Recently, I was reading the Alberta Government's web page on the Freedom of Information Act, at http://www.gov.ab.ca/foip/index.html.
This page claims that: "The Act ensures individuals have the right to access their own personal information."
I find this hard to believe, when I, like hundreds of other Albertans, do NOT have access to my own personal information. Namely, my original birth certificate and my personal adoption papers.
For many years, thousands of adopted adults in Alberta have been treated as second-class citizens, not having the same rights and freedoms of other Albertans. Adoptees are denied access to original birth certificates and other personal information based solely on the circumstances of our birth.
There is no other instance where one human being is able to seal the birth certificate of another. Even criminals have unrestricted access to their original birth certificates.
Some people view this as a privacy issue. The right of a birth parent to remain anonymous. They say that a birth parent's right to privacy supercedes their child's right to his or her own personal information. They say that because our birth parents' names are on our original birth certificates, that we should not have access to these. By this logic, any parent - or even a doctor, nurse or clerk - whose name appears on the certificate - should be able to stop a person from obtaining their own birth certificate.
In a province - in a country - that considers itself so advanced, it's a wonder that we still allow so many to be blatantly discriminated against based solely on the circumstances of their birth.
It is time for the Alberta government to give adopted adults what is rightfully ours. Full access for EVERY adult Albertan, without exception, to their own original birth certificate, and other personal information held by the government - unaltered and in full.
Lori Pringle