Wonderful Children's Aid

January 12, 2010 permalink

While children's aid societies are complaining of the need to eliminate "services" on account of funding cuts, their trade association and lobby group, the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies (OACAS), has taken funds from childcare to finance an ad campaign promoting children's aid. Three of the radio ads are available here: Candy, Reena and Marian. There are also eleven print ads: Chantell, George , Reena , Orlena , Candy , Nandita , Jennifer, Linda , Connie , Nick and Jessica . All of the ads direct you to the website Use your voice for more information. The website has six video ads on YouTube, but each produces only the message: "This video has been removed by the user". John Shipman reports ironically that he has seen the tv ads only on the Comedy Network. The propaganda extends to the About Us page, where we read: "Each year, Children’s Aid in Ontario responds to more than 155,000 calls from concerned members of the community about the possible abuse and neglect of children and youth". According to Statistics Canada, Ontario had only 140,255 births in the most recent year. All children are under watch.

A reality check shows that these ads are silly fantasies. Since no full names are given, it is impossible to independently check the facts. They make no mention of the 90 (or is it only 54?) children who die annually in CAS care, or numerous other failings such as in our satirical list of duties for a CAS executive director. Are you someone who can afford to run counter-advertisements, telling the real story? Sorry, no Ontario publication will run such an ad, out of fear of litigation by children's aid. The very first posting to this news blog is of a newspaper turning down such an ad. More recently, the Toronto Sun refused to run a small classified ad in the personals section asking for reports from persons who have had a family member die in children's aid care.

Addendum: Here are the tv ads:

ad

link and local copy (mp4)

Jessica

YouTube   mp4

Jennifer

YouTube   mp4

Nick

YouTube   mp4

Wendy

YouTube   mp4

Chantell

YouTube   mp4

Linda

YouTube   mp4

All of the ads end by asking you to get involved with your children's aid. John Dunn has been rebuffed for years in his efforts to get involved, and he is now on his second prosecution of children's aid for a provincial offence. He suggests that all Ontarians respond to the ads by applying for membership in their local children's aid society.