Saturday 1 April 2000

Protecting children just got harder

Dave Brown
The Ottawa Citizen

Ontario's tough changes to child protection laws kicked in yesterday, and if you're not frightened yet, you're not paying attention.

It's another step in the march to zero tolerance. The thinking seems to be all problems can be solved with zero tolerance. Imbedded into the hearts of us all is the hope that no child will ever again be hurt. It's an impossible hope. A child taken from a dysfunctional parent still runs the risk of being abused in state care.

We are becoming surrounded by zero tolerance. It's in our homes and workplaces. At home, domestic disturbance has been renamed domestic violence. If a woman dials 911, a man goes to jail. Police officers no longer have discretionary powers. They are there to arrest, and after a night in jail the man can go home only if he pleads guilty to assault, and his partner agrees to the return. If booze was involved and in the sober light of day the woman wants to reconsider, she can't recant. The promoters of zero tolerance know what's best.

The old method of trying to help patch things up has been replaced by a method that tears part.

Behind these attitudes are people who must consider themselves perfect, and they're determined to impose their perfection on the rest of us. They are creating regulations and legislation intended to mould us all into flawless creatures with no tempers. Their greatest weapon is chill factor. Who is willing to put up a hand and question any attempt to protect women and children?

The creators of these tough new rules are politically adept, and they are authoritarian. That definition in my dictionary, is behind the word fascism.

In child protection changes, the issues of neglect and emotional abuse are beefed up. It's not a big leap of logic to see the state pipelining into our homes. Mommy and daddy had a fight. If that news is carried to school by a child, a teacher may be obligated to report possible emotional abuse. Teachers are now being urged to not only keep their ears open, but to ask questions.

Last November courthouses across the province changed to the Unified Family Court system. Many were shocked to find it didn't include mandatory mediation. With other courts pushing for mediation, the courts that handle family issues are making mothers and fathers slug it out through litigation. Would a quick mediated settlement not be in the best interests of the children?

Ask why there's no mediation, and one finds chill factor. Family law practioners willing to talk demand anonymity. Some say the thinking that stopped family mediation was that a woman should not have to sit across a table and be manipulated by the man she's trying to get away from.

Mediators, like policemen and child protection workers, are seen by the policy makers as incompetent. Only the big stick approach will work. Somebody has to get beaten up.

The policy makers are saying, through their actions: OK people, this may seem tough now, but in the long run you'll thank us. The approach has been tried before. It was called communism.

Feb 19 last year, Judge Robert Fournier had a difficult task. He had to explain to an Ottawa couple what would happen now that they proved four of their children were improperly taken from them by child protectors, and made to disappear into adoption. The judge blamed overzealous caseworkers and "so-called experts." He made it clear it's a system that doesn't back up. "I know it leaves a hole in your heart," he sympathized, "but c'est la vie."

We are a nation at war against child abuse. The war machine is increasing its flow of weaponry (money and laws) to a growing army of child protectors. Currently the targeted families are the poor. More money and personnel, and broader definitions of abuse, will create more targets further up the economic trail.

More children will be taken into state care because more people are being sent out to bring in more children. We refuse to learn from the past. We've had to settle huge lawsuits with adults, who as children, in their own best interests were fed into training schools and boarding schools and abused by keepers. Foster care is a rapid growth industry and dangerous people will slip through the safety checks. Count on it.

There are damaged people among us, and no matter how hard we try to stop them, they will kill people, including children. We can't stop trying, but when we try too hard, we destroy the homes and families of the people we're trying to protect.