By Erin Ellis and Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
The number of foreign mothers giving birth in Vancouver and Richmond hospitals has quadrupled in the last five years.
By Erin Ellis and Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
The number of foreign mothers giving birth in Vancouver and Richmond hospitals has quadrupled in the last five years.
In the first nine months of 2014, 232 non-residents delivered babies at Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care hospitals, the majority in Richmond. This accounted for nearly six per cent of all births.
That compares to 62 in 2009, which represented one per cent of the total.
Babies born to non-residents in Canada and the U.S. gain automatic citizenship.
Health officials do not record the nationalities of patients, so they could include so-called maternity tourists, but also those in Canada on work permits, student permits or refugee claimants.
Although the number of births is low, the federal government in Ottawa has repeatedly threatened to crack down on “birth tourism,” most recently last year by Immigration Minister Chris Alexander and his predecessor Jason Kenney in 2012. But B.C. and Ontario — the provinces most affected by the phenomenon — have said the small numbers don’t warrant an expensive bureaucratic change to the current process of issuing birth certificates, which don’t list nationalities of the parents.
Diane Bissenden, director of population and family health at Richmond Hospital, says Canada’s positive reputation is behind their mini-boom in Mandarin-speaking mothers, many of whom intend to move their families to Richmond.
“Families are looking to settle here and sent their kids to school,” she said Thursday.
Vancouver immigration lawyer Catherine Sas says the idea that so-called “anchor babies” can benefit their parents who remain abroad is far-fetched. The child would have to move back to Canada as an adult, meet income and residency requirements and then apply for social benefits or to sponsor their parents and grandparents as immigrants.
“Given the time frame of 25 to 30 years that is necessary for this theory to become reality, it simply isn’t a plausible basis for obtaining status in Canada,” she said in an essay on the topic provided to The Sun. “Nor is it likely that hordes of foreigners will be coming to give birth in Canada with a view to obtaining permanent residence thirty years down the road. The expression ‘anchor baby’ sounds great in a media sound byte but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny upon detailed examination of what is actually entailed in what the term represents.”
Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland has researched maternity tourism and says B.C.’s numbers don’t even rate being called a trend.
Learn more