[Newsbot]

Title: Chinese 'birth tourists' having babies in Canada
Category: Health
Posted By: martin14
Date: 2013-01-18 23:39:05
Canadian

[martin14]

$1:

Although the practice may seem deceptive, one lawyer says it is perfectly legal.

Gee, a lawyer is happy.


We need to change our system, badly, to stop obvious abuses like this.

No citizenship without parents being Citizens, or at least Permanent Residents.

Other countries do this, no problem; in fact we are in the minority of those who have this stupid policy.


I sincerely hope the government will change this.

[Hyack]

Dear sir, would you please read the stories posted on the Home page before submitting your stories, this same story was posted, by me, 11/2 hours prior to your submission. The site should have picked this up, but like a lot of other things around here it is obviously not working, or you just ignored it. The same thing happened with the story on the people having problems identifying places on the map![wedgie]

Have a nice day.

[martin14]

Hyack Hyack:

Dear sir, would you please read the stories posted on the Home page before submitting your stories, this same story was posted, by me, 11/2 hours prior to your submission. The site should have picked this up, but like a lot of other things around here it is obviously not working, or you just ignored it. The same thing happened with the story on the people having problems identifying places on the map![wedgie]

Have a nice day.

Sorry, I read the front page but missed it.

[Hyack]

Strange, they were both from the CBC, the site usualy picks up on duplicte addresses and aks if you still want to post the story, it worked for me just the other day, freaking gremlins must be running amok here lately....

[saturn_656]

martin14 martin14:

$1:

Although the practice may seem deceptive, one lawyer says it is perfectly legal.

Gee, a lawyer is happy.


We need to change our system, badly, to stop obvious abuses like this.

No citizenship without parents being Citizens, or at least Permanent Residents.

Other countries do this, no problem; in fact we are in the minority of those who have this stupid policy.


I sincerely hope the government will change this.

At least one parent should be a citizen in order for citizenship to be passed onto a child. Tourists shouldn't be able to get their kids citizenship simply by giving birth here.

Total abuse of our system.

[BeaverFever]

I always thought that was a stupid rule, thought it only applied to US,not Canada. At least one parent should have at least have permanent residence > 2 years before childbirth.

[Gunnair]

Would you look at that... agreed upon by both sides of the political spectrum....

[fifeboy]

Wow, parents in China must really see their future as sucking.

[BeaverFever]

I would be willing to go even further and say that birth to non-citizen parents doesn't instantly confer citizenship to the new-born: the child can have it conferred automatically after completing say 10 years of residency prior to age 18. I know some families might move back and forth across the border to work or whatever so you have to be a little flexible. Those with less than the ten years on or after age 18 would have to go through the normal immigration / permanent resident process if they're out of country, perhaps with extra 'points' counting toward their application. Upon getting PR status, they may be allowed to satisfy a shorter period.

For those in-country who turn 18 and don't have 10 years, they should be allowed to apply for citizenship after maintaining continuous, unbroken residency for three years.

[BeaverFever]

edt: also 10 years before age 18 includes 2 years immediately prior to application

[bootlegga]

Anbody ever watch Dragon, The Bruce Lee Story?

According to that (and Wikipedia), it was exactly how Bruce Lee got his American citizenship - Daddy and Mommy were in the US (Daddy was working with a touring Opera group).

[Public_Domain]

[CanadianJeff]

I thought the "one child" law was abolished awhile back because no one was having girls. For the article to claim tourists are doing this to get around the one child law seem questionable. Does anyone have some actual numbers to this problem.

[Brenda]

It's not abolished...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

from the same link:

$1:

Circumvention through "birth tourism"
Reports surfaced of Chinese women giving birth to their second child overseas, a practice known as birth tourism. Many went to Hong Kong, which is exempt from the one-child policy. Likewise, a Hong Kong passport differs from China mainland passport by providing additional advantages. Recently though, the Hong Kong government has drastically reduced the quota of births set for non-local women in public hospitals. As a result fees for delivering babies there have surged. As further admission cuts or a total ban on non-local births in Hong Kong are being considered, mainland agencies that arrange for expectant mothers to give birth overseas are predicting a surge in those going to North America.[80] As the United States practices birthright citizenship, children born in the US will be US citizens. The closest option (from China) is Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US dependency in the western Pacific Ocean that allows Chinese visitors without visa restrictions. The island is currently experiencing an upswing in Chinese births. This option is used by relatively affluent Chinese who often have secondary motives as well, wishing their children to be able to leave communist China when they grow older or bring their parents to the US. Canada is less popular as Ottawa denies many visa requests.[81][82]