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“If you look at the facts of the case, this case is very unique. This won’t apply to every baby in Canada,” she said.

According to court records, the father, who has permanent resident status in Canada, was said to split his time between China and Canada. In September 2015, records show, the mother flew to Canada on a visitor’s visa a couple months before her due date. She and her partner acknowledged this was a “birth-tourism arrangement.”

(The National Post is withholding the names of the parents as the B.C. Provincial Court Act prohibits the identification of a child or party to a family matter before the court.)

If you look at the facts of the case, this case is very unique. This won’t apply to every baby in Canada

Their son was born that November in Richmond, B.C., often dubbed the “epicentre” of Canada’s birth tourism industry. According to Vancouver Coastal Health, during the 2017-18 fiscal year 474 babies were born to non-residents in the Vancouver suburb, representing 22 per cent of all babies born there in that period.

After spending six months in Canada, the trio returned to China in May 2016. At some point, the relationship between the unmarried couple fell apart.

They agreed on a living arrangement: the boy would reside primarily in Beijing with his mother, a television host, and her parents, and spend the rest of the time in nearby Tianjin with his father, a bottled-water business owner, and his family.

Tensions flared in December 2017 when the father flew with his son to Vancouver on one-way tickets, apparently without the mother’s consent. The mother flew to B.C. a few days later and spent a couple of weeks with her son before flying back to Beijing for work. She agreed to let her son stay in Canada until February 2018.