Couple still fighting to keep girl

Foster parents lose latest appeal

A British Columbia foster couple is refusing to give up their fight to adopt a Métis toddler they have raised almost since birth, even after the province’s highest court ruled against them.

On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal of B.C. dismissed two appeals launched by the Vancouver Island couple, whose emotional case has pitted the importance of indigenous heritage against that of blood relatives.

The couple hopes to stop the Ministry of Children and Family Development from moving the girl to Ontario to live with her older sisters, whom she has never met, and their adoptive parents.

The foster mother is Métis while the adoptive parents are not, and the B.C. couple has argued that the girl’s aboriginal background should take precedence. The girl, who is nearly three, went into the couple’s care two days after she was born.

The appeal court ruled in a written decision that the ministry is the legal guardian of the girl and has the authority to select her adoptive parents. The courts cannot circumvent provincial law to make an adoption order, the five-judge panel said.

The foster mother, who cannot be identified in order to protect the child’s identity, said in an email that she and her husband are disappointed but remain hopeful.

“A child’s life should not be decided on technicalities. We believe that someone is going to consider the needs of the child first and foremost. Isn’t that what this should be all about?”

The couple’s lawyer, Jack Hittrich, said the appeal court ruled late Tuesday against a temporary injunction to keep the child in B.C. while the couple seeks leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The couple has also filed another B.C. Supreme Court petition challenging the decisions of the Director of Child, Family and Community Services on charter grounds.

“We are looking at all avenues and certainly my clients are not prepared to give up yet,” Hittrich said.