The Hongcouver | Chinese birth tourism in Canada isn’t a loophole, grey area or oversight. It’s 100 per cent legal
Guidelines for immigration staff say giving birth in Canada is no violation of the rules governing tourists, and pregnancy does not have to be declared because it isn’t considered a ‘medical condition’
The simmering furore over birth tourism in the Vancouver region is heated by the assumption that the Chinese women flocking to deliver their little bundles of Canadian citizenship are somehow gaming the system.
Even if they are complying with the letter of the law – which grants citizenship to anyone born in Canada, regardless of the status of the parents – the intent of the law, and the intent of officials in charge of Canada’s borders and immigration rules, must surely lie elsewhere when it comes to birth tourists. We’re dealing with the result of an oversight. Surely. Right?
Wrong.
Canada’s immigration authorities are well aware of the phenomenon of birth tourism, which has led to more than two dozen private “baby houses” being set up in British Columbia’s lower mainland to accommodate pregnant mainland Chinese travellers. Infants with non-resident mothers made up 22.1 per cent (474 babies) out of all newborns in the 2017/2018 financial year at Richmond Hospital, where the practice is soaring.
