Adoption bill will break promise, privacy commissioner claims.

TORONTO -- Ontario government's new adoption bill which aims to open adoption records has been subjected to criticism by Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian. She claims that making the adoption bill retroactive will break promises and invade privacy of thousands of people.

The bill now before the Legislature would give adoptees, at age 18, an unqualified right to access their original birth registration and adoption order containing the personal information of the birth mother and, sometimes, the birth father. It would also allow both birth parents and adult adopted persons to file a "no contact" notice. The law would be retroactive unless the parties sign the "no contact" notice.

Currently records are sealed once an adoption takes place. Both adoptees and birth parents can voluntarily consent to the release of this information by signing up at a government registry that can lead to a reunion.

The Commissioner reports that the retroactive, unqualified right to access the original birth registration does not exist in other Canadian provinces.

"Going from this day forward, with everyone aware of the rules, I am in favour of openness in adoptions," said the Commissioner. "But retroactively changing the rules and exposing the identities of birth parents who entered into the adoption process in an era when secrecy was the norm can have major repercussions."

New South Wales, Australia has been held up as an example where a retroactive adoption law was put into place with unqualified access. Commissioner Cavoukian points out that two years after that law came into effect, the New South Wales Law Reform Commission reported that a "significant minority" of birth parents felt the law violated their privacy; that a "significant minority" of adoptees disapproved of the law; and that a "majority" of adoptive parents were opposed to the law.