This is just one of those things we have an opportunity to get ahead of before it ramps up and creates more damage than it should to Canada. It should be so simple, it’s a paper cut we don’t need to bleed from.
Birth tourism is a hedge. Families abroad that would like to immigrate to Canada one day (or any other place) save up and pool money for one member to go and have a baby elsewhere. Some families do it because they want their kids to have another passport. It was also the way some Chinese families got around the one-child policy.
In the future, that child can sponsor his family to the new country. It’s a dirty trick to get around the country’s immigration policies, in a way. It’s cheaper than the alternative and requires less paperwork. All you need is patience.
Leading up to the pandemic, birth tourism was growing at double-digits and now it is climbing again. With Canada’s mass immigration policies and the ease of getting visas, we will be at a record in no time.
British Columbia’s Richmond Hospital had 24% of its births to non-resident mothers in 2019-2020. Now, Toronto’s Humber River Hospital and Montreal’s St. Mary’s are leading the way. Vancouver’s first baby in 2023 was to a mother from Egypt who came here to secure her baby a passport.
Some families do arrange ahead of time for their arrival and health regions do require a payment to cover the birth. For a regular birth, they are charged $10,000 - $20,000. Issues and skipped payments arise quickly if there are complications and the cost is much larger.
Over one 16-month study by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada found Alberta Health Services was out of pocket to the tune of $700,000 from such births. It is costing taxpayers millions all across Canada.
Some costs aren’t monetary. We have overloaded healthcare and this just puts more pressure on the system and takes away doctors, nurses, and space from providing healthcare to Canadians.
In the future when the child does move and brings over the family they all get full access to our benefits and services as citizens without contributing a dime to the costs. They can also use it at their convenience. This generates further costs to taxpayers. It’s an abuse of the system; thus the country.
Many countries already revoked or have started to revoke automatic citizenship.
I personally like the requirement of some countries in Europe for at least one parent to be a citizen in order for the child to be granted with citizenship. It’s a good policy and Canada needs to enact one.
Amending the Citizenship Act can also solve the abuse that comes from the student visa saga.
This is just a logical step to protect the integrity of this country.