The Ottawa Citizen Online Columnists Page

Wednesday 2 May 2001

Agency's admission of error offers hope

Dave Brown
The Ottawa Citizen

There was a brilliant flash of hope from the West last week with news a child-protection agency admitted an error. It then apologized with a $20,000 settlement and promised to change the way it does things.

It happened in Winnipeg, where a judge levelled a blast at an overzealous social worker who, in 1995, pushed through an allegation a father had sexually abused his small daughter. The man was never charged, but was forced into a situation in which he had to pay to maintain contact with his child through supervised visits.

The man was awarded custody of his daughter, now nine. The allegation, which came from the mother, was shaky from the beginning. Persons caught up in child-protection issues can't be identified.

The court didn't have to dig deep for its findings. The work had already been done by the agency that kickstarted the error. The normal reaction to a suggestion of error by child protectors is to fill the moat with hungry lawyers and feed them money. In this case, something made Winnipeg Child and Family Services stand back and do something unusual. It commissioned an independent review of the case.

The review was conducted by high-profile and trusted members of the community. Not only did the agency accept an error had been made, but it announced an overhaul of its investigative procedures.

Louise Malenfant fronts a western organization called Parents Helping Parents and is an advocate for families wrongly caught in the system. She praised the Winnipeg agency, and said that city's child-protection system was now the leader in its field. "In effect they said (to the dad): We made a mistake. We want to help you get back on your feet and put this behind you."

The protection worker who made the original decision did not interview the father or his family. Child protectors have extraordinary powers, but investigative skills don't seem to be part of them.

I've watched the child-protection system for decades and it isn't unusual to see accused parents in family courts, having never been interviewed by investigators.

Ms Malenfant says the Winnipeg decision is the first of its kind she's aware of. She referred to a current case in Toronto, in which a protection agency was ordered to pay a man $50,000 under similar circumstances, but the agency immediately launched an appeal.

That, too, isn't unusual. In 1998, this column reported the conclusion of a fight with the Durham County Children's Aid Society, in which a clergyman proved he was the victim of a zealous caseworker who accused him of being a sexual predator against his own children.

He quickly won custody of his children, but it took 11 years before a court in Oshawa awarded him $250,000 and told the CAS to stop appealing court decisions.

The matter was then turned over to the agency's insurer, which made a lowball offer of $70,000. Forced to accept or fight on forever, the bankrupt clergyman accepted.

In the longest-running case in Ottawa, an Ottawa couple travelled to Toronto last week to appear before a three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal.

They were judges 62, 63 and 64 since the family's ordeal started in 1992.

They lost three children to Crown wardship and adoption. In 1999, they proved they were good parents who lost their children due to flaws in the system.

Judge Robert Fournier (No. 47), agreed, and said: "I know it leaves a hole in your heart, but c'est la vie."

In Toronto last week, the couple asked for an extension of time needed to file their next round of documents.

One of the reasons for the delay was that it took five months to get necessary transcripts.

They are now awaiting a decision from the appeal court.

The panel is taking time to decide whether to grant time.

If it doesn't, the couple will slide down a snake in the game of courtroom snakes and ladders, but the parents won't stop.

The eldest of the three children was four when apprehended, and is now 13.

The parents say they don't care if their children are in their 30s when things wrap up.

They want the adoption orders torn up. If that doesn't happen, they say, other parents will remain open to the same system flaws.

They were out of the country and their children were in the care of a babysitter when the original allegations of abuse surfaced. They were not interviewed, nor was their home visited by child-protection workers until they forced the issue by having more children.

Ontario Court of Appeal Chief Justice Roy McMurtry is judge 64.