help

collapse

Press one of the expand buttons to see the full text of an article. Later press collapse to revert to the original form. The buttons below expand or collapse all articles.

expand

collapse

Children's Aid Sued

January 18, 2009 permalink

A father is suing children's aid. The heart of his complaint is that after his divorce his mother-in-law abused his daughter so that the father could be blamed. When the scam came to the attention of children's aid, they did not protect the children from the abusive grandmother, but instead began an action to restrict his contact with his children. His press release is below, and we also have a copy of the statement of claim (MS-word format).

The father is the person using the screen name fixchildrensaid. Aside from sharing a common goal he is not associated with Dufferin VOCA.

expand

collapse

Press Release - For Immediate Release

Monday, January 5, 2009

London, Ontario father of four sues the MCYS and Children’s Aid Society

Five and a half years after his hellish custody battle began, a London father was left with what he considers to be no option other than to sue the Children’s Aid Society of London & Middlesex (LMCAS), as well as the Ministry of Children & Youth Services (MCYS), which oversees CAS agencies in the Province of Ontario.

The father must remain unnamed due to the fact that a Protection Application was filed against him by a second, nearby Children’s Aid Society. The Child & Family Services Act (CFSA) – under which, CAS agencies’ legal obligations lie – states that children that are involved in a CFSA matter cannot be identified.

And that issue is the heart of the father’s claim against the LMCAS. In 2003, the father reported to LMCAS – based on his son and daughter’s statements to him – that a maternal relative had assaulted his daughter in an attempt to frame him for sexual assault. The father alleges that LMCAS knew that the assault occurred, but that LMCAS, instead of helping and comforting his abused child, went to great lengths to cover up the fact that the assault occurred.

“Even after I was granted joint custody in 2004 – which granted me the absolute legal right to access LMCAS’ files – they still denied me access,” the father states. “In 2006, a judge finally ordered LMCAS to grant me access to the files in question. When I finally got to see the files, even I was shocked at how clearly the evidence in the file showed that the assault had indeed occurred.”

“Even at that point”, the father goes on, “I sincerely believed that the matter was simply one of a couple of mistakes being made by low-level CAS workers and that my formal complaint to upper management would correct the problem.”

“Instead, within nine days of my official complaint being received by LMCAS, the neighbouring CAS agency filed a Protection Application against me. This had the immediate effect of instituting a publication ban on all of the issues that related to my children, which included the evidence that LMCAS had just been ordered to turn over to me. The Protection Application did not allege direct abuse or neglect by me. They didn’t even allege that I had ever hit or even yelled at my children. Their entire claim was based on the allegation that I was traumatizing my children by my pursuing legal remedies in court, which included my need to convince a judge to force LMCAS to grant me what was my legal right to receive anyway.”

The father also states that, during the two years since the Protection Application has been in place, the two agencies (the second agency has not yet been sued) have allowed the mother and her family to have almost complete control of the children and that CAS’ own evidence from the last two years shows that the maternal relatives have gone on to further abuse the children during that entire time.

The lawsuit also specifically names MCYS Minister Deb Matthews – another Londoner - as a defendant. The father alleges that the Minister herself has knowingly breached her obligations under the CFSA and is therefore also liable for the harm that has been brought upon his four children. The father was shocked when, after presenting the Minister with clear evidence of the abuse and cover-up, Deb Matthews’ office – speaking for the Minister herself - told him that if he wanted resolution, he would have to take legal action.

“It would have been much better”, the father says, “if the Minister simply abided by her duties under the CFSA and fixed the obvious mistakes that were made. Unfortunately for my children, she knowingly forced me to take the difficult and, most importantly, the lengthy process of needing to sue the MCYS and LMCAS in order to finally get the matter cleared up.”

When asked how he arrived at the figure of 1.4 million dollars in relation to his request for monetary compensation, the father explained that the figure was decided upon for a few different reasons. “1.4 million dollars is 1,000 times less than what we, as taxpayers, contribute to the CAS agencies in Ontario alone; meaning that the Provincial Government pays 1.4 billion dollars to the provinces CAS agencies – and the figure continues to grow exponentially each year. Most Ontarians would probably be surprised that the figure is that large, so I felt it important to bring that point to their attention.

Additionally, 1.4 million dollars is likely how much the MCYS and LMCAS have wasted in this case so far, while attempting to justify and cover up their previous inappropriate and unlawful actions.

But most importantly, my children have suffered tremendously due to the actions of the MCYS and LMCAS; and I have been prevented from granting my children what children with two parents should never go without: peaceful time with both parents. We all deserve appropriate compensation for what has amounted to clear bad faith actions on the part of the MCYS and LMCAS.

Note: Due to the publication ban that prevents me from identifying my children, it is not appropriate for my name to be published. (I have anonymously used the pseudonym “fixchildrensaid” in the past when posting to certain internet discussion forums, should you wish to provide the public with an identifiable name for myself.) Nevertheless, my contact information is as follows, in order for your news agency to get into contact with me:

[name omitted]
115 McNay Street
London, Ontario N5Y 1L1
519-614-8713
Fax – 519-451-2726

Statement of Claim will be provided to your news agency, should you request it.

Should you wish to contact The Honourable Deb Matthews, her contact information is as follows:

London Constituency office:

Mail - 242 Piccadilly Street
London, Ontario N6A 1S4
Telephone – 519-432-7339
Fax – 519-432-0613

Queens Park:

Mail - Ministry of Children and Youth Services
M-1B114, Macdonald Block
900 Bay Street
Toronto ON M7A 1N3
Telephone - 1-866-821-7770
Fax - 1-416-325-5191

P.S. Is it possible for your news agency to confirm by email, if you do post the Press Release? Thank you in advance.

/signed/

Source: email from fixchildrensaid

sequential