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Today Ontario Ombudsman André Marin released his report Between a Rock and a Hard Place (pdf) to the public.

André Marin

The following quote from the report shows that the senior Ministry officials are clueless, and suggests a weak ministry manipulated by the career bureaucracy:

103 How prevalent is this phenomenon? It is impossible to say precisely. Senior Ministry officials advised my Office that the Ministry is unaware of how many children with severe disabilities are currently in the protection of Children's Aid Societies either under Temporary Care Agreements or society or Crown wardship orders because their parents are unable to provide necessary residential care. The Ministry advised that it has never investigated the issue of whether there are Children's Aid Society files in which protection concerns have been "manufactured" so that children with severe disabilities could obtain residential placement.

In response to scandal, Mrs Bountrogianni said:

The report was written in February, it was given to me in March, and I did indeed immediately act. Those 30 families were given the services they needed, following the process of the communities solving the problems and finding the resources for those children, and they didn't have to go to the courts to give up custody of their children.

According to Mr Marin, Mrs Bountrogianni lied, or in his more diplomatic words, failed to appreciate that the problem exists. The services mentioned were in fact not delivered.

The Ombudsman deals with families of severely disabled children. He estimates there are 150 to 200 cases of parents humiliated by being compelled to sign documents officially abandoning their children. Mother Tina Grignard reports:

That was the most disgusting lowest point of my entire life. I so regret going. ... When I walked in the corridor, there were about 30 people there and I wanted to die. I work for the Ministry, the rent geared to income office. I recognized many of our tenants in that court. It was kind of awkward. This is a small community ... My CAS worker ... walks in the door and I clearly heard three different people say "[the CAS worker]" is here and [she] comes, walks right over to me and sits beside me and starts talking. So now its been confirmed that I'm here not for divorce court but I'm here for Children's Aid. So I just wanted to die. I was just so embarrassed.

Mrs Grignard's unease is the consequence of the true reputation of Children's Aid. Not a good experience indeed. We wonder, will Mr Marin now go on to deal with the humiliation, and horror, of thousands of parents who find that their children do not return from school, or who have their children kidnaped (protected) by armed policemen invading their home?

Mr Marin identifies the problem that handicapped children are shoehorned into the child-protection system, without grasping why child-protection bureaucrats prefer crown-wardship to in-home assistance to competent parents. Once a child is a crown-ward, the bureaucracy presents the legislature with the dilemma of providing funding, or letting children go without food and shelter. Since legislators will not take the latter choice, continued funding is assured. No such assurance exists when providing in-home assistance.

164 On a final note, I feel the need to point out that parents have expressed palpable fear of the consequences of coming forward to my office to complain. They are concerned that they will be punished by the bureaucrats that they depend on to assist them. I intend to monitor the outcome of my report and vigorously act, if there is any sign of reprisal against those who have demonstrated the courage to speak out against this manifestly unfair situation.

This is the problem Dufferin VOCA, and other CAS opponents, have faced for years. We have hundreds of stories of abuse of families in the name of child protection, yet must remain silent in nearly all cases, because of the threat of retaliation by Children's Aid. Unlike Mr Marin, we cannot protect families with the powers of government.

Mrs Bountrogianni has responded with a press release in which she promises more money, increasing the bounty on the heads of Ontario children payable whenever Children's Aid succeeds in snatching a child. She does offer to repatriate children taken into custody. Since the laws of Ontario permit publishing family names when there is no protection involved, we are waiting for the names of repatriated children.

Addendum: CBC reporter Jane Hawtin speaks to André Marin and mother Cyndi Cameron. (mp3) runs 7:36.

Source: website of the CBC

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Thu, May 26, 2005

Mother charged with abduction free on bail

By Sean McKibbon, Ottawa Sun

An Ottawa woman charged with abduction and breach of probation after allegedly taking her four children to Sweden was released on bail yesterday.

Marie Emilie Chartier, 35, was released on $400 cash bail and conditions that she reside in Gatineau with her ex-husband and that he also sign for a $1,000 bond.

She was ordered to have no communication with her four children, Marie Alexandre, 12, Michael, 8, Aniel, 6, and Mariel Charlotte, 5, and not go within a kilometre of her kids' school or her mother's house where the children reside.

Chartier was banned from having any weapons and given a 10 p.m.-7 a.m. curfew. She was also ordered to surrender any passports to the court.

Chartier and the children were returned to Canada on May 16 by Swedish authorities.

INTERPOL ALERT

Police say Chartier approached Swedish officials on March 31 asking for permission to remain in the country. She said yesterday following the hearing that she turned herself in in Sweden after realizing she would not be granted refugee status there.

Ottawa police sent out an Interpol alert after Chartier allegedly took the children from their grandmother's house on March 15.

Source: website of Ottawa Sun

The following article from the Toronto Star. The Star ordinarily is supportive of the power of government and social services, so their opposing position in this article is indicative of a change of opinion.

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May 26, 2005. 01:00 AM

The real shame about adoption

We don't need more sealed files or vetos that ensure even more secrecy, says Valerie Hauch

"Unmarried and pregnant — you have sinned. For shame!'' Such finger-wagging reproofs were not uncommon for a different generation of women who dared to have sex outside wedlock and unlucky enough to have it bear fruit.

In fact, moral denunciation of perceived wanton behaviour has been such a powerful force in society that it lingers today in the debate about whether to pass the provincial government's adoption disclosure bill.

Ontario's Privacy Commissioner Anne Cavoukian says it will be an invasion of privacy for women who gave up babies if identifying information is released — their lives would be ruined.

But the government's proposed bill already carries a stringent "no contact'' veto that could be levied by the birth parent or adoptee.

In any event, to assume that adult adoptees are going to swoop down on their biological parents and admonish them for proceeding with adoptions, or make judgments of a moral nature, is absurd. What they want is information, knowledge, to find the missing pieces of the biological puzzle that is part of discovering self.

What adoptees are up against is the same sort of patronizing attitude that governments and society have taken for generations toward the voiceless person in the adoption equation: "Only we know what's best for this child and what's best is that the child know as little as possible."

To assume that the release of a birth name and other pieces of information is going to have such dramatic effect on a birth parent's life is to ensure that ancient, unjust, hypocritical mores endure. That is the real shame.

Most reasonable people today would not look down on any woman who gave up her child for adoption.

The women who fear trauma in meeting the adult version of the baby they gave up — and some who became pregnant from rape or other awful situations have just cause — would not have to meet them, if they asserted a veto. To go farther with the veto, however, punishes the adoptee, who has the right to basic information that is part of his or her identity.

It is ironic that the societal system that contributed to the very trauma that unmarried pregnant women endured, in being pressured to give up their children, was so successful that even today those women fear what others would think of them if it were known they had an out-of-wedlock child.

The hospitals that used to encourage these young women to "forget'' about the children they carried for nine months often advised them not to even look at their babies after birth.

I know, because I was one of those babies. My unmarried biological mother gave birth in Toronto in the 1950s but she didn't take the advice a nurse gave her. She took a look. And she decided not to put me up for adoption right away. She hoped, by placing me in private foster home, that she and my biological father could work things out.

Although they would go on to marry and stayed together for 20 years, they decided when I was 2 1/2 years old to put me up for adoption.

It's a decision I respect, considering the circumstances and times. But it never meant I didn't want to meet them.

Many adoptees — and having met many over the years I've concluded it has nothing to do with whether their lives with their adoptive parents were happy or not —just want to know about their roots.

They want to meet someone else with their nose, their penchant for drawing, their inexplicable love of water (once you meet a biological relative you become aware of the amazing possibilities that much more than hair colour is inherited.)

I don't believe any adoptee should expect involvement in a biological relative's life. But it can be serendipitous when it happens.

That said, adoptees should be prepared for the fact that they may find people they don't like. If you can't ready yourself for any possibility, don't go looking.

In my case, it was easy to search. When I was adopted, the birth certificates still included the birth name (which in my case was my biological father's). I had the added advantage of having been baptized in Quebec (my mother is French Canadian).

Quebec baptismal certificates included the parents' occupations. That made tracking down my biological father and sending him a letter (when I became an adult) fairly easy.

We've never met; his choice, his right. My choice and my right was to ask.

There was surprise on his side at being found, but no expression of trauma. However, I suspect if he'd been allowed a veto to me getting any identifying information — this is what Cavoukian is proposing — he would have used it.

And what a shame that would have been.

I might not have found my biological mother, cousins, both my biological father's brothers and other relatives, many of whom have become very dear and enriched my life.

I might never have found out my great-grandfather on one side was a poor immigrant from Spain who became a wealthy merchant in Newfoundland. The house he built is now a heritage home and bed-and-breakfast in St. John's.

I might not have learned that his daughter apparently dated one Chester Crosbie, father of former MP John, or that the Newfoundland family, at some point, was rumoured to have been involved in certain tradings of alcoholic substances back in the days when such dealings were, well, illegal, b'y.

I wouldn't have known about another relative who was considered a bit of a rebel in her day because she didn't want to get married, loved to sing and had a stunning voice and was paid to use it at weddings and other events. Eventually a man came along who caught her fancy or she wouldn't have ended up as my grandmother.

I'd never have gasped when I saw the picture of a great-aunt who looks uncannily like my daughter.

These are the stories of family. Everyone has them. Except adoptees.

We don't need more sealed files and hidden records or vetos that ensure even more secrecy.

We need openness, tolerance and a break with any mentality that smears "shame' 'on everyone involved in an unplanned pregnancy.

Knowing our personal histories adds colour to our lives and makes us aware that we are not islands and alone, but part of an incredible, ongoing continuum of generations.

---

Valerie Hauch is a Toronto Star writer and editor.

Source: website of the Toronto Star

Carline VandenElsen has left a living will. Authorities have limited their embarrassment by refusing media access to Carline. According to André Lefebvre, she is in solitary confinement and limited to one visitor per week, who can visit her only behind glass through a telephone connection.

Dr Dolores A Sicheri reports that the investigation by Ontario Ombudsman André Marin is turning into a whitewash. She says:

The Ombudsman has had hundreds of calls regarding this investigation. Cathy Penshold from the Ombudsman's Office had told several parents that Mr. Marin is only to investigate seven cases of his own choosing.

The parents who rights were already terminated for access to services, are out of luck. These parents were looking for some justice. He is going to limit his investigation to those whose rights are presently being threatened.

Cases where children have been severed from parents are not over and done with. The injury continues every day.

The following news report comes from Canada Court Watch. The mainstream press imposed a total blackout on this news item.

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Thousands of Canadians rally at Queen's Park in support of traditional marriage and family values

By Mike March - Social Justice reporter

Thousands of everyday Canadians, young and old and from almost every walk of daily life and cultural group congregated at Queen's Park on holiday Monday to demonstrate in support for traditional marriage and family values.

Thousands of people swelled the grounds at Queen's Park demanding that the Canadian government start listening to the wishes of the people of Canada

The massive show from the public was fueled by the recent passing of Bill C-38 by the Liberal government as well as the recent exposure of government corruption within some high ranking members of the Liberal Party of Canada.

The government's Bill C-38 was intended to allow gays and lesbians to marry persons of the same sex and to force the will of the minority, special interest, gay and lesbian groups upon the majority the people of Canada.

Leaders of all major religions and cultural groups spoke about how the principles of democracy have been ignored by the Canadian government in this issue.

Speakers spoke of how the government committee which had been set up to study the issue was stacked in favour of those who support the gay and lesbian agenda. Well established organizations such as the Knights of Columbus with over 70,000 members were not invited to be a part of the committee process.

When it came to support of the traditional definition of marriage there was full agreement from representatives all major cultural groups, including Christian, Jewish and Moslem that legalizing same sex marriage was wrong and the way in which the courts are imposing this minority view on the majority of the people of Canada, clearly is a violation of the principles of democracy.

Most citizens in the crowd said that they were fed up with the Liberal Party and its policies which they felt were undermining the very foundations upon which the nation of Canada was built. Many said the family unit was the foundation for Canadian Society.

Although a very small, ragtag group of gay and lesbians were gathered at the southern end of Queen's Park waiving rainbow flags, they were hardly visible amidst the throngs of mainstream Canadians who had come to Queen's Park in support of the traditional definition of marriage.

Many demonstrators in the crowd demanded that the government be brought down in light of recent corruption and scandals in the upper levels of the governing Liberal Party of Canada.

Source: Canada Court Watch

Today the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies (OACAS)posted a notice on its news site:

NOTE: The Child and Family Services Act Section 45(8) prevents the publication of information that identifies a child, the child's parent, foster parent or member of the child's family when the child is the subject of a child protection proceeding. Therefore, OACAS will not be posting news articles that fall into this category.

The OACAS also issues press releases, such as in the case of Lisa Heughan, urging news editors to withdraw the names of families in cases where the names have already been published.

There can be no doubt that the party protected by the secrecy is not the child, but the child protection bureaucracy.

In the case of Marguerite Dias who attacked Madelene Monast with a machete on suspicion of being a snitch, many Canadian newspapers printed the story without the name of the attacker, even after she was sentenced to prison. Some newspapers also suppress the names of Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck, the parents in the Halifax standoff. Sending people to prison and withholding their names is the methodology of medieval tyrants, not countries respecting the rule of law.

Stunts by Fathers-4-Justice are becoming too numerous to mention. In a reference to Pinocchio's conscience, F4J has placed 6800 crickets in 37 location across Canada. The Ontario locations are courthouses in Newmarket, Milton, Oshawa, Whitby and Toronto (Jarvis St and University Ave), as well as the offices of MPs Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West), Colin Carrie (Oshawa), Bill Graham (Toronto Centre-Rosedale), Mark Holland (Pickering/Ajax), Jack Layton (Toronto), John McKay (Scarborough East), Bev Oda (Clarington), Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre), Judy Sgro (York West), Belinda Stronach (Newmarket/Aurora), Paul Szabo (Mississauga) and Joe Volpe (Eglinton/Lawrence).

In British Columbia Spiderman climbed the Pattullo Bridge and the Incredible Hulk climbed the Alex Fraser Bridge. In Montreal today Robin climbed the Jacques Cartier bridge, for a while stopping all traffic.

Following is a Toronto area news story about one of the incidents.

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Crickets dumped in Newmarket court

May 19, 2005

Protesting unfair treatment of fathers in divorce cases, the group Fathers-4-Justice Canada said they dumped 200 live crickets on the family court floor of the Newmarket courthouse Monday.

The act may have gone unnoticed at first, but will be evident in the coming weeks and months when the crickets begin chirping, spokesperson Steve Osborne said.

"It's the gift that keeps on giving," he said.

The Great Canadian Cricket Caper hit a number of other courthouses across the country in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of fathers in family court.

"We want equality in family law," Mr. Osborne said. "Fathers should be given equal time with their kids. All parents should be equal."

Source: Yorkregion website

John Dunn has made a Submission to the Social Policy Committee (pdf) in support of the proposed Adoption Information Disclosure Act

Today the Halifax Herald published two stories on the Shirley Street standoff, one on Carline VandenElsen's hunger strike, the other below.

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Sunday, May 22, 2005

The Halifax Herald Limited

Child protection system comes under scrutiny

Expert says laws up to date, despite criticism of cops' handling of standoff

By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE / Staff Reporter

A year ago, a three-day police standoff in Halifax involving a five-month-old girl, her parents, her grandmother and heavily armed officers thrust child-welfare issues in Nova Scotia into the spotlight.

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Carline VandenElsen and her husband, Larry Finck, were recently convicted of charges laid in connection with a police standoff last May.

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Larry Finck nails a sign to the front of a house on Shirley Street in Halifax during a three-day seige.

During a controversial nighttime effort to enforce a court order authorized under provincial child-protection laws, police were rebuffed by the youngster's despairing parents.

An officer rammed the front door of 6161 Shirley St. about three times before a shotgun was fired at police from inside the house.

The 67-hour siege ended with the death of the baby's 79-year-old grandmother, Mona Finck, due to natural causes.

Larry Finck and his wife, Carline VandenElsen, were eventually charged and recently convicted in connection with the incident. They'll be sentenced in late June.

The couple's child, now 17 months old, is in foster care.

Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen are in custody awaiting their fate. Ms. VandenElsen began a hunger strike Saturday to protest her plight.

She said she sees no alternative.

"My husband and I are the first Canadian parents to be convicted of acting to protect our offspring," she said in a strongly worded release.

Critics of how police and child-welfare authorities handled the case have said the province's child-protection laws need to be changed to keep more families together.

Dalhousie University law professor Rollie Thompson, who helped with the task the last time the legislation had a major revision (1989-90), said Nova Scotia's statutes are in line with other jurisdictions in Canada.

"It was a significant modernization from the 1976 statute," he said.

Mr. Thompson said that compared to Ontario, which made major changes to its law that allowed authorities to take many children from their parents, Nova Scotia is doing well.

"The Ontario child-welfare system is clogged with children who've been taken into care or been placed into care after a court order," he said.

Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen had run afoul of the law before. He's done time for abducting a daughter from a previous relationship in Ontario in 1999; she has triplets from an earlier marriage who are in the care of her ex-husband in Ontario.

Ms. VandenElsen was originally acquitted of abducting the triplets, who are now about 12 years old, but she will be retried in Stratford, Ont., this fall.

That acrimonious custody battle has long played out in Ontario courts. "It is unlikely (the three children) can remember a time when their parents were not fighting over them," a court document says.

In Nova Scotia, aside from well-publicized criticisms of how Halifax Regional Police and child-welfare officials handled the standoff, there have been calls for an inquiry in the case.

Last summer, Ms. VandenElsen urged Canadians to demand a public probe - an investigation rejected by the provincial government - into the neighbourhood episode that made headlines across the country and prompted letters to the editor of this and other newspapers.

"Let us all ask ourselves what we would have done if we had been confronted with the same situation," a Halifax woman wrote this newspaper in July. "Just being awakened in the middle of the night is terrifying enough, without the purpose and the episode that followed."

The siege was also punctuated by unorthodox behaviour by Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen. Police never fired a shot but used a robot to make deliveries to the house.

The couple's contempt for the child-protection and justice systems was front and centre in the form of a sign Mr. Finck placed outside a window. It said All to Hide the Criminal Abuse of Children by Lawyers.

Theresa Brien, a spokeswoman for regional police, said recently the department doesn't "have any reason to believe that we didn't follow proper procedure" during the standoff.

"However, we do conduct an operational review of . . . major incidents, and this would be included in that," she acknowledged.

Ms. Brien said the internal review is ongoing but she couldn't say when it would be finished.

She said operational reviews are done to examine police conduct and learn potential lessons from a particular incident.

Though some Shirley Street residents praised the actions of police, others who followed the event in news reports felt the department mishandled the situation.

"This confrontation surely underscores the need for a searching public debate to examine policies governing the creation and use of militarized police emergency response teams," a Kings County man said a year ago in a letter to this newspaper.

He said such public scrutiny would ensure deployment of emergency response teams "is consistent with fundamental principles of restraint and proportionality in the use of force."

At trial in Halifax, Ms. VandenElsen was described as a protective, loving mother. Court heard her lawyer at the time, Burnley (Rocky) Jones, stop short of saying her cause justified her means.

"It always boils down to the fact that she has this undying deep love and connection to her children, and because she has taken certain actions as a mother she is now facing these serious criminal charges," he said.

On May 12, Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck were convicted of several charges by a Nova Scotia Supreme Court jury. The verdicts came after two days of deliberations following a nine-week trial marked by outbursts and accusations by the defendants.

Nova Scotia's child-welfare and family-services staff deal with about 14,000 families in the province, a government official said last May shortly after the Shirley Street standoff ended.

Of those, some 700 cases a year appear before the courts. About 30 cases involve a youngster being taken into protective custody, the province has said.

The Children and Family Services Act sets out 14 situations in which a child requires protection. But the law stipulates that details of individual cases are to be kept confidential which, critics have charged, makes it difficult to know if the system is working as it should, and who's to be held accountable if it isn't.

Asked about the Finck/VandenElsen case, a spokeswoman with the Community Services Department declined comment.

"This matter is actually still before the courts, on appeal, and because of that fact . . . we're not really able to provide any further information," Terri Green said recently.

Mr. Thompson didn't want to comment on the child-welfare system in the context of the Halifax standoff because, he said, it is so unique.

"It's like talking about a moon that comes through the solar system once every so many hundred years."

He said the case "tells us nothing at the moment. In terms of the broader system and the day-to-day parents that I've represented and other people represent, . . . it tells us nothing about that."

Speaking about provincial legislation, Mr. Thompson said child-protection laws are "a kind of a check" on resources and "the approach" of social workers in the field.

"Legislation isn't what drives the system," he said in an interview. "What drives the system is resources and the approach of child-welfare authorities - the resources they have available to them to do their job, and the general social-work culture and approach in child protection."

Mr. Thompson said in general, "there's not been a demand for massive changes in (child-welfare law) in Nova Scotia at this point."

What's important, he said, is "that on a day-to-day basis what matters is the . . . services available to parents. The statute is not that helpful in that subject."

On May 13, Mr. Finck served notice he wanted their convictions stayed, claiming he and his wife were entrapped by police, but Justice Robert Wright ruled against his motion.

Court documents filed three days later confirmed what many observers predicted would be the next chapter in the saga - the couple are appealing their convictions.

Source: website of the Halifax Herald

Commentary:

An inquiry into the case of Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck must be avoided at all costs. If held, it would have to reveal the contents of the complaint leading to the warrant to apprehend the baby. They are frivolous, or we would have seen them by now.

Rollie Thompson is quoted as saying: "It's like talking about a moon that comes through the solar system once every so many hundred years".

Oh? Just in Dufferin county, with only 50000 people, social workers enter a new home on a weekly basis, and always do so with one or more armed policemen as escort. It's hard to believe it happens in Nova Scotia, with nearly a million people, only once in centuries.

Every day Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck are incarcerated and separated from their baby, the Province of Nova Scotia is adding to its atrocity. Carline VandenElsen's demise at the end of her hunger strike would relieve the child protectors in Nova Scotia, since it would end their continuing atrocity.

The police are conducting an operational review of the siege. Here are some suggestions:

• Rifles with telescopic gunsights would enable police snipers to bring down mothers with between-the-eyes shots. FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi killed Vicki Weaver with a headshot while she was holding her ten-month-old baby.
• A police tank would shield police from gunshots originating inside the home as well as simplifying the problem of breaking into a home. The FBI used tanks to halt child abuse in Waco Texas at a loss of only 74 lives.
• The drug Depo-Provera is administered to sex-offenders to achieve chemical castration. Medical technology could produce a pill to give mothers at childbirth dulling their urge to care for their children, and eliminating the need for more standoffs.

These improvements will bring Canada up to the state-of-the-art in child protection.

The most revealing statements come not from critics, but from Children's Aid itself. Here is the Executive Director of Peel Children's Aid suggesting that it is improper for a father to publish information about his own family. The letter below contains several instances of "withheld to maintain confidentiality". These phrases are in the original CAS letter, not editing changes by Dufferin VOCA. CAS refuses to provide the names of family members to their own father.

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PEEL CHILDREN'S AID

PROTECTING CHILDREN AND SUPPORTING FAMILIES

May 5, 2005

Mr. Karol Karolak
5530 Glen Erin Drive
Apt. #110
Mississauga, Ontario
L5M 6E8

Dear Mr. Karolak:

I am writing to you to address an issue that has come to my attention. I have recently learned that you have circulated confidential correspondence regarding the various complaints processes that you are currently involved in to individuals not involved in the complaint processes. The correspondence identifies members of your family and other individuals who have been involved with your family in a professional capacity, some of whom are not subject to or involved with the current complaints processes.

Peel Children's Aid recognizes your right to utilize the various complaint processes legally available to you and in fact, we have engaged in several processes to provide you with due process in this area. These are outlined below:

In 2003, you filed a formal complaint with the Society concerning the Society's handling of your referral to the Society in 2002. The Society investigated your complaint in accordance with its four level internal complaint process, the final step of which is a review by an Appeals Committee of the Society's Board of Directors. The Board of Directors through their appeals committee heard your complaint and concluded that the Society had fulfilled its mandate with respect to child welfare. This complaint process did not identify any professional misconduct by any staff involved with your referral.

The Society completed its internal complaints process in October 2003 and advised you by letter of November 14, 2003, of the conclusions of the Society's complaint process. Also in this letter, the Society advised you of your right to have the Society's Board of director's decision reviewed by an independent third party appointed by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services (Section 68 CFSA Review).

You asked for and received the independent third party review, which was carried out by Mr. T. Giesbrecht, the Director appointed by the Ministry. In his Report dated September 15, 2004, Mr. Giesbrecht's review reached the following two conclusions:

"The Society dealt with the provision of its substantive services, namely the protection of the welfare of (name withheld to maintain confidentiality), adequately and on a timely basis. Sufficient personnel and resources were deployed in a timely manner to effectively and efficiently serve the wellbeing of (name withheld to maintain confidentiality) and (gender withheld to maintain confidentiality) family. The Ministry of Children and Youth Services requires Societies to provide a standard of service at a high level and my describing the Society's adherence to this high standard as adequate is to confirm that the service provided to (name withheld to maintain confidentiality) and the Applicant and their family was of a high quality."

"I further find that the Society dealt with the provision of its review services prusuant to Section 68 of the CFSA for dealing with complaints of persons regarding services sought or received from society in an adequate and timely manner in that the internal and external review processes were provided in accordance with the Ministry approved complaints process and access to all levels of the complaint process were made available to the Applicant in a timely manner."

Mr. Giesbrecht specially notes the high standard of service with which your referral was handled and he did not identify any professional misconduct by any staff involved with your referral or subsequent complaint.

Our concern is that in accessing the various complaint processes legally available to you, you have gone beyond the necessary and acceptable steps of engaging in a complaint process. You have released to the public, without consent, the personal and private information of your family members and the professionals and organizations involved with your family. This release of personal and private information is damaging to the individuals involved and further, is an invasion of their privacy. It is not appropriate for you to share your compliants or the personal and private information of others with the general public. Mr Karolak, I am urging you to engage in your complaints processes in a manner that maintains the privacy and confidentiality of all involved.

I trust you recognize your obligation to maintain the privacy of the above-mentioned individuals and will act accordingly in the future.

Yours truly,

/signed/

Paul Zarnke
Executive Director
Peel Children's Aid

6860 Century Avenue   West Tower   Mississauga ON   L9N 2W5   T 905 363 6131   F 905 363 6133
 www.peelcas.org

Carline VandenElsen, convicted of crimes for her part in a standoff with the police over custody of her baby Mona-Clare, has responded with a press release. André Lefebvre has established a Carline VandenElsen blog, including events in the lives of both parents well before the birth of Mona-Clare.

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PRESS RELEASE

Mona-Clare was a 5 month old, happy, healthy nursing infant at the time she was seized by police in Halifax after they attempted to break into her grandmother’s home in the middle of the night with a battering ram and machine gun.

Police claim they were enforcing an apprehension order for the Children’s Aid Society of Halifax.

May 21st marks the 1st anniversary of the death of 79 year old Mona Mary Finck and the disappearance of baby Mona-Clara.

Her parents Carline VandenElsen and Lawrence Finck were recently convicted for abducting their baby and face years of imprisonment for allegedly depriving state authorities of her custody.

No one has explained the apprehension order or why the Children’s Aid Society went after Mona-Clare when she was yet a fetus.

VandenElsen will begin a “starving for the children” campaign and will not eat until Premier John Hamm and Justice Minister Michael Baker agree to investigate the actions of police and child welfare authorities, and the disappearance of her baby.

She urges the public to demand why hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been expended to fell her family. She feels no child, parent or family member should suffer such intolerable pain , suffering and exploitation.

VandenElsen and Finck believe that thousands of children across Canada are being criminally abused by state authorities and lawyers in a multi billion dollar family law industry and it MUST STOP.

Carline VandenElsen

Mother

May 19, 2005

Addendum: On May 21 the Halifax Herald carried a story on Carline VandenElsen's hunger strike.

Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen have appealed their convictions to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Refer to the standoff page for two news stories.

A bill is pending in the Ontario Legislature that would allow natural parents and their adopted children to reunite by seeing each other's records once the child reaches the age of majority. This measure would substantially limit the power of social service agencies over their wards. The long knives are now coming out in the form of press releases alluding to those rare cases in which a parent can be harmed by reunification. Following is one from the National Post.

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Suicide fears over plan to allow greater access to adoption files

April Lindgren
CanWest News Service
Thursday, May 19, 2005

TORONTO - Elderly women are contemplating suicide, fretting about ruined reputations and reliving horrific rapes as a result of a proposed Ontario law that would open adoption records to birth parents and adult adoptees, the province's privacy commissioner warned yesterday. "There are countless defenceless individuals who have written to me, begging me to speak for them and to allow them to preserve their confidentiality," Ann Cavoukian told reporters before presenting her concerns to a legislative committee yesterday. The source of the angst is legislation introduced earlier this year by the Ontario government that would make the province's adoption disclosure regime one of the most open in the world. If passed, adoptees over the age of 18 will have the automatic right to obtain copies of their original birth and adoption records, including their original name and, in many cases, the identities of their birth parents. Similarly, one year after an adoptee reaches 18, birth parents will have access to the adult child's birth and adoption records, allowing them to know the child's post-adoption name. To protect those who want no reminders of the past, the proposed law will also give both birth parents and adult adoptees the right to put a "no-contact" notice in their files.

A committee of the US Congress today heard testimony related to the drug trials using foster children. A witness and four panelists are listed on the hearing page. All defended the existing drug trial procedures, suggesting at most that more advocates should be in place.

Through the courtesy of Leonard Henderson, we have the submissions by the Alliance for Human Research Protection to the committee, not mentioned on the congressional website. These submissions identify the actual drugs tested, and the purposes of the trials. Mr Henderson comments:

Not a single invited witness remotely represents the interest of the children who were targeted and used as human guinea pigs to test experimental AIDS drugs and vaccines!

Not a single invited witness represents the concern of the African-American and Latino community whose children were targeted.

Not a single invited witness represents any of the child welfare agencies or research institutions that are under federal investigation for their role in the enrollment of these children.

The following text from the website of law-firm Roy Elliott Kim O'Connor describes a step in the lawsuit by Anne Larcade:

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Special Kids Class Action

On May 13, 2005, the Ontario Divisional Court released its decision in the appeal of Larcade v. Ontario and certified the lawsuit as a class proceeding.

This lawsuit, launched on May 8, 2001, seeks damages of $500 million for all families who have suffered because the Ontario Government failed to meet its legal obligation to provide services for severely disabled children. These services were to have been provided under Special Needs Agreements issued by the Ministry of Community and Social Services, or through local Children's Aid Societies.

Sometime in 1997, the Ontario Government unilaterally stopped issuing Special Needs Agreements and forced an unknown number of families to surrender custody of their special needs children in order to access life-saving services.

In June 2003, Justice Cullity of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, dismissed the application for certification of this class action. The Representative Plaintiff's appeal from Justice Cullity's decision was heard by the Ontario Divisional Court on March 29 and 30, 2005. On May 13, 2005, the Divisional Court overturned Justice Cullity's decision and certified the lawsuit as a class proceeding.

Further updates will be provided.

For further information on this class action, please e-mail your enquiries to info@reko.ca, or contact our offices at (416) 362-1989.

Douglas Elliott, President of the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association, was the lawyer representing the Metropolitan Community Church of Ontario in the court case that legalized same-sex marriage in Ontario. This kind of lawsuit is a way to get law enacted directly by the courts, bypassing the legislature. The Larcade suit may be in the same category. If successful, it will open a large additional source of funding for a group of disabled children. Who can administer this money other than the Ministry for Children and Youth Services through its subsidiaries, the Children's Aid Societies? Mr Elliott is seeking to increase their power at the expense of families.

The mother returned from Sweden for fleeing with her children has now been charged with a crime, and her children have been returned to Canada, where they face a future mired permanently in the care of hired hands. Motherhood is a criminal offense in Canada. This report is by radio station CFRA in Ottawa.

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Missing Kids Return Home - Mother Charged
Josh Pringle
Monday, May 16, 2005

An Ottawa woman and her four children are back in the Capital after a worldwide search by Ottawa Police.

35-year-old Marie Emilie Chartier was wanted after allegedly abducting her four children in March and fleeing to Sweden.

Chartier was escorted back to Canada by Swedish authorities on Friday. Her children arrived back in the Capital on Sunday.

Police say the children are "happy, healthy and tired."

Chartier has been charged with abduction and breach of probation.

The world search began in March when the four children were allegedly taken from their grandmothers home.

The search led investigators to Sweden.

Source: CFRA website

Canada Court Watch posted this interview with Larry Finck (mp3) made after his conviction.

A woman who fled Canada with her children in March is back in Canada. The news is sketchy on details of how she was returned, but it likely was in handcuffs. Here is the bulletin from CFRA in Ottawa:

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Mother Accused of Kidnapping Children Back in Canada

Josh Pringle
Sunday, May 15, 2005

An Ottawa mother accused of kidnapping her four children and taking them to Sweden is back in the Capital.

The Foreign Affairs Department says Marie-Emilie Chartier was returned on Friday to Canadian authorities.

Ottawa Police will not confirm whether Chartier is in custody.

Foreign Affairs says the four children will be arriving back in Canada later this week.

Source: CFRA website

Addendum: Here is a comment on the case, also dated May 15, 2005:

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The Ottawa Citizen wrote about this story, and the fact of the matter is that this mother had her kids under the CAS authority for an unknown reason, although it is stated that she was NOT abusive to her kids. The article went on to suggest that she was fleeing an abusive ex-husband and that the kids were under the CAS authority at her mother's, (the kids grandmother's) house.

As executive Director of the Foster Care Council of Canada, I would like to make it known that the mother was merely protecting her children from the threats of her husband, and is not a criminal. I suspect that the mother of the four children, who is a former teacher, knows very well the authority and power of the CAS, and had reason to believe that her ability to maintain contact with her children was being threatened by the CAS and she fled.

As a non-abusive mother, she needs as much support as possible, to maintain the ties between her children and herself, not be charged with a criminal offense for being a loving mother.

Please forward this message on to whom ever you can, and contact the Ottawa Children's Aid Society to demand that this mother maintain contact with her children no matter what. This woman should not be punished.

You can email the Ottawa CAS or phone them at the information below:
fclost@casott.on.ca
1-613-747-7800 (Ask For Executive Director)
Fax: 1-613-747-4540

You can also contact the Minister of Children and Youth Services to ask her if this mother deserves to lose contact with her children for trying to protect them. Please send us the response if you get one from the Ministry.

Minister of Children and Youth Services: mbountrogianni.mpp@liberal.ola.org

John Dunn
The Foster Care Council of Canada
http://web.ncf.ca/fe281/

For followers of Children's Aid, the following case is nothing unusual. The family reports that they are still together, and have not been served with legal process, so it is legal to report the full story with names.

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From:	"Patricia Ellis" <Patricia.Ellis@rogers.com>
To:	"CANADA COURT WATCH / JUSTICE NEWS" <justicenews@canadacourtwatch.com>
Date:	Wed, 11 May 2005 21:51:26 -0400
Subject:	[justicenews] CAS or Nazi SS

Would you report on our story?

We are a family that has been continuously persecuted by the CAS with the help of the armed Waterloo Regional Police Service.

On April 25, 2005 we requested that Superintendent Kevin Chalk of the Waterloo Regional Police Service and President of the CAS Board of Directors assist us with a meeting with the Board to discus the cowardice crimes (fraud, forgery, perjury, coercion of a child, destruction of evidence and kidnapping) committed against us.

On May 3, 2005 our home was surrounded by 3 armed police and a CAS officer. The road was blocked-off and they entered our home to question Aneurin over an accidental fingernail scratch on our sons head. We have no criminal record, no criminal charges, no mental illness, no alcohol or drug addictions, and neither of us smoke tobacco or marijuana. It would appear that our only crime is that we are black, with children and choose to protect them from the criminal CAS.

We believe that a lot of people in our great country are starting to see a likeness between the CAS and the Nazi SS of the 1930's.

Aneurin & Patricia Ellis we live in Canada our Phone number is 519 569 8693

This evening in Halifax Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck were convicted of most of the charges against them. They both face substantial jail time as a result.

On May 19, 2004 police appeared at their home to take their baby daughter Mona-Clare. Ordinarily, when falsely accused by the police, the correct action is to cooperate with the police, then prove your innocence when the matter comes before a court. But in the Halifax case, the parents had previously lost four children through the family court system, all without ever having been accused of causing harm to their children. They knew from experience that there was no relief to be had in the courts. So what are parents to do when the police come for their children? Meekly give up their children? Shoot back at the police? There is no correct course of action for Canadian families, and will not be until family courts halt the practice of removing children without cause.

For more, read two dozen news articles about the trial.

Ontario Ombudsman André Marin issued a preliminary 42 page report to Minister of Children and Youth Services Marie Bountrogianni on whether parents of disabled children are being forced to relinquish custody. The report is confidential.

Yesterday a committee of the US House of Representatives annnounced hearings on the use of foster children for drug tests. Following is part of the press release:

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ADVISORY
FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2005
No. HR-2

CONTACT: (202) 225-1025
Herger Announces Hearing on Protections for Foster Children Enrolled in Clinical Trials

Congressman Wally Herger (R-CA), Chairman, Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on protections for foster children enrolled in clinical trials. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, May 18, 2005, in room B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 2:00 p.m.

In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. Invited witnesses will include experts familiar with issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials. However, any individual or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Subcommittee for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing.

(material skipped)

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Wally Herger said: "This hearing will explore issues surrounding the placement of foster children in clinical drug trials, including under what conditions participation is permitted. We are concerned about recent allegations involving the enrollment of foster children in such trials. This hearing will help us assess whether there is any substance to these allegations and if so, what response is appropriate."

Source: US government website

The problems of CAS having too much power over families are to be solved by giving CAS more power. To understand Marie Bontrogianni's letter to the Toronto Star, note that "making more services available" means more funding for Children's Aid, "supports" in social worker jargon are people who coax, or coerce, others, and "special needs" means handicaps.

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May 12, 2005. 01:00 AM

More services now for special needs' children

Province forsakes parents of disabled

Editorial, May 8.

Your recent editorial about children with special needs identifies some of the complexities in this difficult issue. I take issue, however, with your suggestion that our government has "failed to address" it.

The solution to the problem lies in making more services available to families of children with special needs, so that they can access the supports they need in their communities. And while it is true that the previous government failed to invest in children, our government boosted spending on children with special needs by $74 million in just our first year -- an increase of 15 per cent in a single year.

One important area of investment is children's mental health, which received $25 million last year -- the largest investment it has received in more than a decade -- and will increase again by a further $13 million this year.

A second investment is in children's treatment centres, which provide physical rehabilitation for children with physical and developmental disabilities. In addition to an operating increase, we committed funds to build two new centres in regions that didn't have one and expand four other centres. These investments won't solve the whole problem. But the reality is there are more services for children with special needs today than there were a year ago, and there will be more next year than there are today. We will continue to build a system that meets the needs of children and families.

Marie Bountrogianni,

Minister of Children and Youth Services, Toronto

Source: website of the Toronto Star

Marie Bountrogianni has found another $270 million to use to further strengthen the hand of social service agencies at the expense of families. Here are her remarks to the provincial legislature yesterday:

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CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Hon. Marie Bountrogianni (Minister of Children and Youth Services, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration): I'm pleased to rise in the House today to inform members of the historic commitment we are making in partnership with the federal government to help Ontario children and families.

I was honoured to host Prime Minister Martin and Social Development Minister Ken Dryden on Friday at the St. Marguerite d'Youville Children's Centre in Hamilton. Together, we signed an unprecedented agreement in principle for the early learning and care of Ontario's children, a commitment founded on the principles of quality, universal inclusiveness, accessibility and development. These four principles reflect values that are shared not only with the federal government but with every provincial and territorial government from coast to coast, and they are shared by child care workers and advocates, children's health professionals and parents.

In Ontario, these principles are the cornerstones of our Best Start plan. At its core, Best Start is a massive expansion of child care and early learning. That means making more quality, regulated child care spaces available to more families and providing more subsidies so that more families can access those spaces. But it's much more than that. Best Start also includes vital services that help children develop and arrive at school ready to learn: infant screening, hearing programs, speech and language therapy and many other services that support early childhood development. All of these services, including child care, will be available in community hubs in schools so it's easy for parents to take advantage of them.

In the past year, we've already created 4,000 new subsidized spaces and we're moving forward aggressively to provide more quality child care spaces for more Ontario families. Quality, affordable early learning and child care helps prepare our young people to arrive at school ready to learn, thrive and excel.

We are pleased that the federal government is providing Ontario with approximately $270 million this year to help build a national early learning and care program. That is in addition to the approximately $570 million that is already provided for child care in Ontario. These are important investments: investments that pay dividends for decades as children grow into productive contributors to Ontario's economy; investments in families whose parents can work outside the home knowing their children are in a quality child care program.

Together, we are creating a seamless system of services for young families and, together, we will see the results: more quality, affordable child care, more parents able to balance the demands of work and family, and more children getting the best possible start in life.

As I looked around that child care centre on Friday, I saw a lot of happy people who have been working on behalf of children for decades. We committed to them that we would work with our partners to deliver a quality, affordable child care program, and that's what we're doing. But the most important commitment is to the thousands of children in Ontario. To them, we are providing a lifelong gift of learning and care. They deserve nothing less.

Source: Ontario Hansard

The Windsor Star today questions the actions of Marie Bountrogianni in the matter of disabled children. They suggest she was untruthful when claiming that she only recently heard of the problem, and that in spite of her public statements, parents are still required to give up custody to get treatment for their children. Reissuing a directive that failed in the past can only fail again in the future. Mrs Bountrogianni worked closely with the child protection system before entering government, and may have assimilated the habit of deception endemic in that trade.

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Ailing kids' parents doubt CAS directive
Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Minister of Children and Youth Services Marie Bountrogianni ought to have known more than a year ago that parents of severely disabled children were essentially being forced to relinquish custodial rights in order to get the services they required, say some local parents.

"I have contacted Marie Bountrogianni's office," said Jennifer Bray, who recently signed a temporary care agreement with the Children's Aid Society for her mentally disabled son.

"People in her office have corresponded with me. This has gone on for a year and a half that I have corresponded with the ministry."

The issue gained public attention April 25 when new Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin looked into claims that parents of severely disabled children cannot access the services their kids need and therefore feel they have no choice but to sign away custodial rights to the Children's Aid Society.

Bountrogianni says she learned of the problem about two months ago.

"Although the issue had been raised before, it's come to her attention more recently that the scope of the problem is greater than anyone initially realized," Bountrogianni's press secretary Andrew Weir said Tuesday.

"That's why she responded urgently with a strategy in the regions to develop specific plans to meet the needs of those children and their families."

REISSUED DIRECTIVE

Even before Bountrogianni's ministry finishes its own investigation, she has reissued a directive for children's aid societies not to require parents to give up custody rights of their children if they don't require protection.

But Bray says once parents say they can't cope anymore -- because residential services aren't readily available -- the CAS automatically considers it a potential child protection case.

"All kids with special needs require protection," Bray said. "It's the way that they word it. The CAS is doing a very good job helping me out, but I just don't like that I have to sign away my rights to receive help."

Dolores Sicheri, a founding member of anti-CAS protest group Citizens for Social Morality, believes Bountrogianni's directive is toothless because it has been issued before by this government and the previous government.

One woman, who did not wish to identify her developmentally disabled teenage sons, said she will have to relinquish custody to the CAS so they can continue living in a group treatment home. She said she thinks the government should change the law and reinstate guardianship to parents where there is no protection issue.

"But I'm two weeks away from having to sign away my parental rights permanently, so I don't know if anything will happen in time.

"It's not fair. I haven't done anything wrong. Signing away custody is heartbreaking."

Source: Windsor Star, as copied by OACAS.

In the continuing scandal of parents forced to relinquish custody of disabled children to get specialized care, Minister of Children and Youth Services Marie Bountrogianni has denounced the policy, and declared her intention to eliminate the practice, re-issuing a directive to that end.

As long as her statements are genuine, and the directives are in place as she stated, this should cure the problem for now, since Children's Aid Societies are unlikely to defy an order from the minister. But her directives did not address one of the most serious problems, the funding. Children's Aid gets funding from the province for each child-day of foster care. Under ordinary circumstances, they get $71 per child day, and give the foster parents $27, leaving $44 per day to fund their own operations. That comes to over a quarter million dollars for a baby or toddler held until age of majority. For children classified as special needs, the numbers get bigger. For an insight into how much bigger, Gary Putman, Executive Director of Dufferin Children's Aid, told the Orangeville Banner on March 30, 2004 that care for what he described as "needy" children cost $210 per day. It was not clear from the article whether that was his net or gross, but either way a young needy child is good for over a million dollars for Mr Putman's agency.

Mrs Bountrogianni does not say what the funding formula will be for disabled children who receive services without loss of custody. Will the Children's Aid Society still get its megabucks? If so, someone is bound to ask: "What for?". Why should Children's Aid get paid for doing nothing while a parent arranges services from a residential care facility? But if Children's Aid does not get the megabucks, will the money go to the parents? Not likely. If properly implemented, residential care for parents retaining custody should be a lot cheaper than the current arrangement.

Toward the end of the Windsor Star article below, Mrs Bountrogianni announces her intention to provide more money for children's services. But it is precisely the large amount of money provided to Children's Aid that drives them to seek custody of children, and will continue to do so once the public spotlight is off this issue, and they can return to business as usual.

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Parents of disabled kids win support
Minister reissues order to CAS

Craig Pearson
Windsor Star

May 9, 2005

Children's Aid Societies in Ontario should not force parents to sign away custodial rights in order to get residential treatment for their severely disabled children -- which some parents say is happening -- the children's minister says.

"The children's aid societies are there for protection," Children and Youth Services Minister Marie Bountrogianni said in a phone interview. "They are not there to take parental rights away from parents of severely disabled children."

New Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin last week announced that his first investigation will look into complaints from parents who claim they were essentially forced to permanently relinquish guardianship of their children to the CAS in order to get the services they require.

Bountrogianni said she welcomes the review by the Ombudsman, who monitors government agencies, but says even before her ministry finishes its own investigation she has re-issued a directive for children's aid societies not to require parents to give up custody rights of their children if they do not require protection.

"I understand it is happening in Windsor so I want to rectify that immediately," Bountrogianni said Friday. "I've given a re-directive to children's aid societies not to take parental rights away, that if there is no protection issue and a very seriously disabled child comes to their attention they should get together with community agencies -- as they do in Hamilton -- to find help for that child.

"There are some parts of the province that do that better than other parts of the province."

Jennifer Bray complained recently when she was forced to give up custody of her 11-year-old mentally disabled son Wesley.

She'd called an ambulance to stop him from wildly kicking her in her vehicle.

He lived in a facility in London but when he was released she had not choice but to sign away guardianship for one year in order to get help, she said.

For the care to continue after a year, Bray was told she'd have to give up guardianship permanently

"To take custody as a parent away -- I don't understand that," she said last month. "I fell violated."

Bill Bevan, executive director of the Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society, said no children come into care locally without at least some concern about protection.

"By the time they get to the children's aid society, they're saying 'I cannot cope,'" Bevan said. "When you get to the point where you're not coping well and you feel so stressed that you're not able to manage this child with such behaviours, that puts the child at risk."

Nevertheless, Bevan estimates his agency handles about two cases a year in which -- if funding and services were more readily available -- parents could have avoided dealing with the CAS.

About four years ago, Bevan said, children's aid societies could enter into special-needs agreements with parents, providing residential service for severely disabled children without changing custody -- a system he considers beneficial.

Bountrogianni said some children's aid societies still manage to help seriously challenged children without taking away parental rights. But the Hamilton MPP acknowledged that differing intervention could be a function of how many services are available in various communities.

"What happens here in Hamilton when children with severe disabilities are brought to the attention of the CAS is they immediately have emergency meetings with all community agencies and try to find placements for the children," she said. "They don't take the kids away. They find help for them."

Bountrogianni said that when she found out about two months ago that parents were relinquishing custody of their children in order to get help, she was "quite upset."

She wants to do two things to ensure this situation does not continue. She wants to channel more money to children's mental health and other services. Her government announced in its first budget last year that it would increase funding in that area by 15 per cent, or $74 million -- the first increase in 12 years -- though she says more is needed.

Bountrogianni also said she wants to make a policy change, including changing the law if necessary, but wants more information first.

Source: canada.com

The two pretexts for family courts to break up families are child protection and divorce. The latter affects a larger number of children. Fathers-4-Justice in the United Kingdom has engaged in a series of high-profile stunts over the last two years that have placed family law on the political agenda.

Now a similar campaign in under way in Canada. On December 1, 2004 two F4J members dressed as Batman and Wonderwoman climbed the facade of the University Club in Toronto, where the Family Law Bar was gathering for its annual Christmas Meeting. The demonstrators were arrested and charged.

Today the pair appeared in court in Old City Hall in Toronto. To draw attention to the occasion, a demonstrator dressed as Superman climbed scaffolding near the courtroom. Other events by F4J Canada occurred the same day in Montreal and Yellowknife. Following is one of the many news stories on the incident.

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Friday, May6, 2005

Look Up In The Sky...

Many young children consider their fathers to be superheroes and on Friday some dads displayed their alter egos at old City Hall.

Superman

People strolling along Queen Street may have spotted Superman perched in scaffolding outside the courthouses - Batman and Wonder Woman were also close by. The caped crusaders from the organization Fathers 4 Justice staged a protest to fight for the rights of divorced dads and demanded changes to the judicial system so they can have equal access to their children.

Brad Mastin, who has one son, was dressed as the Man of Steel and gave a voice to some of the frustrations fathers across the country are feeling.

"We're good enough to be a father 365 days a year, but as soon as we split up with our ex-spouses we don't get to see our kids anymore," he said. "In the beginning I got to see my child for five years and now it's been three years, over three years that I've seen my son."

Distressed dads in Britain have organized similar protests. In 2004 one father, dressed as Batman, dodged tight security and made his way up to a balcony at Buckingham Palace to make his opinion known.

Mastin climbed the scaffolding and hung a sign that read "Fighting for your right to see your kids." Police eventually talked the man down from the platform.

"It's parental alienation," Mastin explained. "It happens all over the country, all over the world, and we just want to see our sons and daughters and be part of their lives."

Source: pulse24 news website

In the continuing case of the 13-year-old girl Anne hiding from Children's Aid, her brother has written a letter to caseworker Stephen Rainey. He reveals that CAS has ordered Anne's mother to prevent contact between Anne's younger sister and the rest of her family.

The Associated Press has approached ten states with questions about their policy on using foster children as experimental subjects in medical tests. Besides New York, six more states reported at least some use of foster children. No Canadian news agency has so far asked the same kind of questions. Is there any chance of this scandal spreading to Canada?

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How Some States Handle Child AIDS Testing
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 4, 2005; 2:14 PM

-- What researchers, state officials and foster care agencies in various states told The Associated Press about the use of foster children in AIDS drug experiments.

CALIFORNIA: No foster child can legally participate in clinical trials without an order of the state juvenile court. A spot check of several counties said they could not locate any records or officials who could recall ever approving a foster child for an AIDS drug trial.

COLORADO: Carol Salbenblatt, a nurse who recruits children for studies at Children's Hospital in Denver, said there have been very few permanently placed foster children enrolled in studies. "I would say very few foster children have been enrolled and only under very stringent guidelines," she said.

ILLINOIS: At least 193 foster children have been enrolled in nearly four dozen pediatric AIDS clinical trials since the late 1980s, including more than two dozen currently participating, according to records released under a state open records request. None are believed to have been appointed advocates.

LOUISIANA: Tulane University said four foster children have been enrolled in pediatric AIDS trials since 1992, and each time a judge was asked to approve. Nanette Russell White, a spokeswoman for the state foster agency, said three years ago a 16-year-old from Thibodeaux, south of New Orleans, participated in a drug trial after getting "huge amounts of information" on "possible risk or harm. The child didn't suffer adverse effects, she said.

MARYLAND: Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore says some patients who have participated in AIDS clinical trials are foster children, but declined to provide exact numbers. The university does not believe it needs to provide advocates for the children under its interpretation of federal regulations. "Johns Hopkins believes that the opportunity to participate in the PACTG trials should be made widely available and not be denied to children because they are in foster care," spokeswoman Staci Vernick Goldberg said.

NEW YORK: At least 465 New York City foster children were enrolled in AIDS studies dating to the late 1980s. Though city policy required the appointment of advocates, city officials could only find records that 142 got them. The city has asked an outside firm to investigate and also is revising its policy on the use of foster kids in medical experiments.

NORTH CAROLINA: Dr. Ross McKinney, a pediatric AIDS expert at Duke University, said a small number of foster children were enrolled in his studies, mostly during the late 1980s before better treatments were available in the marketplace. He said he always got permission from the state guardian for the foster children and tried to reach the biological parents as well because "it was their child first and foremost, and in most cases foster care was temporary and the children would return to their parents."

TEXAS: State and county officials couldn't locate records about foster children used in AIDS studies, but Dr. Mark Kline, a pediatric AIDS expert at Baylor College of Medicine, said some of the children he enrolled were in foster care, mostly from the Houston area. Kline said he couldn't recall ever appointing advocates for the children but took great care to make certain families understood the risks and benefits.

TENNESSEE: At least since 1990, state law has generally prohibited the use of foster children in medical experiments. "Specifically prohibited from approval is any research that uses juveniles for medical, pharmaceutical, or cosmetic experiments," the latest state foster care rules adopted in 2000 state.

WISCONSIN: State officials said they wouldn't consider medical experiments. "The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services has absolutely never allowed, nor would we even consider, any clinical experiments with the children in our foster care system. Our goal to make sure children are nurtured in safe homes with strong families," spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said.

Source: website of Washington Post

Addendum: There is more on this story. The Associated press has another article titled Researchers Tested Drugs on Foster Kids. In case the link dies, here is our local copy.

The following story from CBC News reports that the teenaged girl from British Columbia seeking alternative medical treatment in the United States has been sent back to British Columbia.

It appears from the story that the girl's health will be better with her Canadian doctors than with the alternative, and that is the only kind of case of involuntary medical treatment that reaches the press. These articles, containing snippets of privileged information, can only come from the social services system. In cases where the proposed treatment is harmful to the patient, such as unnecessary psychotropic drugs or confinement to a mental hospital, the press remains silent, and no one in social services feeds them with information. Even in the present case, the lack of names makes it impossible to confirm the accuracy of the story.

For the dangers inherent in involuntary care, refer to an interview with Thomas Szasz on The Therapeutic State, or a speech by Siv Westerberg, in which he shows that the police state has been supplanted by what he calls the socio-medical totalitarian state. The oppression is not conducted by the army or the police, but by persons the public initially thinks of as their friends: doctors, therapists, teachers and social workers.

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Teen back in B.C. for cancer treatment

Last updated May 4 2005 08:38 AM PDT
CBC News

VANCOUVER - The Okanagan girl who has been fighting to avoid blood transfusions as part of chemotherapy treatment is back in hospital in Vancouver, says a source in the B.C. Ministry of Children and Families.

Doctors in B.C. have told the 14-year-old, who is a Jehovah's Witness, that they need to have the option of giving her blood transfusions while she's getting chemotherapy treatments.

The teen and her family then fled to Ontario to avoid that court order. But an Ontario judge ordered her to be returned here.

Now under government guardianship, she was flown back to Vancouver on Tuesday night. And the ministry source says she is now at B.C. Childrens Hospital.

While Children and Families deputy minister Jeff Berland will not confirm the girl's whereabouts, he admits it will be a tough hurdle if the girl actually does need a transfusion.

"It will be tricky, but it isn't the first time these kinds of cases have happened in Canada. They happen from time to time and doctors and social workers have established ways of working through them," he says.

Berland also says his officials and hospital staff will work with the parents to try to restore relationships that has been damaged by all the court action.

"Our hope would be that we'll be able to work with the parents and restore to them their rights and responsibilities as soon as possible, " he says. "It's not our intention to deprive the parents of their role of planning for their daughter."

Source: website of CBC

On a New York radio program Amy Goodman interviewed a New York City councilman, a representative of the Alliance for Human Research Protection and the Commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS).

The number of children used in the tests, initially reported as 50, then 100, is now disclosed as over 465.

The law requires parental consent for this kind of trial. But for children in ACS care, the legal rights of "parent" vest in a bureaucrat. The bureaucrat is sure to follow the orders of his superior in preference to protecting his ward, so parental consent is a sham, as is brought out in the interview.

ACS Commissioner John Mattingly lost credibility with his answers. When asked for the true number of children involved in the tests, he gave a 321 word politician's answer without really shedding any new light on the question. More than a year after the scandal broke in the press, he was unable to name any of the pharmaceutical companies involved, though the BBC identified GlaxoSmithKline. He did not identify the drug involved in the tests, or the scientists.

The program Democracy Now has a transcript of the interview and a link to an audio "Segment" in real media format.

Sad stories like this appear in the press from time to time. A girl whose life might be saved by medical technology refuses treatment because of her parents' religious beliefs. Should we give her the treatment anyway?

The powers that Children's Aid accumulates with these heartbreaking stories are rarely used for life-saving treatments. In day-to-day cases, they are used to force children to take psychotropic drugs. The quoted story contains information known only to Children's Aid, so they must have fed it to the press.

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Cancer teen search slows
By ROB LAMBERTI, TORONTO SUN

The search for a cancer-stricken B.C. girl, believed to be hiding among fellow Jehovah's Witnesses in the Toronto area to avoid blood transfusions, stalled yesterday as authorities prepared to go to court.

Although Toronto Police aren't actively seeking the 14-year-old, expecting the issue to become a court battle, an order of apprehension issued in B.C. remains on police computers.

Late Saturday Judge Peter Jarvis of the Ontario Superior Court held a hastily called hearing about the girl.

Some cancer patients require transfusions because chemotherapy inhibits the production of blood cells.

Doctors want the authority to give the girl a blood transfusion if they determine she would die without one.

"What we have here is a case whether a capable person of any age can decide her treatment," said Shane Brady, the family's lawyer.

Although Jehovah's Witnesses say blood transfusions go against their beliefs, religion is not the primary issue, Brady said.

The hearing is expected to resume at 10 a.m. tomorrow in Superior Court in Toronto.

The court and police don't know where the teen, her 43-year-old dad and 41-year-old mom are, but Brady said they will be at the hearing.

The hearing is to challenge an April 11 B.C. Supreme Court ruling ordering the girl to undergo blood transfusions.

B.C. courts ruled the girl is capable of making a decision, but B.C. law requires that a person be 19 years or older before they are allowed to refuse lifesaving medical treatment.

Brady denied that the family came to Ontario last weekend to enter a more lenient judicial jurisdiction that would override the B.C. rulings.

BETWEEN TREATMENTS

He said the teen is between chemotherapy treatments and came to Toronto seeking a second opinion from the Hospital for Sick Children and, if necessary, from a U.S. hospital.

He refused to say if he knows where the family is staying, but he said authorities in Ontario, such as the Children's Aid Society, know her whereabouts.

The girl had surgery to the right leg to remove a tumour.

Brady said the teen is seeking an alternative to blood transfusions. He said reports that she needs urgent transfusions were "grossly unfounded."

The teen, who usually covers her bald head with a hat, is believed to be using crutches or a wheelchair. An air ambulance to return her to B.C. is on standby, sources said.

Source: canoe website

The Wall Street Journal has an article about a priest falsely accused of sexual molestation. The motive for the accusations is to get settlement money from the Catholic Church.

In the 1980's there was a wave of prosecutions of daycare operators for ritual Satanic abuse of children in their care. Notwithstanding the absurdity of the accusations, hundreds of people were convicted and jailed. In at least some cases, such as the Amirault case, the convictions were supplemented by large insurance payouts to compensate the purported victims. The first journalist to write critically of the prosecutions was Dorothy Rabinowitz. In an article in Harper's, and later many articles in the Wall Street Journal, she exposed the fallacious cases against Kelly Michaels in New Jersey and the Amirault family in Massachusetts. The tide turned, and over the next 13 years, all of the criminal convictions fell apart, and the prisoners have been freed.

A decade later, large numbers of Catholic priests were accused of sexual abuse. Many have been convicted and are serving time, and the church has paid millions of dollars in damages. Now the same Dorothy Rabinowitz has written an article in the Wall Street Journal questioning the truth of the allegations against one convicted priest, Gordon MacRae. If this kind of journalism spreads beyond the Wall Street Journal, we may see more cases of falsely accused priests.

Today in the US and Canada, millions of families have been broken up by family law in its two main forms, divorce and child protection. So far no journalist of the Rabinowitz caliber has seriously questioned the actions of the family destruction industry. Maybe in the future another series of articles exposing the sham of child protection will open up the eyes of the public at large to the atrocities now occurring daily.

In case this article disappears from the web, here is our local copy, A Priest's Story.

Canada Court Watch has posted a letter from Anne's father (pdf) giving more details about his family's ordeal. It suggests that lawyer billings in the case are approaching a quarter million dollars, and that an anonymous letter to his employer reported enough damaging material from the CAS files to place his continued employment in jeopardy. See also Anne's full story.

On March 21 the London Free Press reported on the case of Alex Glinka and Cynthia Cameron, who were required to relinquish custody of their son Jesse in order to get him needed residential treatment. The case brought on much press coverage and a discussion in the Provincial Legislature.

The announcement by Ontario Ombudsman André Marin on April 25 of a special investigation into the policy requiring parents to give up custody in exchange for treatment was welcomed by CAS reform groups -- for example, a letter by John Dunn (pdf).

Today the Globe and Mail printed an article that may show the government's intention on this issue. With the phrase "according to a copy of the directive obtained by The Globe and Mail", the article surely is the product of material supplied by the Ontario government. It starts with the usual political tactic of blaming your predecessor, John Baird. In short order, it suggests that additional funding will solve the problem. Really? In cases where Children's Aid offers to treat a child in exchange for custody, they already have enough funding. Maybe they need a policy change instead. Still, over the next weeks or months, we can expect an announcement of more funding for Children's Aid, further strengthening their hand at the expense of parents.

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Ontario Tories cut funding for disabled kids, paper shows
By KAREN HOWLETT
Thursday, April 28, 2005

TORONTO -- The roots of a controversy dogging the Ontario government over its treatment of severely disabled children date back to 2001, when its predecessors at Queen's Park pulled the plug on funding for support services.

The Ministry of Community and Social Services sent a directive to the province's children's aid societies in January, 2001, ordering the agencies not to enter into any new special-needs agreements with parents of disabled children.

According to a copy of the directive obtained by The Globe and Mail, the ministry said special needs should be met by "other more appropriate community service providers."

But local agencies did not have the resources to provide support services, Children's Aid Society officials and parents say. As a result, they said, families were left to fend for themselves or sign away custody of their children to a CAS in order to gain access to support services.

"We obviously see it as a problem," John Liston, executive director of the Children's Aid Society for London and Middlesex, said yesterday. "If services had been available, would they be on our doorstep? I don't think so."

A video about the situation entitled An Act of Desperation prepared by his office says it all, he said. "A parent only does this out of desperation and a sense that if they don't, the child will be worse off."

Prior to the directive, the province helped families who needed to put severely disabled children in residential treatment without requiring the families to give up custody.

The government was put on the defensive this week after Ontario Ombudsman André Marin launched an investigation into whether parents of children with severe disabilities are being forced to give up custody of a child to gain access to support services.

He said his office has received complaints from half a dozen families.

Minister of Children and Youth Services Marie Bountrogianni said in an interview that the answer lies not in reinstating the special-needs agreements but by providing the funding to train and hire more therapists so that disabled children don't have to wait as long to receive help. She said the government has already provided $200-million for children's services in last year's budget.

John Baird, the former Progressive Conservative minister who signed the directive, said it was never the intention that parents would have to give up custody of a child. The directive explicitly states that "parents will not be forced to relinquish custody" in order to access special needs.

When he learned in 2001 that parents were being forced to do just that, he said he secured an extra $28-million in government funding for services. "I thought it was abhorrent," he said in an interview. "I said, 'This practice will end immediately.' "

But the practice did not end, said the CAS's Mr. Liston. Many parents are forced to go through the anguish of walking into a courtroom and effectively saying, "I'm abandoning my child," he said.

Tina Grignard of St. Thomas is one of the lucky parents who narrowly escaped having to give up custody of her 11-year-old son, Jordan, who has Down syndrome and severe behavioural problems.

When she began looking for help, Ms. Grignard said, everyone told her to go to the CAS. Jordan was moved to a group home in Guelph a year ago, where he is doing extremely well, she said. He was initially placed under a temporary custody agreement with the CAS. Three weeks before the CAS was to assume permanent custody, and after she had made countless phone calls and wrote numerous letters to provincial government officials, funding came through, she said.

Source: website of the Globe and Mail

A scandal broke in New York on February 29, 2004 when The New York Post published three articles by Douglas Montero describing the use of foster children as guinea pigs in drug tests. Wendy McElroy wrote a commentary for Fox News at the time. In November 2004 the controversy was renewed when the BBC broadcast a program New York's HIV Experiment based on the story of foster mother Jacklyn Hoerger.

While this story lacked some essentials, such as the name of the drug used, or the scientists in charge, it was a damning account. Wendy McElroy published a second story.

Now the city agency is investigating. From the story, it appears that a whitewash may be under way. Here is a story from the New York Times:

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Private Firm to Investigate AIDS Charges Against City
By LESLIE KAUFMAN

Published: April 23, 2005

The city's Administration for Children's Services has hired an outside research firm to investigate allegations that the city inappropriately put foster children into medical trials for AIDS drugs in the 1980's and 1990's and that foster parents who objected to the trials lost custody of the children.

The agency also said it would form a panel of national health care experts to review the findings of the investigation, to be conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York-based nonprofit research group. The agency's commissioner, John B. Mattingly, said he thought that children's services had acted appropriately but that he has asked for the outside investigation to allay concerns raised by some reporters and by a minority advocacy group. Most of the children in the trials were African-American or Hispanic.

"We are taking this step because, while we believe that the policies in place at the time reflected good practice, we acknowledge the need for transparency in all of our dealings with the public," Mr. Mattingly said. "For us to be effective in our mission to protect New York City's children, we must have a sense of mutual trust with those families we seek to serve."

Accusations that the city had allowed babies in foster care who were not perilously ill to be used in medical testing of AIDS drugs were first reported in The New York Post in 2004.

At the time, officials from the agency and from the hospitals where the trials had taken place said they had been legitimately conducted on only foster children dying of AIDS who had no other medical options at the time.

But when Mr. Mattingly took over as commissioner last August, he decided to do an internal review of agency records to be sure that no inappropriate trials had been conducted.

Yesterday, he said that exhaustive reviews of available records had produced no evidence that the agency acted wrongly. The review by the agency staff, he said, determined that about 465 children had taken part in the trials between 1988 and 2001, with most participating before current treatments for AIDS became commonly available.

He said that according to the records only two children were removed from foster parents who refused to undergo the trials and that both of those children had serious medical conditions that required treatment.

But Vera Hassner Sharav, the president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a Manhattan-based medical watchdog group that has pressed for a more thorough investigation, said that the agency could not be relied upon to conduct a fair investigation. She said that documents filed with the federal government showed that many of the foster children were only presumed to have AIDS. "It's a hell of a thing to give a child toxic drugs when they are only presumed to have AIDS," Ms. Sharav said.

Source: website of the New York Times

Addendum: Wendy McElroy has another article reacting to the announcement of the investigation by ACS, Transparency Crucial for Accountability.

The May/June 2005 issue of Mother Jones Magazine contains an article showing how drug companies collude with government agencies to force psychotropic drugs on unwilling children.

The girl Anne has found that Canadian Tire is funding Children's Aid, and has written a letter to Canadian Tire requesting them to cease their support.

Persons wishing to help Anne can leave a message for the president of Canadian Tire toll-free at 1-800-387-8803. The email of the department of Canadian Tire responsible for this function is foundationforfamilies@cantire.com and they have a Canadian Tire Foundation for Families website.

Dr Dolores Sicheri joined Anne with her own letter to Canadian Tire President and Board of Directors.

Here is the webpage of the York Region Children's Aid Society thanking Canadian Tire. In case it changes in response to controversy, we record its content on April 21, 2005 (without the embedded links):

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On September 30, 2004, Canadian Tire Associate Dealers from across the Toronto Suburbs presented four vans to the Children's Aid Societies of York, Peel, Durham and Halton Regions through the Canadian Tire Foundation for Families.

The total contribution of the three-year lease for all four vehicles comes to nearly $90,000.

The Society is very fortunate to have such a valuable partnership with Canadian Tire Foundation for Families. The Foundation for Families objective is to help families when they need it most. Throughout recent years the Foundation for Families and York Region CAS have worked closely together to provide our children and families with the help and support they need and deserve.

The van continues to be an invaluable component of day-to-day service delivery. It has been used for a variety of purposes, including the transportation of children to recreational activities such as the CAS annual Camp Chipmunk as well as other essential services. The new van was also quite useful during the holiday season to deliver toys, food and gifts for the 28th Annual Christmas Program.

The donation celebrated the beginning of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month in October.

Marie-Emilie Chartier, who escaped from Canada with her three children in March, has been refused permission to stay in Sweden. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

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CNEWS
Wed, April 13, 2005

Mom, kids seen in Sweden
Authorities miss chance to nab child abductees
By ANDREW SEYMOUR, Ottawa Sun

AN OTTAWA mom accused of abducting her four kids has disappeared again after approaching immigration officials in Sweden asking to remain in the European country. Ottawa police said Marie-Emilie Chartier approached Swedish officials on March 31 asking for permission to remain in the country with her four children, Marie Alexandre, 12, Michael, 8, Aniel, 6, and Mariel Charlotte, 5.

Chartier, 35, is wanted by Ottawa police after allegedly taking the children March 15 from their grandmother's house and heading to Montreal, where she boarded a flight to Amsterdam. She then continued on to Stockholm.

Despite the fact Ottawa police sent out an Interpol alert to 52 countries in the days after the alleged abduction, Ottawa police Det. Gina Rosa said it wasn't until after Swedish authorities started processing her request that anyone realized she was wanted in Canada.

By the time Swedish officials went to tell her her application was rejected and take her into custody, she had vanished again.

"The officials are in possession of her passports and her expired airline tickets," Rosa said, adding a Swedish inspector has now joined the case in hopes of tracking Chartier down.

Even though she is now without her passport, Rosa said Chartier can still travel by car, boat and train to more than a dozen other Western European nations as a result of the Schengen Cooperation, which allows people to travel without passports among member countries.

Rosa said Canadian authorities intend to ask that Chartier, who is wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant, be extradited back to Canada to face four counts of abduction and a breach of probation.

If and when the children are found, Canadian officials could face a lengthy legal battle to return them home.

An application needs to be made under the Hague Convention and that can only be done if she is found in a country that abides by the international legal agreement.

Police said it appears Chartier planned the trip well in advance, securing passports for herself and her children as well as contacting several travel agents to arrange for plane tickets to Stockholm.

Rosa said police are still unsure how Chartier is supporting herself or the children while in Sweden.

andrew.seymour@ott.sunpub.com

Source: website of the Ottawa Sun

Minister of Children and Youth Services Marie Bountrogianni spoke to the University of Toronto School of Social Work on March 30, 2005.

She proudly announced a massive expansion