VICTORY DELAYED
HOW I WISH I could say that that was the end of the story.
Immediately after the bill passed, Clayton Ruby announced with great fanfare that he would launch a constitutional challenge on behalf of three adoptees and a biological father who were opposed to the new law because it didn’t allow people to file information disclosure vetoes. This meant the government would not proclaim the bill until the court ruled. The legislation was in limbo while the old law remained in effect.
In late 2005, I stepped down as the MPP for Toronto–Danforth to run federally in the riding of Beaches–East York, the riding next to Jack Layton’s. It meant a lot to me to be working with Jack again. I ran against a long-time Liberal incumbent, and although I came close in the January 2006 vote, and again in 2008, I fell short at the same time that Jack’s NDP increased its seat total and popular vote. Even though I was out of politics, Jack and I remained close and we continued to spend time together when he was in Toronto.
COAR, at this time, was granted intervenor status for the court case. The group supported the government’s position that an information disclosure veto would negate the primary purposes of the legislation, which were to make sure that all Ontarians, regardless of when or under what circumstances they were born, would have full access to their own birth information, and that all birth mothers could find out what had happened to their children. COAR was a strictly volunteer organization that had no money, but two prestigious law firms offered pro bono services. And supporters began donating to COAR for the case. Two days after it sent an appeal to its email list, the group raised more than twelve thousand dollars from many parts of Canada and the world. This allowed COAR to hire a lawyer, Ivan Whitehall. When the court case was heard on June 25 and 26, 2007, I attended the proceedings with representatives from COAR and other activists.
The case started well for us. The presiding judge stated, “I’m not ready to buy those three words: ‘right to privacy,’” and said that the lawyers mounting the constitutional challenge on behalf of three adoptees and a birth father “have the tougher job.” We were elated to hear this. However, in the end, the judge would side with the challengers, writing that the legislation breached the privacy provisions granted by the Charter of Rights of Freedoms. “The rights of the searching adoptees or birth parents to the disclosure of confidential adoption information, although important and heart-felt, are not protected by Section 7 or any other provision of the Charter,” wrote Justice Belobaba in his Reasons for Judgment, which was released on September 19, 2007.
The government could appeal the Superior Court decision. Or it could remedy the situation by including a disclosure veto in the legislation to comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We had a tough decision to make. I met with the adoption community leaders who had worked so hard to get the bill passed without a disclosure veto—Holly Kramer, Karen Lynn, Michael Grand, and Wendy Rowney—and they in turn talked to others in COAR and Parent Finders. After reading the decision carefully, they believed the government stood a good chance of winning an appeal. But the process could take years—years that would come at the expense of putting in place a new disclosure law. They decided that three-quarters of a loaf was better than no loaf at all. With mixed feelings, they relayed their position to the minister.
On November 14, the Ontario government announced that it would not appeal the court decision and that it would instead introduce a new bill. In order to comply with the court decision, the bill would include both a disclosure veto and a contact veto. Bill 12 was introduced on December 10, 2007, and passed into law on May 14, 2008, with little fanfare. It would come into effect a year later, in order to give sufficient notice to those affected. On June 1, 2009, Ontario’s new, hard-fought adoption disclosure law—Access to Adoption Records Act, 2008—came into effect. At long last, previously sealed adoption records would be open for adopted people aged eighteen and over; and for birth parents named on the registration of live birth, once their adopted children turned nineteen.
Several months later, the Ontario government began releasing birth certificates to adoptees and biological parents. By this time, my son was such a big part of my life that seeing the documents I’d craved for so many years no longer seemed that important. I didn’t get around to applying for them until September 2011.
As it happens, this was soon after the death of my dear friend Jack Layton. When Jack was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December 2010, he was resolute and confident that he would beat it, and he continued to work hard through it all. I often drove him to events in Toronto, and although he appeared to be in pain, I never heard him complain.
A few months after his very successful May 2011 election campaign, through which the NDP became Canada’s official Opposition, Jack announced that he had developed a secondary cancer and would step aside as Opposition leader. I visited him about two weeks before he died. Walking into the room, I braced myself for the worst—and it was bad. Jack sat in a reclining chair, looking so very fragile. I thought I might drop to the floor in anguish. But Jack saved me. His blue eyes, which looked huge in his thin face, lit up when he saw me, and he smiled broadly.
“Marilyn, I am so glad to see you,” he said in a weak voice, but with all the enthusiasm that was Jack. His indelible spirit leapt out at me; for a few minutes, it was like old times. Except, of course, it wasn’t.
We didn’t talk directly about his impending death. We spoke of our families, especially—and proudly—of our grandchildren. He wanted to hear about my recent road trip back to Labrador with my two sisters. We talked of our friendship and of all the things we had worked on together, and of the fun we’d had. We spoke of his legacy and all that he’d accomplished, and the kind words and gifts he’d received from Canadians in the previous difficult months.
As I was leaving, Jack struggled to stand with the help of his daughter and a friend. “Come here,” he said to me. I walked toward him and asked him if we could hug. “Gently,” he said. We carefully put our arms around each other and our eyes met. No words were spoken. We both knew this was our goodbye.
Jack, who died on August 22, 2011, supported all of my efforts, but especially my adoption bills. He knew how much getting those laws changed meant to me, and no matter how hectic his political life was, he would take the time to ask me how it was going. And when success finally came, he was thrilled for me. As soon as he returned from Ottawa he took me out to celebrate—over a glass of red wine, of course—and on that evening of celebration in late 2005, he encouraged me to write a book about my adoption experiences.
When I finally did apply for the documents relating to Billy’s birth and adoption, I ran into unexpected problems. Something silly I had done in my past came back to haunt me. I filled in the application and sent it to Thunder Bay with a cheque. To my surprise, a couple of weeks later, I received a letter from the Registrar General’s Office informing me that a piece of information didn’t match the birth registration I had completed at the time. Specifically they asked me to verify my place of birth. I had written Old Perlican, Newfoundland, and it occurred to me that at the time of the birth I may have put down my place of birth as Happy Valley, Labrador—the place I think of as home. I corrected the error, mailed in the application again, and waited.
And waited. Eventually another letter arrived stating that the place of birth still didn’t match. I was puzzled and didn’t quite know what to do next. Then one morning as I was getting ready for work, I received a phone call from an employee of the Registrar General’s Office. After she verified that I was indeed Marilyn Churley, she asked me my place of birth. I tried Old Perlican and then I tried Happy Valley. Neither worked. She hesitated a bit and then she asked, “Have you ever been to England?”
Then it hit me. “Oh my God,” I asked, “did I write down that I was from England?”
I had. I suddenly remembered having written that on the birth registration. That’s the story I’d told Perry, and I couldn’t risk the social worker knowing the truth in case she said something to him.
With that glitch worked out, I finally received a copy of the original birth registration, the registered adoption order, and a copy of the substituted birth registration. It was surreal looking at the statement of birth that I had filled in and signed more than forty years before—documents that had a profound impact on my life and my son’s life.
That moment brought it all full circle. I was drawn back to the unbearable pain that came with being a pregnant teen in 1968, a time when hiding things and living a lie often seemed like a safer idea than telling people the truth.
We can be glad that those secrets have been unlocked, to the joy of a great many people, by the laws of Ontario.