A B.C. woman is petitioning the federal government to crack down on birth tourism, on the grounds that foreign women are deliberately having babies at hospitals in Canada, so their “passport babies” will have access to free healthcare, education and Canadian citizenship.

Kerry Starchuk, of Richmond, B.C., says the problem is particularly acute at Richmond Hospital, where a child is born to a foreign mother approximately once every day. All of these children immediately become Canadian citizens, by virtue of the fact they are born on Canadian soil. A CTV investigation from 2016 also found birth tourism to be on the rise in Canada.

“I think there has to be some kind of contribution here – some kind of connection,” she said of mothers who deliberately come to Canada to give birth. She told CTV Vancouver she’d much rather see these mothers contribute to Canadian society before reaping its benefits. She also raised concerns about the number of Canadian-born children who are raised overseas, with the freedom to move to Canada whenever they want.

“There’s no document saying in 18 years how many people are going to arrive,” she said on Tuesday. “Are we prepared for it?”

Dr. Xin Yong Wang, a family doctor at Richmond Hospital, says birth tourism is indeed commonplace there.

“A significant number of these patients are just here for their babies to have a Canadian passport,” he said.

He added that many patients also come over to Canada for the healthcare. “Most of the regions in China, they don’t provide the epidural during labour,” he said.

Starchuk says the first step toward addressing the issue is for the federal government to study it in depth, before coming up with an informed policy.

Starchuk has at least one politician in her corner in Joe Peschisolido, a Liberal MP for the riding of Steveston-Richmond East in B.C. Peschisolido is listed as a sponsor on Starchuk’s petition.

The petition calls birth tourism an “abusive and exploitive practice” that is “fundamentally debasing the value of Canadian citizenship,” while also placing a costly burden on Canadian taxpayers and the healthcare system. It urges the government to root out unregulated for-profit businesses built around the practice and eliminate them.

Starchuk’s petition calls for the federal government to publicly denounce birth tourism, commit public resources to studying it and then implement “concrete measures to reduce and eliminate this practice.”

In 2016, another petition launched by Starchuk picked up more than 75,000 signatures.

“I’d like them to study the issue and see the complications,” Starchuk said. “Then we can make the decision on birth tourism.”

With a report from CTV Vancouver's Mi-Jung Lee