Vancouver Island couple lose appeals to adopt Metis toddler

A British Columbia foster family has lost its fight in the province’s
highest court to adopt a Metis toddler in an emotional saga that has
pitted the importance of indigenous heritage against that of blood
relatives.


The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed two appeals launched by the
Vancouver Island couple, who hoped to stop the Ministry of Children and
Family Development from moving the little girl to Ontario to live with
her biological siblings, who she has never met.


The foster mom is Metis while the adoptive parents in Ontario are
not, and the B.C. couple had argued the girl’s aboriginal background
should take precedence. The girl, who is nearly three, has been in the
couple’s care since two days after birth.


But a five-judge panel ruled unanimously in a written decision
released Tuesday that both the couple’s appeals of earlier B.C. Supreme
Court decisions must be dismissed.


“(The foster parents) face an insurmountable hurdle to achieving the
relief sought,” the ruling says. “The adoption scheme in British
Columbia does not provide for adoption of a child by foster parents at
the behest of a court….”



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