Achi news desk-
For 10-year-old Ryleigh Ridland, it has been a long wait for a family hug – on Canadian soil.
She embraced her new family on Friday after arriving at Vancouver airport, ending the long legal battle with the Canadian and South African governments to get her to this country after the tragic loss of her own mother in South Africa.
“I feel very excited to be here in Canada with my family,” she said, her voice wavering as she recounted the long wait to take her first plane rides and steps in Canada.
“I’ve been waiting. It was very hard.”
Ryleigh and her great aunt Lisa Pyne-Mercier, 53, left Johannesburg for Paris on Wednesday, and then after a stopover flew to Vancouver. They then went home to Shawnigan Lake, BC, about 30 kilometers north of Victoria.
The girl had been in foster care since her mother’s sudden death in 2021.
Ryleigh, who was then seven years old, was found alone in sweltering heat on a remote rural property on January 9, 2021, near the town of Tzaneen in South Africa, about 360 kilometers north-east of Pretoria.
Her mother, 31-year-old Jackie Ridland, had died at least eight days earlier of natural causes, according to authorities.
Somehow Ryleigh had survived alone in 40 C heat. She was taken to hospital and treated for malaria, dehydration and malnutrition.
Pyne-Mercier, who is originally from South Africa herself, fought for four years to bring her to Canada.
She was confirmed as the child’s legal guardian by the High Court in South Africa on June 28, 2022. But Pyne-Mercier says she faced many administrative obstacles when trying to bring the girl to Canada.
The main points include the fact that the girl’s father still lives in South Africa, and that her mother named Pyne-Mercier as Ryleigh’s guardian in her will, making the case unusual, as most adoptions mean that a more immediate family member is named guardian. .
A BC woman is one step closer to being reunited with her great-niece after four years of court battles to get the girl allowed to immigrate to Canada from South Africa.
Pyne-Mercier spent thousands of dollars on a legal campaign to gain guardianship and full parental rights in South Africa so that Ryleigh could join her in Canada, but the Canadian High Commission in South Africa rejected Ryleigh’s applications for permanent resident status in Canada and a study permit in January 2023.
The High Commission initially ruled that Ryleigh did not meet the definition of an “orphan” under Canadian law as her biological father was alive. Under South African law, however, she was considered an orphan due to abandonment, as her father had relinquished all parental rights after divorcing Ridland in 2016.
Toronto immigration lawyer Michael Battista took over the case in 2023. He was preparing for a hearing in February when news broke that Ryleigh could finally apply for permanent residency.
“A child’s needs are sometimes very urgent, and the international adoption process is cumbersome and expensive and time-consuming,” Battista said in an interview on Friday.
He said this case shows the complexity of international adoptions, especially from non-immediate relatives.
“The question for us here in Canada is how much flexibility are we going to give to those relationships, especially when there is a situation of urgency and danger that requires recognizing a family member who can care about another member of the family who is in trouble. ,” he said.
Battista used a section of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to try to circumvent the Hague Convention — which protects internationally adopted children — and bring Ryleigh to Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
But he credited Pyne-Mercier as “diligent, persistent and fearless” for her fight to bring her great-niece home.
“She has been a model and very inspiring to me and I think to all parents,” said Battista.
Today, a tired Ryleigh said she was eager to meet new friends and teachers and to play in the snow.
“This is a Canadian treasure here. The things she’s going to do in this country, for this country, it’s amazing and we want to say thank you,” said Pyne-Mercier.
He said after such a long journey, there was one moment that stood out.
“What got me was when the [customs] the officer said, ‘Congratulations you are now a Canadian citizen.’ That to me was like, wow, it’s worth it. [Ryleigh] do a happy dance then.”
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