Canada's rules on Islamic adoptions prevent families from bringing their children home

Every year for the last four years, Maha Al-Zu'bi, a former Calgary professor, her husband Tahseen Kharaisat, a former local restaurant owner, and their five-year-old son Furat have dressed in red and white to celebrate Canada Day from the apartment they're renting in the northwest suburbs of Amman, Jordan. 

Maha says, while it's always a celebratory day, it's a hard one — because sometimes even the thought of looking at pictures from home brings her to tears.

"We strongly believe we'll be back in Canada someday. But we don't know when," Maha told CBC News. "We love Canada, but sometimes when you love someone you close your eyes to their mistakes because you love them."

The "mistake" Maha refers to is a federal policy with roots stretching back through the last decade. Families, their lawyers and advocates say it effectively blocks Canadians from adopting children from many Muslim-majority countries. The sticking point is a difference in terminology between how those countries, and Canada, view adoption.

CBC News spoke with two families who say their lives are on hold while they're left waiting for the government to recognize their adoptions as legal.

Al-Zu'bi and Kharaisat are Canadian citizens. When they moved to Calgary in 2011, Al-Zu'bi quickly got a job at the University of Calgary, where she completed a PhD in environmental design, while Kharaisat opened a shawarma restaurant. 

But their family didn't feel complete — the couple had always hoped to have a child. 

After years of exhausting and expensive fertility treatments, and with Al-Zu'bi in her early 40s and Kharaisat about to enter his 50s, time felt like it was running out.

The waitlist to adopt a child in Canada was at least five years, so the couple turned to their country of origin, Jordan, to find a child in need of a home. That's where they met Furat. The three-month-old boy was born with a cleft hand — a congenital condition where the centre of the hand is missing fingers. He was abandoned by his birth mother due to his disability. 

"The first moment the lady gave him to me, I was staring into his eyes and he gave a big smile — it was a great sign that he's as happy as we are," Al-Zu'bi said.

They decided to welcome Furat into their family and completed the Jordanian adoption process, under a law called kafala. It never occurred to them to consult a lawyer to investigate whether Canada would treat some international adoptions as different than others — and there was nothing clearly visible on the Canadian government's website that would indicate that adopting from an Islamic country would be prohibited. 

One week after Furat was adopted, the family applied to the Canadian embassy for his visitor visa. It was promptly rejected. 

"It was a surprise. And, to be honest, it was very disappointing," Maha says. "I file taxes every year. We've always been good citizens. I love Canada ... but [once I started being interviewed] the way I was being treated never felt like I was Canadian. It wasn't welcoming."

The family's lawyer wrote to Alberta Adoption Services to request a review of the department's policy. Alberta's justice department instead responded, stating the federal government would need to amend its immigration regulations for the adoption to proceed.