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The following article from the Toronto Star about police politicking contains four paragraphs late in the article suggesting that the police threaten people with Children's Aid to gain submissiveness in matters unrelated to child abuse. Here only the four relevant paragraphs are included.

Note: The original url is now dead. It was: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer ?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1& c=Article&cid=1068765012255& call_pageid=968350130169&col=969483202845

Nov. 14, 2003. 01:00 AM
Police blasted over endorsements
Lawyer groups ask province to clarify legislation Backing politicians called violation of conduct code

JACK LAKEY
CITY HALL BUREAU

After Morton and Copeland completed their flaying of the police association, about 25 members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty entered the board room and interrupted the meeting, chanting "Hands off our kids."

Led by John Clarke, the OCAP group protested police tactics used last weekend near the Don Jail during a demonstration for affordable housing. OCAP member Jeff Shantz said police arrested him, his partner and their toddler son, and threatened to turn the child over to Children's Aid, apparently on the premise that the child's presence at the political event proved the parents were unfit.

Shantz alleged the threat of permanent removal of the child was blackmail, a crude attempt to deny parents their rights of assembly and free speech.

The protest yesterday lasted a few minutes before officers escorted the group out.

Doreen Armstrong
Executive Director
Family Transition Place
20 Bredin Parkway
Orangeville Ontario L9W 4Z9

Dear Ms Armstrong:

I recently received a document distributed by Family Transition Place throughout Dufferin County titled: "Imagine a community of safety, support and hope". I have a number of questions relating to the facts cited in the document.

First, you say: "Research and experience tells us that family violence and woman abuse is a pervasive issue that damages the overall health and well being of our entire community". Since your experience differs from mine, can you give a citation for the research you allude to?

Second, in a section titled "What abusers say" there are statements:

I wish that I had some healthy male role models as a child.

It would have helped if I had a connection with both my parents growing up.

I have personally interviewed several women who took shelter in Family Transition Place. Four of them reported that their experiences were relayed to the Children's Aid Society by your staff, and as a result their children were taken from them and placed in foster care. Why does this activity take place in an organization such as yours that recognizes the importance of parents to their children? And I further note that since you do not admit men to your shelter, any children coming to your facility have already lost their father. None of the women I have spoken to have reported that you made an effort to restore the relationship between the child and his father. What efforts, if any, do you make to keep children in contact with their fathers?

Finally, on the last page you state "Family Transition Place must raise $263,000 this year to continue providing services for abused women and children. To date our community has been generous, but we have not yet reached our goal. Your donation is needed". It has appeared in the past that your organization enjoyed support from the taxpayers through funding by the Province of Ontario. Can you send me a financial statement for Family Transition Place?

Yours truly,

Robert T McQuaid
RR 5
Orangeville Ontario L9W 2Z2

A two page puff-piece in today's Orangeville Banner salutes the foster parents of Dufferin. It includes brief notes by seven political figures -- Sandra Card, President of the Board of Directors Dufferin CAS, Gary Putman, Executive Director Dufferin CAS, Drew Brown, Mayor of Orangeville, John Oosterhof, Reeve of East Luther Grand Valley, Bob Currie, Reeve of Amaranth, Earl Lennox, Reeve of East Garafraxa, and Ed Crewson, Mayor of Shelburne. Here is one of them:

Like so many good things, foster parents is something that many of us seem to take for granted. Most of us know about foster parenting but we don't give it much thought and we probably give even less thought to the people who act as foster parents.

When you do stop and think about foster parents though, you can't help realizing what a tremendous service they provide and what very special people they are.

Sometimes children and youths need support and structure in their lives that can only come from a family, but for whatever reason they can't get it from their own families. Foster parents open their hearts and their homes to these young people for periods ranging from a few days to several months. It's an act of love and kindness, and a commitment to our community that has few equals. So, thank you to everyone involved in foster parents. Thank you for being there when young people need you, and for making this a better community in which to live.

Drew Brown
Mayor of the Town of Orangeville

Nick Garisto, the candidate challenging Drew Brown for the mayor's job in the upcoming election November 10, is the only elected officer in Dufferin to offer support to a Dufferin VOCA family in its struggle against Children's Aid. The same issue of the Banner contains an editorial critical of Mr Garisto.

The puffery ends with a fact that could only have come from Gary Putman: As of Oct. 16, there are 100 kids in care and 40 foster families in Dufferin County.

Addendum: Drew Brown won the mayor's election with 3612 votes to Nick Garisto's 2893 votes.

Dufferin Children's Aid failed to respond to the following email, showing no real interest in helping the community as boasted in their press release.

October 7, 2003

Dufferin Child and Family Services
50 Fourth Avenue Unit 13
Orangeville Ontario L9W 4P1

mail@dcafs.on.ca

Subject: Purple Ribbon Campaign

Sirs:

The press release following this note suggests that I contact my local Children's Aid Society for more information on the Blue Ribbon Campaign. Please send me more information at one of the contact addresses below.

Robert T McQuaid
RR 5
Orangeville Ontario L9W 2Z2
email: rtmq@stn.net

--------------------------------------------------------

Attention News Editors:
Purple Ribbon Campaign to publicize the need for awareness of child abuse and neglect

TORONTO, Oct. 6 /CNW/ - "Public education and prevention are the best ways to end the neglect and abuse of children," said Jeanette Lewis, Executive Director of Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies at the beginning of the annual Purple Ribbon Campaign to publicize the need to prevent child neglect and abuse.

"By the end of October, we hope that everyone in Ontario will know how they can help prevent child neglect and abuse."

The Purple Ribbon Campaign is organized by many of Ontario's children's aid societies to recognize Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month in October. The year 2003 marks the 11th anniversary of the Purple Ribbon Campaign in Ontario.

More than 120,000 purple ribbons will be distributed throughout Ontario during this month by staff and volunteers of Children's Aid Societies to raise awareness of the need to prevent child neglect and abuse.

Child abuse and neglect have long-term effects on children, their development and adjustment in life. A recent study on corporal punishment (MacMillan at al, 1999) indicated that there is an association between the frequency of slapping and spanking during childhood and a lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse or dependence on externalizing problems.

For more information about the Purple Ribbon Campaign, please contact the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies or your local children's aid society or child and family services office.

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The Toronto Star

Oct. 18, 2003. 01:00 AM

For the kids, it's cool

Children in lesbian and gay families find it perfectly natural to have two moms or two dads But they've learned the hard way to

Home from school, the 7-year-old slumps on the couch. "Dad, we have such hard homework to do," he moans. Dad reassures him that they'll help him, and the other man in the boy's life, Daddy, ushers him to the table for a snack.

The boy has two fathers, two gay men who adopted him three years ago from the Children's Aid Society. They also adopted a 3-year-old boy last year.

"We wanted to make a family that was ours," explains Daddy, a 49-year-old property manager.

"I always wanted to be a father," says Dad, 32, an educational assistant studying social work. They asked not to be named.

In the couple's tidy home, Dad points to a framed photo of the two men and their sons with the judge at the final adoption procedure.

"You know you've done the right thing when the judge tells you he's proud to preside over your second adoption," says Dad. "The judge told us, `I applaud you guys.'"

While same-sex marriage has captured the headlines recently, same-sex parenthood -- a quieter revolution -- has become increasingly popular and possible.

But not everyone is as approving as the adoption judge presiding in the case of Dad and Daddy. Homosexual parents and their children still face blatant prejudices and, more commonly, feel society's downright discomfort when confronted with two moms or two dads.

The kids constantly weigh the risks of coming out about their folks. In a Grade 12 family studies class recently, an 18-year-old girl quietly debated what to do when a boy started saying ill-informed things about children of gays and lesbians.

She decided to go for it. "I come from a family with two lesbian moms," she told her classmates. And their response? "They were nice, but stunned, weirded out. I felt like I dropped a bombshell."

Numbers of gay and lesbian families are hard to gauge. In the 2001 census, 2,900 same-sex couples reported having at least one child living at home, according to Statistics Canada. But that doesn't include single or non-custodial parents or those not willing to identify themselves as a same-sex couple.

While many of the children spring from previous heterosexual unions, more are being born into homosexual families. The lesbian baby boom -- thanks to donor insemination -- began almost two decades ago.

The gay male's embrace of fatherhood is still in the toddler stage. This year, a new workshop, "Daddies and Papas 2B," was offered by the 519 Church Street Community Centre and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Parenting Network. It proved so popular, it's running again this fall. It covers the options: Gay men can now adopt openly as a couple, go the surrogate route -- with at least $35,000 for expenses -- or make arrangements with a woman to have a child and share the parenting.

Not all gays and lesbians, however, cheer on family values. One lesbian reports that when she was pregnant, another said to her: "So you're one of the breeders now."

There's some fear in the community that an emphasis on parenting could make the gay and lesbian movement more traditional, more conservative, explains Rachel Epstein, co-ordinator of the LGBT Parenting Network, part of the Family Service Association. "The debate in the community is how to exercise our desire to be parents and not dull the edges of what's been a radical movement."

For the children, there are now support groups, Web sites and, in some schools, anti-homophobia workshops to help avoid -- at least theoretically -- playground nastiness. There's even recognition from primetime television. This fall, ABC introduced the sitcom It's All Relative, about a young engaged couple -- she was raised by wealthy, educated gay men and he's the son of a prejudiced Irish-Catholic bartender and his wife.

Studies show the children of lesbians and gays are as well-adjusted as their peers.

"No research indicates any emotional, cognitive or mental health problems compared to children of heterosexual parents," says Judith Stacey, sociology professor at New York University. Some studies indicate that they exhibit a greater respect for people's differences.

"As a kid, I learned how fear and misinformation work," says Chris Veldhoven, 36, an anti-homophobia consultant who grew up with a gay father in small-town Nova Scotia. "I'm the stronger for it."

More than 12 years ago, André Chamberlain answered an ad in a gay newspaper looking for a potential sperm donor and co-parent. For him, being an anonymous donor held no appeal. "I always wanted a child in my life, but being a full-time dad wasn't realistic," says Chamberlain, 41, a lawyer.

He met numerous times with Mariana Valverde, who would carry the baby, and her partner, Maggi Redmonds.

"We both really wanted kids -- it was a pivotal issue in coming together," explains Redmonds, 56, a health care administrator. If possible, they felt it preferable for the child to know his father.

A son was born. Chamberlain is the legal father and has access. The two women have legal joint custody. "I live with their decisions," he says.

Differences have arisen but, over the years, the three have been able to talk through any problems. "It's a fairly flexible arrangement that's evolved over time," Redmonds says.

The family grew five years ago when Redmonds adopted a girl, now 7. Chamberlain and the little girl bonded quickly.

"She looked up at me one day and asked, `Are you my Dad?'" Chamberlain recounts. "I said, `Well, dear, we'll have to talk to your mothers about that.'"

The answer was yes. He has the kids every second weekend, either one or two at a time, pitches in with child care and takes them both on holiday every summer. "They're pretty much my anchor to the world," he says.

Now 11, the boy is bright and well-spoken. He was about 5 when he realized most kids didn't have two moms. "It came as a shock," he says. "I've only fully understood in the last few years, talking to my moms and my dad."

Occasionally, kids have teased him. "It's trivial. I don't pay attention," he says. "They want a reaction and I don't give them one."

In the future, he might like to be a lawyer, like his dad, he says, but specialize in discrimination cases. "I could relate. I know what it's like to be different."

For the kids to handle homophobia, the parents must be able to do so. "They have to be prepared to be out or they instill shame in their kids," says Epstein of the LGBT Parenting Network.

It can get tricky if a parent is just coming out. Much will be dictated by how the straight parent reacts, says psychotherapist Mary Dyson. In one case, a teenage boy adopted his father's bigoted attitudes, verbally and physically assaulting his lesbian mother.

While most schools preach anti-discrimination, enforcement on homophobia varies widely. The Toronto District School Board has a history of taking the issue seriously, says David Rayside, professor of political science and sexual diversity studies at the University of Toronto. "Other districts are making baby steps."

A watchdog group largely of parents, the Anti-Homophobia Equity Coalition, monitors what goes on in Toronto schools and provides workshops for teachers. "The schools run the gamut," says chair Lainie Magidsohn. "Some celebrate Pride Day and others are out of the Dark Ages."

In Toronto, school board social worker Steven Solomon runs anti-homophobia workshops for students. Last year, he met with 250 classes in more than 40 schools. Solomon also helps run a support group, COLAGE, Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, that meets twice a month. "For these kids, it's the first time everyone around the table has a family that looks like theirs."

Despite all the best intentions, kids can get burned. The middle school years, when puberty hits, can be particularly rough, Epstein says.

"I told my best friend and she turned on me," says a 15-year-old daughter of lesbians. "She told people I don't like, including a big mouth, that my parents were gay."

The girl started getting harassing messages on MSN one night, and kids at school the next morning kept it up. But her teacher stepped in. While the girl was out of class, he made it clear -- further harassment would lead to suspension. The kids laid off.

That was Grade 7. Her family has since moved and she's now in high school. The few new friends she's told about her family have been supportive. But, initially, she dances around the topic. "I ask questions first, to see how they feel about it. You have to be careful."

As for their own sexual orientation, studies show that the vast majority of children of gays and lesbians are heterosexual, says sociologist Stacey, a senior researcher with the Council on Contemporary Families. She adds that a slightly higher percentage than their peers define themselves as not exclusively heterosexual.

The straight children, however, are still steeped in their parents' world. "It's what feels familiar," says Makeda Zook, 16, the heterosexual daughter of two lesbians. She volunteers with an anti-homophobia group, and one of her best friends is lesbian. "We talk about queer issues," she says. Her boyfriends, she adds, have been cool about her family.

She, however, wasn't always so cool. As a kid, she didn't invite friends home. "Nothing had ever happened. It was just paranoia built up by general remarks." But her high school's atmosphere was accepting and she came out. "I'm confident I'm straight, but I enjoy interacting with lesbians and gays."

There's actually a name coined for this: "Culturally Queer, Erotically Straight," according to Abigail Garner, 31, author of the upcoming book, Families Like Mine: Children Of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is.

The Minneapolis-based Garner speaks on college campuses, publishes a newsletter, writes articles and has a Web site for gay and lesbian families. When she was 5, her father left her mother for a man, and she grew up in both households.

"Regardless of our own sexual orientation, our heritage has `queered' us," Garner wrote in a U.S. newspaper. From her two gay fathers, she learned to carefully use language, be wary of organized religion, love gourmet food, always demand latex and appreciate musicals.

"I know the words to show tunes," Garner says. "At camp when we'd sweep the cabin, I'd break into Matchmaker, Matchmaker. The other girls were so entertained, I realized, `They don't do this in their homes.'"

The Supreme court of Canada yesterday ruled that governments and quaisi-government agencies, such as Children's Aid, are not responsible when they injure their wards. Here is a story from the Montreal Gazette on the subject:

Top court rulings limit sex-abuse liability
Public authorities not automatically responsible

JOE PARASKEVAS
CanWest News Service

Friday, October 03, 2003

Public authorities such as governments, school boards or foster home agencies cannot be held automatically responsible for harm caused by people under their control who are in positions of power, if the authorities did nothing wrong in the hiring or supervising of those people, the Supreme Court of Canada said yesterday.

In separate rulings dealing with vicarious - or no-fault - liability, the nine-member court rejected claimants' arguments that public authorities were unconditionally liable in three British Columbia sexual-abuse cases dating from the 1960s and '70s.

Two involved children who were sexually abused in foster homes. The other involved the repeated sexual abuse of an aboriginal girl by a school janitor.

The cases were seen as potentially important to thousands of claimants building cases about abuse allegedly suffered in aboriginal residential schools, many run by various churches from the late 19th century to the 1970s.

In the main case involving foster home abuse, the court said the link between the government and foster parents is not close enough to allow a claim of vicarious liability.

"Foster families serve a public goal - the goal of giving children the experience of a family, so that they may develop into confident and responsible members of society," the court said. "However, (foster families) discharge this public goal in a highly independent manner, free from close government control."

The court confirmed there was negligence in supervision of the foster homes on the part of the superintendent of placements, but the two-year statute of limitations had expired by the time the claimants came forward.

The court also said the Protection of Children Act does not give the provincial superintendent of child welfare "a non-delegable duty to ensure that no harm comes to children through the abuse or negligence of foster parents."

Justice Louise Arbour wrote the dissenting argument, although she agreed the expiration of the statute of limitations impeded the claim.

"The wrongful act at issue here," Arbour wrote, "was sufficiently connected to the tortfeasor's assigned tasks for vicarious liability to be imposed."

In the case of the school janitor, the Supreme Court ruled the vicarious liability argument failed to apply against the school board because the janitor did not normally have daily, direct contact with children, such as a teacher might.

Canadian Alliance justice critic Vic Toews suggested the ruling might surprise parents who expect children to be safe at school regardless of whom they meet while there.

Candidates in Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey for the upcoming provincial election on October 2 avoided the customary all-candidates meeting. Instead, five men spoke in a Rogers studio answering prepared questions from journalists, without public participation. The resulting video was shown on Rogers cable television, a channel inaccessible to many rural residents receiving only American satellite TV. The format was adopted at the insistence of Ernie Eves, over objections of the other four candidates.

It is customary for the candidates to appear in a meeting where members of the public can ask questions not otherwise on the agenda. In a past meeting, one voter caught the candidates off guard with a question about purple loosestrife.

In the previous byelection, the format was already modified, by forcing the audience to write questions on a card, with cards drawn by Geoff Mullin. According to a press release by the Ontario Liberal Party, 33 Progressive Conservative candidates in this election have refused to participate in debates at all-candidates meetings.

Only Dave Davies of the Family Coalition Party has mentioned family law in his platform. There is no way to ask candidates about family law issues such as child abduction, divorce, or homosexual marriage.

Most criminal cases today end not with a jury trial, but a confession and guilty plea. The following article from the Toronto Star confirms that the police threaten to take away the children of suspects in order to induce them to confess to a crime. We show only the last six paragraphs of the article.

Toronto Star

Aug. 10, 2003. 08:33 AM
Why they lie and confess

TRACEY TYLER
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER

No Canadian jurisdiction requires police to videotape interrogations, but Toronto police generally do it, with the exception of the hold-up squad, said criminal lawyer Andras Shreck. In June, the Ontario Court of Appeal took the force to task for failing to videotape the interrogation of one of Shreck's clients, Keigo Glen White.

The court said that, in the absence of videotaped evidence, the voluntariness of White's alleged confession was suspect and overturned his four convictions for robbing banks.

After being handcuffed and strip-searched, White was taken to an interrogation room, where he was told -- falsely -- that he resembled photos of the bank robber and that if he confessed police would make a deal, the court said.

White said he confessed because police told him if he didn't, his wife would be charged, lose her job and her child would be seized by the Children's Aid Society.

Constable Mike Hayles, a Toronto police spokesperson, said the force policy is to videotape statements "whenever practicable, which means whenever there is equipment or facilities available."

It isn't hold-up squad practice to refuse to videotape interviews, he added. "I'm not saying it hasn't happened the past." But routinely failing to do so would be "unacceptable."

According to an article by David Teetzel car safety seats for children are almost never installed correctly. Do you want to know how to make children safer? Fire a hundred social workers and replace them with one mechanic. Here is the article:

Can't somebody make a car seat easy to install?

David Teetzel

07/17/03 00:00:00

I remember the reporter shaking his head in dismay.

In a traffic safety blitz in May 2002, 100 per cent of child car seats failed inspection. Police checked out 21 child seats on York Region roads and not one of them was being properly used.

While another inspection blitz last July brought the pass rate up to a still-dismal 29 per cent, it was back to total failure this year.

That's pretty serious, when you consider more than 90 per cent of injuries to children in traffic accidents can be attributed to improperly installed car seats, according to St. John Ambulance. According to Transport Canada, proper use of approved car seats reduces the risk of injury and death 75 per cent.

I couldn't imagine what was keeping parents from doing this.

Until this week, when I spoke to Lisa Macdonald.

Ms Macdonald had just bought a car seat for young Robin Ashley. She tried to install it using the manufacturer's instructions, which she said were "quite good".

However, instructions said the straps shouldn't give more than one inch in any direction. Her car seat was too loose, even after she tried all the trouble-shooting instructions provided.

Wanting to make sure her baby was safe, she went in search of help. Since police hand out tickets for improper car seats, she went to the York Regional Police station in Newmarket. She was told nobody there had the training.

However, the cops directed her to the region's Health Connection line at 1-800-361-5653.

But when Ms Macdonald called, she was told the next car seat clinic wouldn't be held until fall.

Thinking she might want to drive with her child before that, she went to a car dealership. Surely the service department could help.

Well, no. She was told there were "liability issues" involved with installing car seats. (One would think any mechanical work on a car could leave one open to "liability issues", but never mind.)

The mechanic told her Chrysler offers seminars on child seats.

But the next one isn't till Aug. 19 -- sooner than the public health session, but still a long time to wait.

So she went to the fire hall, the Children's Aid Society and the Red Cross, none of whom could help.

Her last call was to the OPP. One of their suggestions was to go to their next spot check, which will be on Hwy. 400 on the long weekend. If they found the child seat was installed improperly, they would fix it. (One would think if it's dangerous to drive with an improperly installed car seat, one should definitely refrain from doing so at 100 clicks on a busy highway, but never mind.)

But -- hooray -- the OPP's child car safety specialist, Const. Ann Goodwin, was in Aurora this week and agreed to fix Ms Macdonald's car seat.

One would like to think every parent would have the same perseverance and commitment to protecting children as Ms Macdonald, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them give up somewhere around the third or fourth call.

I don't want to slam any of the above agencies. It's great Chrysler and York Region provide resources to help parents with car safety issues -- and I understand they both have plenty of other things to do.

I would also recommend www.carseatdata.org as a great online resource for people choosing a child seat.

But should it really be this complicated? Should a consumer really need help to use such an important item.

I have no children and, therefore, no experience with car seats. A couple of parents I asked told me the complicated part is tethering the seat to a knob over the rear door of the car. I was also told it takes a certain amount of physical strength to pull the straps tight enough.

This should be a challenge to all the engineers and designers employed by seat manufacturers and car makers. Surely somebody should be able to design a safe child seat that is easy to install. How about it?

A lawsuit is now pending seeking more funding for handicapped children. If the requested relief is granted, this may do families more harm than good by increasing the funding for Children's Aid. The lawyer on the suit, Douglas Elliott, is active in legalizing homosexual marriage. What follows is a recent press release on the suit:

Special Kids Ontario

Special Kids Class Action certification application dismissed by Ontario Superior Court of Justice

(Huntsville, June 17, 2003) An Ontario Superior Court decision released yesterday by Justice Maurice Cullity declined to certify the lawsuit as a class action. The Court also ruled that parents and families denied access to special needs agreements would not be entitled to damages. The Court left open the question of whether the Province was permitted to cancel the special needs program and to require parents to surrender custody of their children in order to gain access to residential care. Lawyers for the plaintiff say an appeal challenging the ruling will be filed immediately.

Anne Larcade, mother of Alexander Larcade, acted as the representative plaintiff in a class action application on behalf of thousands of other Ontario families with disabled children. Until 1997, these families had been able to access special needs agreements to help meet the needs of their children when community programs proved insufficient. The Minister of Community and Family Services unilaterally cancelled the program that year, without asking the Legislature to change the law which Ms. Larcade claims mandates the program.

Few of the affected families have the emotional or financial resources to challenge the government's actions. Ms. Larcade believed a class action would help to provide the solution to these needy families.

Justice Cullity rejected the class action certification application on the grounds that the government could not be held liable for damages arising from a budgetary decision. Given that finding, the Court concluded that the unresolved question of the legality of the Minister's cancellation of the program could be better determined by a simple application to the Court than by a class action.

Commenting on the case, Anne Larcade said, "My family and others are extremely disappointed by this setback, but we remain committed to ensuring that families of disabled children living in Ontario receive the programs they deserve. The public distaste for the terrible position in which the Ontario Government has put disabled children and their families is not going to go away. No one should have to give up their child to get suitable care."

Douglas Elliott, of McGowan Elliott and Kim LLP, lawyer for Ms. Larcade, observed that Justice Cullity indicated that the issue might be dealt with more suitably as a test case rather than a class action.

Mr. Elliott stated, "While we are vigorously pursuing an appeal, there is nothing to stop an individual family from pursuing a test case on the legality of the Minister's actions. The government has failed to produce the alleged directive that cancelled the program. It is very clear that the Court has not excused the Minister's conduct in cancelling this program without the approval of the legislature."

For more information, please contact: Rob Brown or Sasha Dmitrenko at McGowan Elliott & Kim - 416-362-1989

The annual membership meeting was uneventful, restricted to routine matters of approving previous business and electing directors, an event that cannot now be opposed. The annual report to the members this year was abbreviated to omit the staff, plunging CAS deeper into secrecy. Are staffers ashamed to be identified with their employer? One unusual item was the introduction of two observers from the Ministry, presumably the Ministry of Community, Family and Children's Services.

A Toronto woman bereft of her children by CAS has savagely attacked a neighbor suspected of snitching. This is a good reason for non-parents to take notice of Children's Aid -- even you could be its victim. Since links to newspaper articles rarely last for more than a few days, here is the story as reported by J. Kelly Nestruck in the National Post on June 13, 2003:

A Scarborough woman has had her hands surgically reattached after they were severed by a machete-wielding neighbour.

Madeline Monast, a 44-year-old single mother of five, is in stable condition at Toronto Western Hospital, but whether she will regain the full or partial use of her hands is still uncertain, her sister, Dawn Irwin, said.

"She's holding up very well," Ms. Irwin said. "The hands have been reattached. There's a possibility that the left one will be OK. The right one doesn't look too promising at this time."

The attack on Ms. Monast took place on Wednesday moments after the police and officials from the Children's Aid Society seized her neighbour's four children. The neighbour, a 38-year-old single mother, allegedly attacked Ms. Monast believing she was the one who had alerted Children's Aid.

With her hands hanging by their tendons, Ms. Monast was rushed to Toronto Western Hospital, where she underwent an eight-hour "replantation" surgery.

Doctor Herb von Schroeder, a microvascular hand surgeon at Toronto Western, said 80% of the appendages his unit reattaches survive. "We'll typically estimate that an average amputation will get 80% of the sensation back and 80% of the mobility back."

It takes considerable strength to completely sever a hand, he said. "We see several machete injuries a year here and it takes a very significant force.... It's not a simple cut."

Dr. von Schroeder said the psychological effects of a serious hand injury are tremendous. "[Hands] are the way we interact with our environment, with each other."

A teenage neighbour, who lives behind Ms. Monast's residence on Charles Le Blvd. in the Victoria Park and Finch area, was shocked by the attack. He said Ms. Monast is a friendly woman who volunteered at Chester Le Public School. "I don't really see her as someone who could make someone want to do that," he said. The accused, who cannot be identified, was charged yesterday with aggravated assault and failure to appear in court.

The Toronto Sun's article on the subject of June 17, 2003 ended with the paragraph:

To donate to the CAS Madeline's Hope trust fund, call the Children's Aid Foundation at 416-923-0924 or visit www.cafdn.org

Even with blood on their hands, they still solicit your money.

A lawsuit brought by Children's Rights Inc (Marcia Lowry Executive Director), the New York Times and others against New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services, DYFS, resulted in a disclosure of hundreds of case files to the plaintiffs. The original documents remain in their custody, but an analysis by Richard Gelles was recently posted on the the web. Marcia Lowry and Richard Gelles are proponents of state operated child protection. Both have fought long and hard to get more funding for child protectors. Their report shows a Dickensian quagmire of incompetence and mismanagement, leading to grave danger and abuse toward children in the care of New Jersey DYFS.

In well over a hundred families interviewed, we have heard of no Dufferin pre-teen children suffering the kinds of abuse routine in New Jersey. But the continued accretion of money and power by an agency isolated from community control can easily lead to chaos similar to New Jersey.

Addendum: The original press release at http://www.childrensrights.org/press/2003-06-09.htm is now gone, but here is our copy of the press release.

From the June 6, 2003 Orangeville Citizen:

NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS Annual Meeting Dufferin Child and Family Services (Incorporated as The Children's Aid Society of the County of Dufferin) Tuesday, June 17, 2003 Monora Park Pavilion Banquet Room 6:30 pm Business Meeting 7:00 pm Speaker: Dr Mary Sue Crawford Upper Grand District School Board 7:30-8:00 pm Recognition of Service Presentations to Board and Staff 8:00-8:15 pm Solera Choir Coffee and Refreshments will be served

Here are directions to Monora Park. This is a public meeting, and non-members may attend peaceably as well, to support the families of Dufferin.

This week a flyer was distributed in Dufferin announcing a research study. Here is the text:

Information, Parents & Childhood Development
A Research Study

Our future is our children; they are our most valuable resource. We are studying the knowledge, attitudes, and current practices of parents in the County of Dufferin. What services to parents need? How and where should this information be provided? Results will be available on the Web in Fall of 2003 at http://www.fis.utoronto.ca

1000 surveys are being mailed to randomly selected homes in Dufferin County. Only households with children 12 years old or younger are asked to participate. All responses will be kept confidential. To participate in this survey, or receive more information, contact: Darla Fraser Primary Investigator Dr. Elaine Toms Associate Professor infopcd@fis.utoronto.ca 416-978-4715 Faculty of Information Studies University of Toronto Research support provided by: [ logos of FIS, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Health Unit Public Health, Invest in Kids, U of T, Scholastic, Dufferin Child Care Committee, County of Dufferin. ]

This research needs your opinions and ideas regarding parenting, children and your community.

Based on previous experience, social services may try to stack the results by getting their own staff to participate. But parents can do the same.

This is a good opportunity for Dufferin parents to get on record with your true views of Children's Aid. Call the phone number in the flyer to participate. Surveys will be mailed out next week, so you must act promptly.

Warning! Be cautious about the promise of confidentiality.

Dufferin VOCA has gathered a large volume of news regarding Children's Aid which does not appear on this website. The following article from the New York Times by Eason Jordan (link expired), describes why news organizations withhold news in terror situations. The reasons expressed are exactly why we fail to report on Children's Aid, though in place of torture and death, the threat is of removal of children.

The News We Kept to Ourselves

By EASON JORDAN
April 11, 2003

ATLANTA -- Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard -- awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.

For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.

Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.

We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).

Still, I felt I had a moral obligation to warn Jordan's monarch, and I did so the next day. King Hussein dismissed the threat as a madman's rant. A few months later Uday lured the brothers-in-law back to Baghdad; they were soon killed.

I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us.

Last December, when I told Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that we intended to send reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, he warned me they would "suffer the severest possible consequences." CNN went ahead, and in March, Kurdish officials presented us with evidence that they had thwarted an armed attack on our quarters in Erbil. This included videotaped confessions of two men identifying themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents who said their bosses in Baghdad told them the hotel actually housed C.I.A. and Israeli agents. The Kurds offered to let us interview the suspects on camera, but we refused, for fear of endangering our staff in Baghdad.

Then there were the events that were not unreported but that nonetheless still haunt me. A 31-year-old Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for "crimes," one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months, forcing her father to watch. In January 1991, on the eve of the American-led offensive, they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing her body parts was left on the doorstep of her family's home.

I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.

Eason Jordan is chief news executive at CNN.

Today the court in the Aylmer case issued a six month protection order against the family.

A rally occurred outside the courthouse while the court was in session. About a hundred family members attended, including children, and a dozen other supporters. Print and broadcast media representatives were on hand to gather stories. After the court hearing, the participants addressed the gathering and the media. The Executive Director of St Thomas Elgin Children's Aid expressed satisfaction with the ruling of the court, and treated the decision as a good one for the children, who were deemed in need of protection. The lawyers for the families appeared, and in legal terms expressed reservations about the decision, suggesting that an appeal was forthcoming. Pastor Henry Hildebrandt addressed the crowd to amens and cheers, promising to place obedience to God ahead of the laws of Ontario. Here is a transcript of the remarks.

Children's Aid seized the children on July 4, 2001 because the social worker thought the children were in immediate danger of harm from their parents. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. In a demonstration with over a hundred members of the Church of God, including their children, the police did not find it necessary to post a single cop to keep the peace.

Click on any of the photos below for a larger image.

A young boy expresses his opinion.	Children mingle while CTV films.
Church of God congregation joins in prayer and song.	Others gather near courthouse door.

Judge Schnall has rendered her decision (in pdf format) in the case of the children seized in Aylmer Ontario on July 4th, 2001. It is in all respects a defeat for families.

In other areas of law, courts have long recognized the extortionate nature of rules requiring an accused to cooperate with his accuser. Yet child protection cases deny families the right to remain silent. The judge alludes to the value of parental cooperation with CAS, since parents are usually the best source of information about their children, but ignores the reality that Children's Aid selects only the facts unfavorable to the family. We have encountered many cases where the family engages in an hour of interviews with one of the Children's Aid stand-ins, then only a single damaging fact gets presented to the court. Why not, as in other areas of the law, let the parents speak for themselves in the court?

As a reason for denying the right of silence to parents, the judge suggests that the loss of children is not an action directed against the parents. Criminals know better. A sure way to a fortune is to hold a wealthy man's child for ransom. In real life, the threat of child removal is more severe than any criminal penalty, up to and including death.

Later, the judge rules on the validity of the search, finding that CAS was admitted to the home voluntarily. This opinion serves as a ratification of the tricks that CAS uses to get into the home without a warrant, and limits protection against search and seizure to families with litigation savvy.

Here is a a non-legal point. Judge Schnall suggests that Pastor Henry Hildebrandt (whom she insults by calling him Hildebrant) endangered the children by arranging for a hundred members of his congregation to assemble outside the home where the children were seized. One of the worse aspects of seizure for the child is the feeling of being abandoned by their parents. The large show of support for the children spared them this grief.

Traditionally only a parent can represent the interests of a child. We now live in a legal wonderland where an outsider can enter a home and claim to act in the best interests of the child, superseding the parents without even a finding of wrongdoing. There seems to be no chance that judges interpreting the charter will restore the traditional respect for parents.

This case confirms our opinion that there can be no relief from child protectors through the courts. Many judges realize what an atrocity child protection really is, and an appeal to their humanity may get relief in individual cases. Where there is an activist judge, there is no relief. In Canada, the mood of the upper levels of appellate courts seems sufficiently hostile to families that no relief can be expected there. Grass-roots organizations are the only way to correct the abuses. We congratulate Pastor Hildebrandt for his efforts in this direction.

From today's Orangeville Citizen:

THE ACT OF GIVING. Athletic Centre for Training through Sport (ACTS) Manager Chris Emmons (right) presented Dufferin Child and Family Services Executive Director Gary Putman with a $813 cheque Tuesday. The money was raised through an internal Christmas drive.