MP Karina Gould and Senator Chantal Petitclerc speak about forced adoptions – May 26, 2026

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[00:00:00]Good afternoon everyone. Uh thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.

[00:00:04]Today is an important day. Um it's a day that's been a long time coming. Uh I want to first begin by thanking a few people. I want to uh thank first of all Senator uh Peticlair for introducing uh the motion that she did today. I also want to thank Senator Art Egleton because um you know he was a senator in 2018 that took up this issue and brought it to the attention of all Canadians.

[00:00:31]And more than that, I'd like to thank Valerie Andrews and the women who are standing here uh beside and behind me for sharing their story and for being advocates and for having the courage to come forward and share their story. Uh most Canadians don't realize, but in the post-war era between the 1940s and the 1970s, there are an estimated 300,000 young unmarried women in Canada who are forced and coerced to give up their babies for adoption. This is a practice that happened for decades and I think the Senate report that uh Senator Egleton put forward titled it most appropriately in that the shame is ours.

[00:01:14]This was a cruel practice that took advantage of scared and vulnerable young women um who got pregnant out of wedlock and it was something that was pervasive across society in Canada. And so many of these women have suffered in silence for too long and they went through an extraordinarily difficult and traumatic moment that has lasted for decades. And today is about letting Canadians know that this is something that happened here in Canada. It didn't happen somewhere else. It happened right here in our country. And it's about bringing closure and justice for these women and to say and their children. Um to let them know that what happened to them and to affirm that what happened to them was simply wrong and that we do not want this to ever happen again in our country. And I also want to take a moment to highlight uh author Heather Marshall who wrote the book Looking for Jane which did a incredible job of portraying this through fiction but also making it real for anyone who reads it.

[00:02:23]Um but today is really about the courage that these incredible women have shown that they are standing up for themselves and their children. many of them have not been able to reconnect with the babies that were taken from them. Um, and it's about asking that Canada and Canadians acknowledge that this was wrong and to write this historic wrong.

[00:02:48]I'll just say one more thing um very briefly, but um you know this is not something that we should hide in Canada. We need to be aware of this. um and we need to talk about it and we need to ensure that their stories and their voices are heard. Countries like Australia, uh Wales, Ireland, they all had similar practices and each of those countries has issued formal apologies and provided support to these survivors. And I think it's time for us in Canada to recognize that we need to do the same. So, um, today we're going to have a number of speakers. Uh, following me, we're going to have, uh, Senator Senator Fis Petic. Uh, we're going to hear from Senator Egleton.

[00:03:40]We're going to hear from Valerie Andrews, Christine Naylor, Linda Hall, and Sylvia Beal. Uh but I just want to express um how sorry I am that hundreds of thousands of women and children in this country were separated because of some very cruel, unnecessary and harmful practices and what they went through was wrong. what happened to them should have never happened. But their story is there's light being shed and we need to continue to shed that so that we ensure that their experience was not in vain and that they can get some of the closure and justice that they so rightly deserve. So, thank you so much and I'm going to turn it over now to Senator.

[00:04:42]It's been it's been a it's been a lot of work and uh it's good to be here. It's good to be here today. Um we've I'm just very grateful. I'm grateful to be here today uh with you with with with everybody that that made the way to Ottawa to be with us today with the mothers, adoptes um and and the families uh have carried this truth for so so many years. So today is about them but but it's also about something larger. Uh it's about institutional accountability. Uh we said it before for decades decades after the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of children or babies uh in Canada were placed for adoption in circumstances that that should never happen. Uh marked by shame, uh coercion, silence and and the absence of a real choice. Um and this we have to realize was not a collection of private or individual tragedies and stories.

[00:05:49]These practices were enabled by systems, by institution and by public policies and this is why uh formal apology uh from uh federal government matters. The motion I introduced today in the Senate has one clear objective. To call on the government of Canada to issue official apologies to the mothers, adopes and families affected by forced adoption practices in this country. Um, I had the pleasure and privilege to be a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology when we did study this issue under the leadership of the Honorable Art Egleton.

[00:06:36]Um that work uh was sorrow and it led to the report the shame is ours. A deeply and important Senate report that documented heartbreaking testimony and made very clear recommendation including the need for official apologies.

[00:06:56]That work uh mattered. The Senate listened at the time. The Senate documented and the Senate made recommendations. And now uh we have this responsibility to ensure that this work does not remain only on paper.

[00:07:22]Mothers spoke of children taken from their lives. Adopes spoke of identity, truth, loss, and wounds, wounds carried across generations.

[00:07:34]This motion is for the mothers who have waited far too long and for those who are no longer with us to hear the words that they did deserve to hear. It's also for adopes and families who continue to live with the consequences of these practices. I want to recognize uh Valerie Andrews with Origin Canada uh the Honorable Art Egleton and all those uh with us today uh who have refused to let this reality be forgotten. Their uh persistence, advocacy and courage have brought us to this moment. Um and why now? Why now? Well, uh because many mothers are still waiting uh in their lifetime to hear uh their country finally say, "Uh, we recognize what happened and we are sorry.

[00:08:39]Well, thank you very much uh Senator Chantel Pett Clerk and MP Karina Gould uh for uh your leadership in relaunching this endeavor to implement a report that I as the chair of the social affairs committee uh in 2018 uh published just before I retired. Uh but it's been 8 years and it's about time that we stop this suffering by these people who went through so much trauma uh giving birth to children that were then taken away from them. The explanations were that they were sinful, that the children were illegitimate. What an awful kind of designation to go in life and say I was a illegitimate child.

[00:09:35]Nobody should ever have to say something like that. These women uh suffered by mental uh verbal emotional abuse in these maternity houses that they were told they were there because they were sinful.

[00:09:57]Well, you know, at that time, that kind of pressure and stress on them resulted in them signing documents that they might not otherwise. 95% of the people that went into these maternity homes signed these documents.

[00:10:15]Today, things have changed substantially.

[00:10:20]Only 2% of unwed mothers give up their children. Society has obviously got its act together in terms of human rights for these people. But meanwhile, there are many thousands of people who still have gone through this and deserve some attention up to their plate. So what is being asked for here is an apology.

[00:10:49]What will the apology do?

[00:10:52]It'll bring healing to these people.

[00:10:56]It'll give them recognition of what they went through and that we as a society should never have put them through that.

[00:11:05]And so, it's important to relaunch this endeavor both in the House of Commons and in the Senate and to bring some closure to the issue. not only I would hope in terms of a statement of apology but also to help provide some services, some counseling uh for these women and for the children they gave birth to. We must not forget that there are many children who are now adults but are looking for who their birth mother was. and we certainly need to do all we can to try to give them a chance to come together if they so wish to do that.

[00:11:46]That will also help uh bring about some closure. So again, I applaud uh both the senator and the MP for bringing this forward. The shame is indeed ours as the report said and it's time to rectify it.

[00:12:02]And now let me uh ask Dr. Valerie Andrews, who has been mentioned a couple of times, and I've got to mention her as well because we wouldn't have done this if it wasn't for her. She she told me a number of years ago together with her colleagues about the the trauma they had gone through and we as a result did our study and brought them in as witnesses and she has been with this cause for so many years. And so, Dr. Valerie Andrews.

[00:12:33]>> Thank you very much.

[00:12:36]>> Thank you, Senator Egleton, and of course, Senator Patty Claire and MP Gould.

[00:12:44]I want to say a couple of names.

[00:12:47]Joyce Rymer, Linda Dah, Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Margaret McDonald Val Showers Rosemary Colossimo Pearl Newfield.

[00:13:03]These are just a few, not not an extensive list of mothers and adopes who have lost their lives since we got the Senate report, waiting for justice, waiting for an apology and have passed away without receiving that.

[00:13:24]I lost my child to adoption in 1970.

[00:13:29]And as Senator Gold referred to and Senator, sorry, MP Gold and Senator Petty Clair, many Canadians are still probably unaware that during this period, the federal and provincial governments funded draconian adoption policies and practices that impacted over 300,000 unmarried mothers across Canada. In Canadian hospitals, unmarried mothers report being subjected to verbal, physical, psychological abuse, punitive, and harsh treatment.

[00:14:04]Mothers were segregated from married mothers. The clean clean break protocol meant that babies were taken away while mothers were still in the final stages of delivery. Mothers were routinely denied their right to see, hold, or feed their babies without prior consent.

[00:14:24]Mothers breasts were bound and lactation suppressants were administered.

[00:14:29]Some mothers were told their babies died only to learn later that their child had been adopted.

[00:14:36]Some mothers still do not know whether they gave birth to a boy or a girl, having been told, "Well, that's none of your affair."

[00:14:46]Current social work curricula embrace anti-opressive polit policies, but my research reveals the profession as unregulated and less than anti-opressive during that period. The realistic plan, a social work euphemism for adoption, was the casework solution for unmarried mothers. Mothers report the use of threats, fear, duress, lies, trickery, pressure, and even physical force to obtain uninformed consents with no legal counsel. Most signing alone, with no support. Mothers were purposely kept unaware of their legal rights as mothers. Mothers were routinely not given a p copy of any paper signed and usually not informed of their right of revocation.

[00:15:39]Mothers were routinely called told you will forget this baby which of course none of us ever did.

[00:15:47]Mothers returned to the community after birth and traumatized from the harsh treatment and loss of their usually firstborn baby, told to keep secret and provided no counseling or after care.

[00:16:03]Then these same women were constructed as uncaring abandoners who chose adoption, unnatural mothers with no maternal sentiment who gave away their babies. We took these issues up in the Senate report and it was recommended that we should receive an apology as other governments have done.

[00:16:27]These mothers deserve this justice. They deserve this apology. And so many of them are getting older. I'm dealing with women now in their 80s and 90s.

[00:16:41]Let's give them justice before they leave us. Thank you, >> Christine Naylor.

[00:16:57]>> I was 15 years old when my daughter was taken from me. What happened was not a choice. It was forced adoption, a violation of my rights, and the removal of my right to parent my own child.

[00:17:10]The day I left the hospital without her is the day that my life split in two, before and after. I refer to this as my death day. The death of my innocence, the death of trust, and the death of any belief that the world was safe or that my loved ones would protect me. The young woman I had been died in that moment.

[00:17:32]Forced adoption does not end at the hospital doors. It becomes a lifelong wound. It shapes identity, relationships, and every milestone that follows. It affects how a mother parents the children she has later. It affects siblings who grow up sensing that someone is missing. It affects grandchildren who inherit a story of loss that they did not choose. The harm does not stay in one generation. It echoes forward in ripples throughout generations.

[00:18:02]My story is one of only hundreds of thousands. I stand here today for all of the mothers who had their children stolen and their voices silenced. For decades, we were told to forget. We're told to move on and to pretend that this was for the best. But silence is no longer acceptable.

[00:18:23]The Senate's shame is ours report documented the truth that Canada engaged in widespread forced adoption practices that cause profound and lasting harm to mothers, children, and families. That truth is now on record. But what miss is missing is action. The report called for a national apology within one year. It has now been eight years since that recommendation and decades of government silence before that. Decades of refusing to acknowledge what was done to us.

[00:18:55]Decades of eraser, decades of harm.

[00:19:01]Other countries, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, and more have all issued national apologies. Canada does not stand alone in its silence, but it remains steadfast in it. Australia was the first country in the world to acknowledge the harm done to mothers through a national apology. Mothers not just in a Australia but around the world including myself watched and cried because for the first time someone finally named the truth of what was done to us.

[00:19:32]For years I lived with the trauma and silence, the depression, the shame that was never mine to carry and the lifelong grief that shaped every part of my life.

[00:19:43]And because of that shame, stigma, and silence that was attached to my pregnancy and the birth of my daughter, I was unable to get the help that I needed to deal with that trauma. This is why I created the petition, to end the silence, to demand that the government take responsibility for its rule, to insist that Canada finally acknowledge what other countries have already faced.

[00:20:06]An apology without reparations is meaningless, is just words on a paper forgotten in time. What we need is an apology as a first step, but not the final one.

[00:20:17]Because the harm was real, the harm was lifelong, and the harm continues across generations.

[00:20:25]We cannot change what was done to us, but we can demand that Canada finally acknowledges it, that it take responsibility for it, and that it act on it so that no young mother in this country is ever again separated from her child because of age, stigma, or social pressure. Thank you, >> Linda Hall.

[00:20:52]I'm speaking to you today as one of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who were adopted in the decades following World War II. I was born in Ottawa in 1963 at the Salvation Army Grace Hospital in Ottawa. My mother was 16 years old and had been sent away from Fort William to stay with family friends during her pregnancy.

[00:21:13]Separated from her boyfriend, her friends, her family, and the active academic and social life she had in her hometown, she gave birth alone, fully anistized without her consent.

[00:21:25]After my birth, she was relegated to the separate wing with other unwed mothers, denied access to the nursery where I was taken, permitted to feed me bottles at prescribed hours, but denied the right to breastfeed me.

[00:21:40]She was told to abandon any notion of keeping me by a steady stream of social workers and clergy. She was repeatedly told, "If you love your baby, you'll do what is right and give her up for adoption to a real family."

[00:21:53]Lacking outside counsel as to her rights, information regarding support services she might have chosen to access was withheld. She reluctantly signed legal documents to relinquish me and told to go home and forget any of this happened.

[00:22:09]My adoption had been arranged privately in advance of my birth between my mother's physician and my adopted family.

[00:22:19]Growing up, I always knew I was adopted.

[00:22:21]I remember the story of my parents excitement when the doctor called to say there was a beautiful baby girl for them to come and pick up at the hospital.

[00:22:29]Their firstborn child, soon to become my sister, was waiting in the car in the parking lot with her grandmother. She was five years old and doesn't remember ever being told that a new baby was coming into the family.

[00:22:42]It wasn't until I was 17 years old that I worked up the courage to ask if my parents had any information about my origins. My adoption was not something we talked about, and this lack of dialogue had instilled in me the feeling that we that to do so would be wrong and hurtful to my parents. I felt guilty that I should need something more than what I had been given, a stable, loving, prosperous family.

[00:23:06]As with all adoptes in the post-war era, my adoption records were sealed by court order. I was not allowed to know the name of the mother who carried and nurtured me in utero and gave me gave birth to me.

[00:23:18]I was left to imagine her relationship to my father, the circumstances by which I was relinquished for adoption, where they were now. I was not allowed to know my lineage, my cultural heritage, my family medical history.

[00:23:33]Reunion with my first mother and her family came after years of research on my own. By then, I was in my mid20s and was no longer the baby my mother remembered holding.

[00:23:43]I'd grown up away from my four siblings and didn't share the same childhood memories and experiences.

[00:23:50]While we all tried to create a sense of family amongst us, the impact of our lost time together eroded the fragile bond we built. And I found myself an outsider, not quite belonging, not quite trusted, and no longer legally a part of my original family.

[00:24:07]The unnecessarily cruel, unethical, and coercive practices that severed myself and other adopes from their origins during this period was acknowledged by the standing committee on social affairs, science, and technology in 2018.

[00:24:21]The national apology recommended in the committee's report is long overdue. A formal apology on behalf of all Canadians would validate our lived experiences and the far-reaching negative impacts of forced adoptions of the babies of unmarried mothers that was allowed to continue across Canada for decades.

[00:24:41]As a society, we are stronger when we admit to harmful practices so that we may ensure they are not repeated in the future.

[00:24:50]>> Thank you. Final speaker before questions is Sylvie Bur.

[00:25:05]Foreign system.

[00:25:56]Fore speech.

[00:26:27]Complexity.

[00:26:43]Forever difficulty performance.

[00:27:22]system progress.

[00:27:58]Merciu Sylvie. And now uh you've heard from mothers or uh children of uh these unwed mothers at the time uh as to their experiences.

[00:28:14]uh and we at the Senate when we did the report felt that to be very compelling information and it's certainly our hope that Senator Petty Clerk and MP Karina Gould are able to succeed in their attempts to bring about an apology.

[00:28:35]Thank you very much. Merci Boku.

[00:28:47]>> Oh, is there any questions? I'm sorry.

[00:28:50]Any questions?

[00:28:52]>> I don't believe so.

[00:28:53]>> I don't think so.

[00:28:54]>> Okay. Thank you very much. Sorry.