N.B. mother hopeful adoption will succeed despite agency bankruptcy

A New Brunswick mother says she's hopeful she will be able to adopt a young girl from Ethiopia even after the Ontario-based adoption agency she used to arrange the adoption went bankrupt earlier this month.

After adopting twin girls from Ethiopia two years ago, Jessie-Lee Lomax began trying to adopt their older sister. Lomax said she was crushed when Imagine Adoption filed for bankruptcy, but she believes she now has reason for optimism.

Lomax recently discovered that her family has been matched with the little girl by the Ethiopian government.

"Our referral had been sent to the Imagine office about a week and a half before the office closed," she said. "So, the great news is that we actually do have a referral, and the horrible news is that most of the files and the information and the computers are all in storage lockdown and are taking quite a while to get out."

At a creditors' meeting in Ontario on Thursday night, families voted to work with the bankruptcy trustee BDO Dunwoody to restructure Imagine Adoption so it can complete all pending adoptions.

Lomax said that's a relief, although she isn't expecting things to move quickly.

"I think that they're doing the best they can, but they're just not set up for this," she said.

Bankruptcy notice posted on July 13

The Cambridge, Ont.-based agency, which for the last two years helped Canadians adopt children from Ethiopia, Ghana and Ecuador, posted a bankruptcy notice on its website July 13.

A number of Canadian families, many of whom have already paid $15,000 in adoption fees, are now waiting to find out when they will be matched with their adopted children.

Those families have been listed as unsecured creditors in bankruptcy documents, posted online through BDO Dunwoody.

The fraud division of the Waterloo Regional Police has launched an investigation into the adoption agency.

The investigation began after two members of the three-member board of directors of Kids Link International, which operated under the name Imagine Adoption, expressed concerns to police about the agency