This article discusses the fear of adoption groups that the records in Ontario Canada won’t be unsealed. This article was printed in the Gillian Livingston Canadian Press on Sunday, May 14, 2006.

Ontario fought a long battle to unseal adoption records and is now fearing the possibility that a conservative provincial government in 2007 will reverse this victory.

The records in Ontario are expected to be officially unsealed by September. Apparently there are polls that suggest that suggest that conservatives might try to revoke this progressive legislation. There may be some administrative glitches that the records won’t be unsealed before voters go to the polls in October.

Karen Lynn, the coordinating member of the Coalition for Open Adoption Records, is quoted in the article: "My concern is that the Conservatives might act the way they did before the last time when they took power and they revoked laws such as the Employment Equity Act." She goes on to say, "They seem to have a history of revoking progressive legislation, and so I do worry about the Adoption Information Disclosure Act in that respect since several (Conservative) members vehemently opposed it."

The records in Ontario have been sealed for 80 years. Once they are opened it will be easier for adult adoptees and natural parents to search for and find one another. This legislation will permit adoptees to learn the names of their natural parents and the natural parents to learn the current name of the child they relinquished to adoption.

Many groups feel that a disclosure veto should be added to the legislation and many have fought hard to keep a disclosure veto out of the legislation. There are adoption laws in British Columbia, Alberta, and Newfoundland that include a disclosure veto and many jurisdictions around the world that don’t. However, in Ontario the legislation does provide a way for the person to keep the information secret. They must prove to a review board that releasing it would cause significant harm. Adoptees and natural parents do have the right to insist that they not be contacted.