Conservatives mull changes to citizenship rules for babies born on Canadian soil
By Andy Radia | Canada Politics – Sat, 25 Feb, 2012

It’s one of the oldest immigration tricks in the book: get pregnant, fly to another country, have your baby, and voila – you’ve got immigrant ties to said country.

It even happens in Canada.

According to the Toronto Sun, Ottawa has discovered a number of unscrupulous immigration consultants in Hong Kong, who are coaching wealthy Chinese mainlanders about how to keep their pregnancies hidden while entering Canada on student or visitor visas.

“Avoid any baby or maternity items in luggage, wear dark clothing going through customs to look slimmer, and arrive in Canada no later than in the seventh month of pregnancy are among the tips given,” notes the article.

Three townhouses in this complex at 8580 Cook Road in Richmond, B.C., are believed to serve as 'pregnancy centres' for women from China looking to give birth in Canada. (CARMINE MARINELLI/QMI Agency)

Hotel linked to ‘passport babies’
Byron Chu, QMI Agency
First posted: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 05:05 PM EST | Updated: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 05:33 PM EST

Three townhouses in this complex at 8580 Cook Road in Richmond, B.C., are believed to serve as ‘pregnancy centres’ for women from China looking to give birth in Canada. (CARMINE MARINELLI/QMI Agency)

VANCOUVER – Three townhouses in Richmond, B.C., are being used to house foreign nationals pregnant with “passport babies,” and are among numerous local housing destinations for birth tourists, a QMI Agency investigation has uncovered.

Advertised online in Chinese as the Pan Pan Pregnancy Centre, the Cook Road residences offer a haven to women from the one-child policy country. But they may be birth tourists in the eyes of the federal government, which has vowed to crack down on those exploiting a long-known loophole to citizenship that gives a passport to anyone born in our borders.

Anchor babies an asset for unscrupulous pregnant women

‘Birth tourism’ pains Canada
Crackdown vowed on illegal practice
By: Natalie Stechyson
Posted: 02/27/2012 1:00 AM

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is poised to crack down on so-called “passport babies” or “birth tourism” — the practice of travelling to Canada to give birth so that child can have Canadian citizenship — as a media report out of China reveals a ring of consultants are coaching pregnant women to do exactly that.

“We are aware of crooked consultants who encourage pregnant women to illegally travel to Canada to give birth and gain access to Canada’s considerable benefits,” Citizenship and Immigration spokeswoman Candice Malcolm told Postmedia News on Sunday.

“We condemn the practice of circumventing our laws to game the system, leaving Canadians taxpayers with the bill. This is unfair and not right.”

The government will introduce changes to the citizenship laws in the next year, Malcolm said.

By Mark Dunn, Senior National Reporter

OTTAWA - The government plans to crack down on a scam in which pregnant Chinese women are coming to Canada for the sole purpose of giving birth so the child becomes a citizen, QMI Agency has learned.

The fraud is mostly based in Hong Kong where unscrupulous consultants are coaching wealthy Chinese mainlanders how to keep their pregnancies hidden entering Canada on student or visitor visas.

Avoid any baby or maternity items in luggage, wear dark clothing going through customs to look slimmer, and arrive in Canada no later than in the seventh month of pregnancy are among the tips given.

Once here, the women go into hiding until they are due to give birth and then go to a hospital to deliver the baby. No one knows the extent of the abuse.

All babies born in Canada are considered citizens – meaning they could return later in life as a student, for example, and sponsor their parents under family reunification.

Family wins $8-million from Toronto General Hospital almost three decades after staff caused baby brain damage

Tristin Hopper

Nearly three decades after their baby was brain damaged by negligent staff at Toronto General Hospital, an Israeli family has won more than $8-million in compensation from the hospital’s operators.

On January 10, 1984, recent Canadian immigrant Atalyah Gutbir gave birth to a daughter Zmora. Emerging from the womb blue, silent and in critical condition – her arrival prompted panic in the delivery room. Deprived of oxygen in the womb for more than three hours, Zmora had suffered permanent brain damage.

According to a 2010 jury ruling, Zmora’s condition was caused by the failure of hospital staff to monitor the baby’s heartbeat during Atalyah’s labour. Detection “would have allowed an earlier intervention, (birth of the baby), which could have prevented permanent brain injury.”

Last week, an Ontario court dismissed an appeal by the University Health Network, the operators of Toronto General. The Network has been ordered to pay $5,500,000 in compensation, as well as $625,000 to each of Zmora’s parents.

Paola Ortiz fled to Canada five years ago to escape an abusive husband, who is a federal police officer in Mexico. She faces possible deportation back to Mexico in the coming days. Photograph by: Marie-France Coallier, THE GAZETTE

Deportation of Mexican Paola Ortiz delayed for medical reasons
Hospitalized after panic attack
By René Bruemmer, THE GAZETTE September 20, 2011 6:49 PM

(…)

MONTREAL – Refugee claimant Paola Ortiz, who was scheduled to be deported to Mexico on a 10 a.m. flight out of Montreal Tuesday morning, was instead transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital after suffering a panic attack at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport.