Introduction
CANADA: PLURAL, ACCESSIBLE AND EFFECTIVE
Surrogacy management is allowed throughout its territory, except in the province of Quebec, where and whenever the gestational surrogate is offered free of charge, that is, no fee is allowed for providing their service. Only economic compensation may be received that compensates for the time and expenses required to carry the pregnancy. They can access all family models, both men and women without a partner, homosexual couples and all heterosexual couples without exception, provided that at least one of the intended parents is Canadian. Therefore, it does not allow processes of international surrogacy.
The jurisdiction that regulates surrogacy is the “Assisted Human Reproduction Act” that came into force on March 29, 2004, and was reviewed again between 2016 and 2017.
If you want to go to Canada and are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, you need to know that there is a lack of regulation regarding surrogacy contracts, which are quite generalized in the United States, the neighboring country. Due to the lack of regulation on surrogacy contracts, there is debate about their validity at the time of potential litigation. In short, only compassionate surrogacy processes can be carried out. In the United States, on the contrary, the intended fathers or mothers pay the gestational surrogate through their surrogacy agency for all the services performed during the pregnancy. This must be clearly done through a surrogacy contract that sets milestones and monetary values in accordance with the services provided.
A further difficulty for intended parents of a different nationality, or Canadian non-permanent residents, is that they will have to deal with two distinct processes: one that aims to obtain approval of the maternity to the intended parents, once the baby is born; and a second that seeks to obtain immigration authorization for the newborn, to be able to leave Canada. This second procedure is the most complicated. Canadian bureaucracy is very slow and it can take up to three years. During this time, the baby cannot leave Canada, not even to go on vacation or visit the country of origin of their parents.
As a country with reasonable prices and a good environment for surrogacy processes, where there are good surrogacy agencies that work transparently and specialized law firms in this type of processes, we particularly recommend Canadian citizens, permanent residents and people with jobs in Canada who want to become fathers or mothers in this way to consider developing their processes there, because ultimately it will be easier, cheaper and more agile.
