had received complaints that the house was being used as a ‘birthing’ hotel, where expectant mothers from outside Canada live prior to giving birth in a local hospital, in order to obtain the level of care and other benefits that go with that,” Townsend said. “However, that type of use does not specifically contravene any city regulations or is within our jurisdiction to regulate, so we referred the complainant to Health Canada.”
Starchuk said she complained to Canada Border Services Agency, which said it could do nothing as long as the women had a visa and the ability to pay their hospital bill.
Vancouver Coastal Health spokesman Gavin Wilson said visiting pregnant mothers must pre-register with a physician at a VCH hospital and pay $7,000 to $8,000 for a vaginal delivery and $12,000 to $13,000 for caesarean.
“We don’t ask patients about their motivation for giving birth here, but assume there can be a number of reasons,” Wilson said. “In some cases, they may have applied for and are waiting for residency status or the birth is unexpected. We will never deny hospital care to anyone based on where they are from.”
Between 2005 and 2014, Canada averaged 66,112 family class permanent residents a year, of which 42,750 were in the spouse and partner category.
But there are substantially more Chinese visiting Canada with the ability to stay long periods of time. Last year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada approved 390,292 multiple entry visas for Chinese nationals, allowing the holders to come and go from Canada up to six months at a time for up to 10 years. By comparison, only 27,739 were approved in 2010.
An internal federal government report, released in 2014 under access to information, considered restricting citizenship by birth on soil. The report, to then-citizenship and immigration minister Jason Kenney, said there was limited data on birth tourism, but “anecdotal information indicates that the problem could be more widespread.”
The report said Canadian embassies and consulates learned indirectly about potential “anchor baby” cases when a foreign citizen applied for a visa and the officer found that the person gave birth on a previous visitor visa or when a consular section received a passport application and neither parent was a Canadian citizen.
At B.C. Women’s Hospital there were only 12 babies delivered to mothers from other countries last year.
Women’s Hospital president Dr. Jan Christilaw said that in 2007/08, criteria were put in place to define those who could have their babies there, “because everyone wanted to come here” and there are only so many labour and delivery rooms and nurses.
“We can’t provide high-quality, safe care if we are operating over capacity. If we’re telling women there is certain criteria for coming here, then it’s not fair to let people come from other countries. I have a mandate to look after our own people,” she said.
As a result, women from other countries who are short-term visitors cannot deliver at the hospital.
Christilaw conceded it is not a perfect system, as the 12 who delivered last year did “slip through the cracks.”
