Surrogacy in Canada or Australia? Which is the Best?

In this video, Page Provan Director and award-winning surrogacy lawyer Stephen Page breaks down the surrogacy process in Australia versus Canada.

Transcript 

G’day, I’m Stephen Page from Page Provan Family and Fertility Lawyers, and I’m talking about, well, should you do surrogacy in Australia or do it in Canada? The starting point is, if you live in Australia and you’re lucky enough to find a surrogate, do it here.

It’ll be cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and you’ll be able to get on with it in your local, relatively local, and maybe down the road, maybe in the next state, IVF clinic with a surrogate who is living domestically, who speaks the same language, and culturally is the same as you. If you have the opportunity to do it in Australia, just do so.

I’m lucky to be a dad through surrogacy in Brisbane with my husband, an egg donation in Brisbane. I just can’t speak highly enough of being able to do surrogacy. Likely, it’s just cheaper and easier and very clear about who’s a parent. But most people can’t and the latest numbers are that for every child born through surrogacy in Australia, three are born overseas.

So one of the key destinations that Australians have gone to for about the last dozen years or so has been Canada. And Canada is a really good destination for surrogacy. I’ve done other videos about surrogacy in Canada, but let’s just talk about why it’s good. The cost. The cost is about in early 2024, about $140,000 Australian from beginning to end. So pretty good.

Certainly, a lot, about half the cost of the US. You have a Medicare system, which brings down the cost. You have altruistic surrogacy, like you do here. Although we’ve got to be careful that in terms of Australian laws, we don’t breach local laws concerning our commercial surrogacy.

So they are of concern in all of Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, South Australia, Northern Territory, and Western Australia, and those concerning commercial egg donation, because even though it’s altruistic in Canada, we still have to be careful that we don’t breach local laws in all of those places other than Victoria or Tasmania.

The one problem that exists with Canada at the moment is matching time. So it takes about two years to match, and that’s because of the pressure that’s come about because of COVID and the invasion of Ukraine. So intended parents, there’s a bottleneck, and that bottleneck will be continuing for the moment.

But I think Canada is a great location, and surrogacy has done very well there. Typically, you will have a post-birth order in Canada. It will be a lot quicker than you have in Australia. Australia is one to six months before you can apply to the court, and then you get on about another month after that.

Canada, it’s between two or three days after the birth, and that’s in Alberta, to at most four weeks after the birth that you see in places like New Brunswick. So Canada, I think, is a great location, a really good location. It’s just you have to be patient. Thank you.