Discontent within CAS

December 30, 2004

The Television Program A&E Investigative Reports has a website soliciting suggestions for future investigations. In a thread called Children's Aid Society Corruption two interesting posts by a person identified only as CASwhistleblower suggest that there is widespread dissatisfaction within Children's Aid. Dufferin VOCA welcomes information from whistleblowers and can assure confidentiality where required.

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CASwhistleblower
11:16PM PDT Jul 25, 2004 (15)
Re: Children's Aid Society Corruption

The problems that you point out are valid ones, to a point. The problems with the image of social workers being deemed child snatchers is a long standing one. I would have to agree that less than 25% of children that have been literally stolen from their families ever deal with a professional social worker. And that is the problem itself, the term "professional" implies objectivity, integrity, and adherence to a strict code of ethics.

The majority of child protective workers that I have been personally acquainted with do hold BSW, MSW, DSW, degrees as well as a few PhD's. However, they tend to act in completely unprofessional manners when wielding virtually unlimited power to destroy families, traumatize children, and add to societal problems by the very actions they take in these cases.

Most behave as undisciplined teenagers wielding a gun without any knowledge of the devastation it can cause. Education alone is not a guarantee of professionalism, especially since that education is based in socialist and Marxist theory exposing the "evils of family and religious influence and oppression". More untoward that this however, is the tendency to act solely to advance personal careers, collect bonus money, perpetuate the industry and ever escalate societal woes to effect job security with out regard to the damage to children and their families.

There are two members of my own family who happen to work in the "social work" field, one with 30 years experience and as MSW degree. Both refuse to work in "child protection" because of the corruption of the industry and the destruction of lives resulting from that industry.

Once the whistleblower legislation is fully implemented and tested there are 38 of us from various CAS offices in Ontario who are prepared to blow the whistle. We have been gathering evidence that has already been discretely leaked and will continue to be leaked in an attempt to stop the abuse by our colleagues, our supervisors, our directors and the politicians who get the payoffs for their success in giving the CAS the power it has now.

CASwhistleblower
2:31PM PST Dec 08, 2004 (27)
Re: Children's Aid Society Corruption

A&E When will you hear the cries of these poor victims. If anything why do you not use the journalism powers to help these poor children?

The corruption of CAS extends much farther then many people realize. It goes as far as the Police who sit on the board of directors, government to ensure there is lobby efforts that ensure future power, doctors who get big payoffs, lawyers who get offered good jobs or even threatened to lose their own children if they do not back off.

WILL YOU PLEASE INVISTIGATE THIS!!!

CAS is already in the import and export business of children for sale and to ensure there will be future supply of this industry they are now invading privacy and plan on screening all new parents and existing parents with young children. The only exceptions will be their own people.

HELP THESE PEOPLE PLEASE!!!!

We have people who will crack this wide open if only you take this investigation on. There are many of us who work for CAS and go home in tears and in fear but feel helpless because of the power this agency has.

One of our own people was threatened that if she did not produce a false report on an innocent mother she would lose her own children.

Another has been told to "Doctor the numbers" so their agency gets greater funding every year. She fears if she does not comply she will lose her own children.

STOP IGNORING THESE CRIES. IF YOU WANT HARD EVIDANCE YOU WILL BE GIVEN ALL YOU DESIRE IF ONLY YOU PLEASE INVESTIGATE THIS ATROCITY TO CANADIAN FAMILIES!!!

THIS IS IS THE GREATEST CORRUPTION SCAM IN CANADIAN HISTORY IF IT IS BROKEN OPEN. IT IS A DROP IN THE BUCKET COMPARED TO THE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL INVOLVING NATIVE INDIANS BECAUSE IT HAS BECOME INTERNATIONAL NOW!!!

Windsor Star reports on CAS

December 19, 2004

The following article from today's Windsor Star contains some interesting comments by Sandra Pupatello. Some additional material following the article helps to interpret her words.

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CAS intake numbers dropping significantly

Fewer kids coming into care: Director

By Craig Pearson
Star Staff Reporter

The rate of apprehensions at the Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society -- which had taken children into care at more than double the provincial average, according to a provincial review released in July -- has plunged 25 per cent in the last five months, says the agency's director.

"At this point we're slowing down in the number of kids coming into care." said local CAS executive director Bill Bevan.

"We don't know if it's a trend yet but kids are coming into care at a slower rate than in any of the last few years. In the last five months, we have had a 25 per cent drop ... so it is significant.

The Windsor CAS nevertheless has a record 820 children in care, though Bevan is encouraged about the apprehension slowdown, even if he can't pinpoint the cause.

"It's too early to tell why it's dropping," Bevan said. "We have less business coming through the front door".

Bevan also noted that the CAS recently restructured allowing workers a bit more time with individual cases, possibly giving them more opportunity to keep families together.

It's also possible that the local CAS is finally gaining ground on child abuse.

"We have been so involved with so many families over the last few years, you've got to think at some point we're going to have a slow down," Bevan said. "So at this point, we're statistically down".

Windsor MPP and Minister of Community and Social Services Sandra Pupatello, who has publicly questioned the high local rates of apprehension, cheered the 25 per cent reduction.

"It's very good news," said Pupatello, who feels complaints to her office have also diminished. "I'm just really pleased to hear the statistics are dropping".

Different theory

Pupatello, however, has a different theory on the decrease. She believes the child-welfare agency is reacting to public pressure, in particular from politicians and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services which conducted a review of the Windsor CAS, based on a number of complaints.

"I'm certain of it," Pupatello said. "Any time there is scrutiny -- and there's no question our local CAS has been under intense scrutiny -- things change. The provincial review turned out to be a very valid and useful exercise because it makes everyone certain when it's something this serious".

The ministry review found 80 per cent of referrals to the Windsor CAS resulted in an investigation, more than 1.5 times higher than the provincial average of 53 per cent, and more than 24 per cent of referrals resulted in a transfer to ongoing services, 2.2 times higher than the provincial average of 11 per cent.

Pupatello also thinks more provincial funding for children's mental health services in Windsor, the first increase in 12 years, has eased family strain.

Dr. Dolores Sicheri, a Windsor oncologist and co-founder of Citizens for Social Morality, a protest group formed this year to call for decreased power at children's aid societies, is cautiously optimistic.

"It's a step in the right direction," said Sicheri, who vowed to continue lobbying for changes to the law since she believes some children are apprehended needlessly. "But I would still have to see if the apprehensions are justified. I still want to know that there's integrity restored to this organization".

Sidebar

Group protests for judicial review of CAS

About a dozen people picketed outside Windsor MPP Sandra Pupatello's office Wednesday calling for changes to the Children's Aid legislation.

Organizers of the group Citizens for Social Morality, which has organized a series of protests outside Pupatello's office this year, have recently increased their lobbying efforts to have the power of Children's Aid Societies curtailed.

Instead of just asking for a Ministry of Children and Youth Services review of the five-year-old legislation, which is underway, protesters want the Attorney General of Ontario to conduct a judicial review.

"What's happening to families in this province is criminal," said Dr Dolores Sicheri, a Windsor oncologist, who believes Children's Aid Societies across Ontario now have far too much power to apprehend children. "These families are being worked over. For CAS, it's all about getting more children into care so you can get more money and have bigger buildings and bigger salaries. CAS can do whatever they want with your children if they don't like you".

Local CAS executive director Bill Bevan, who said only children in need are taken into care, welcomes a review and said the attorney general will be involved to a certain degree anyway if legislation is changed.

The scrutiny that Sandra Pupatello referred to in the article is a reference to an examination by Minister of Children and Youth Services Marie Bountrogianni. Refer to the July 3 article in the Windsor Star inserted chronologically in this news, where we link as well to copies of the internal audits of Windsor-Essex CAS. Windsor-Essex is the specific children's aid society discussed in the provincial parliament in this extract from the Hansard of October 27 2004. Mrs Bountrogianni also concedes that funding formulas cause children to be taken away.

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Mr Parsons: First of all, I want to commend the children's aid societies for their work. In 18 years of fostering, our family has never fostered a child who didn't belong in care. I think their standards are excellent. But I watch with concern the media reports of ever-increasing deficits across the province and I wonder what your plans are to deal with CAS deficits.

Hon Mrs Bountrogianni: As I've said publicly, this is a growing budget without the outcomes to show us and to show the taxpayer that indeed this huge increase in costs is actually resulting in better outcomes for children. We have a few hints at perhaps better outcomes for children in that the majority of cases do not lead to taking the child away. They actually lead to mediation and counselling with families so that the child is not taken away.

Again, this is on the public record. We have reviewed a specific children's aid society -- I don't think it's important which one it is -- and we did have some concerns with that particular children's aid society. We made recommendations to streamline the efforts of that particular society, and they're acting on those recommendations. We keep monitoring that.

If that society is representative of all of the societies, or of most of the societies, then we do have a problem in how we are running our children's aid societies. This is not a secret; the children's aid societies themselves have talked to me about this and have said that the funding formula is conducive to increased deficits because it's funded on the number of children you take away. Therefore, you know that if you want to hire more staff or do different things, you've got to take away more kids. It's not as blatant as that; no one has actually admitted or said, "We're taking kids away to increase our budgets," but they have said that the funding formula is not conducive to other results. We are definitely looking at that. That's why we have a child welfare secretariat. Again, Bruce from the Children's Aid Society of Toronto is seconded to give me recommendations. My understanding is that I will receive his report at the end of December, and the intent is to present the report in the new year to the people of Ontario and to act on it immediately.

Mr Parsons: I think you said, but just to confirm, that you're in fact, then, looking at a different funding formula?

Hon Mrs Bountrogianni: Absolutely.

The Vice-Chair: There's still about six minutes.

Hon Mrs Bountrogianni: Could I just add something to that, then, if there is time?

The Vice-Chair: Certainly. You have six minutes.

Hon Mrs Bountrogianni: Again, this isn't a black-and-white one, where you can just say we're going to cap everything and we're going to -- it's about the lives of children and protection of children. So again, we don't want to do anything impulsive that may lead to tragedy. I think it's worth the time we're taking to review this and to do it properly. Yes, the taxpayers have rights, but we don't want to do anything to increase child protection disasters.

Disabled man arrested to protect CAS

December 14, 2004

John Dunn reports on the arrest of former foster child Jessie McVicar.

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December 14, 2004

For Immediate Release:

John Dunn:
613-228-2178
contact@afterfostercare.com

503-1218 Meadowlands Drive East
Ottawa, ON
K2E 6K1
Can be contacted until 10pm

CAS SENDS FORMER FOSTER CHILD TO JAIL

Be at the court, 161 Elgin Street in Ottawa, Wednesday morning to show your support or to watch the outcome. (Possibly Room 6 downstairs?) Go to the information and ask which room "Jessie McVicar" will appear in. Visit this page for updates on Wednesday afternoon.

Sarah Newell, a staff member of the Ottawa Children's Aid Society, sent police after a former foster child, claiming that he was potentially harmful to himself. It is believed that the real motivation for this act was the fact that her client was publishing the actions of the CAS on his web site. Sarah Newell placed an ad with the Ottawa Sun Newspaper seeking the whereabouts of Jesse McVicar.

Sarah Newell published this ad in order to obtain his location so she could pass it on to police. The campaign to silence him was successful when a concerned citizen passed his address to her. A witness at his home during the time of the extraction stated that the Ottawa police came to his home to get him without a warrent claiming they were there under the authority of the Mental Health Act. Although he was unarmed, the witness stated that the Ottawa police proceeded to extract him from his home at gunpoint.

Those who know the client in question in this case, know he would not be of harm to himself or to others, and that he was publishing the actions of the Children's Aid Society on his web site. It is believed that the action of arresting him was in retaliation to him speaking out. Just hours before his arrest, this client informed John Dunn that the Ottawa Children's Aid Society already have his email address from previous correspondance and asked Dunn to give it to them once again as a means for them to communicate with him. Dunn contacted the Ottawa Children's Aid Society and gave the clients' email address to them once again.

This client is now in custody at the Ottawa Regional Detention Centre on Innis Road which is known for it's deplorable conditions, until Wednesday where he will appear in court for a bail hearing. Although the police moved in under the Mental Health Act, they charged him with Criminal Harrassment and mischief.

On his web site, a witness to his arrest has been keeping updates on his arrest, and condition. Some quotes from that witness are below:

"All of the following events have been to prevent Jesse from completing the website.

December 9th, 2004 aprox. 3pm

They took him! they actually came to the door ( almost 10 of them) and forced their way in. They asked for Jesse and I asked them if they had a warrant. The didn't. when I told them to come back with a warrant, they looked at each other and said they were entering under the mental health act and barged in. While they were searching the house, officer amyotte grabbed my wrists and my ass more than once until I told him to watch were he put his hands.

I am going to press charges, because I am under 18. All the officers looked back at me. They said that they were taking him in "for his own safety"!!! Can you believe that!! A woman officer pointed a gun at the kitchen cupboards, where he was hiding, and said "Show me you hands!" He said " I have no gun. I will get out by myself."

They then proceeded to pull him out of the cupboards, causing him pain in the process. They barged in under the mental health act, but charged him with mischief... how does that work??? He said, "I want a lawyer." Steve Flanigan said " Poof! Here's your lawyer. He tells you to shut up!" They handcuffed him and took him away. They laughed as they searched the house, at a CD marked "4 Tyson Love Dad. I love you!"

An hour later, Jessie's lawyer contacted us and said "They have charged him with mischief, but the police don't know exactly what specific crime they are charging him for. He will spend the night in the holding cells, and have a bail hearing tomorrow morning. They want him to meet a court psychiatrist, but the thing they fail to understand is that the court psychiatrist can only determine whether he is fit for trial."

I took some of their names... the other ones disappeared too fast. they were Steve Flanigan <---- the one who pushed the door open.

mr. Dinardo

mr. Young

mr. Amyotte <---- The one who repeatedly grabbed my ass!

December 10th, 2004

Jesse was brought to the courthouse today for a bail hearing. He was supposed to appear in front of the court this morning, but they delayed it by sending him to the court psychiatrist all morning. The "Dr." said that he was fit to stand trial. He determined that Jesse isn't crazy...

Finally, early this afternoon, he finally passed in front of a judge. But because they waited all morning, he is forced to stay in jail until his bail hearing on the 15th. He was charged for mischief (they still aren't too sure for what exactly) and criminal harassment. It took nearly 10 police officers to come and arrest him for mischief and criminal harassment??? What a waste of tax payers money.

Note to the police: Way to overdo it... Good Job! lol

December 13th, 2004

I have been informed that Jesse is spitting up blood. He asked to see the doctor yesterday when it first started and they've ignored him. It is getting worse. He is also having trouble breathing now. The jail system won't allow his doctor to come in and look at him, he has to go see the doctors that work in the jail. When he was in to see them, they diagnosed him as disabled. His hands don't work properly, and I'm worried about his lupus. They are sending him off for x-rays today, but it is not enough. He should be seen by HIS doctor for a full exam.

So let's review... It took 10 police holding him at gun point to take a disabled man into custody. He didn't struggled, but they still felt it was necessary to twist his hands and arms while pulling him out of the cupboards and throwing him on the ground with a knee in his back. Now he can't move one of his arms. On his first court appearance, he was handcuffed and monitored by 2 police officers, treating him like a dangerous offender. When he was in the elevator being transported to the holding cells, they picked him up off his feet and threw him into the metal bar. When they got to the cells, they threw him into the bars again. Now he is coughing up BLOOD!

Jesse wanted to read an inmates newspaper, but the guards never gave it to the other inmate. The guard walked right by the cells, but kept it for himself. Apparently, this other inmate has been having trouble like this for a while. He had to get his brother to get him the subscription, but he has yet to receive one. The Ottawa sun say's that his paper has been delivered.

To follow up on Jesse's medical conditions, he has yet to get the x-ray and it's passed 5:00pm. The portable x-ray machine has already come and left the jail, and won't be back until Wednesday. That does him absolutely no good! He will be at the courthouse by then. So what, is he supposed to just sit tight until his court date coughing up blood? That's not ok! "

You can visit his web site at this link: http://www.systemvsbizzi.com/december_10th.htm

John Dunn
The Foster Care Council of Canada
http://www.afterfostercare.com
Check out our Christmas Newsletter
pdf link

Note by Dufferin VOCA: The website at http://www.systemvsbizzi.com works only in Internet Explorer.

Addendum:
OTTAWA - Former Foster Child Released on Bail
Monday Dec. 20th, 2004
J.M. was released after spending one week in prison after the Children's Aid Society sent police after him for writing "suicidal" letters to them after they apprehended his child and sent him/her to Vancouver with no access.

USA lets parents refuse drugs for kids

December 9, 2004

Drugging kids to turn them into compliant zombies in the classroom has been widespread in both the United States and Canada. New legislation in the USA has just given families some protection against compulsion to use psychotropic medications. So far, there is no such legislation in Canada, and none is under consideration. The following press release gives details.

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PRESS RELEASE:

December 3, 2004
Contact: Marla Filidei
humanrights@cchr.org
1-800-869-2247

President Bush Signs Landmark Legislation Prohibiting Forced Psychiatric Drugging of Schoolchildren

Celebrities, Parents, Legislators and Civil Rights Groups Win Victory for Children's Rights with Passage of the "Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment"

December 3rd, 2004 - Los Angeles--Celebrities Lisa Marie Presley, Kelly Preston, Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman and Juliette Lewis joined the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog established by the Church of Scientology, in applauding Congress for passing precedent-setting legislation that bans school personnel forcing parents to drug their children for classroom or behavioral problems. In order to receive federal funds under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), the "Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment," was signed into law by President Bush today and requires schools to implement policies that prohibit schoolchildren being forced onto psychiatric drugs as a requisite for their education.

Hundreds of parents across America have been pressured to put their school-aged children onto cocaine-like stimulants or antidepressants for which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just ordered a "black box label" warning of the drugs' high risk of causing suicide among children and adolescents. Ms. Kelly Preston, who met with members of Congress in June last year to enlist support of the amendment, said, "Every mother has an inherent right to protect her child from harm. However, many mothers have been denied that right because psychiatrists have inundated unwitting teachers with the false opinion that educational and behavioral problems are symptoms of 'mental disorders' that require mind-altering drugs. This law gives hope for a new era in education, one where teachers are free to work with parents to find academic solutions instead of unworkable and harmful psychiatric treatments that benefit no one but the psychiatric industry."

Many groups supported the amendment, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Foundation of Women Legislators (NFWL), Parents for a Label and Drug Free Education, as well as numerous state and federal legislators.

Bruce Wiseman, the U.S. President of CCHR says, "Psychiatrists did not want to let go of their stronghold of American schools and launched massive counter efforts to kill this legislation. However, people are waking up to the fact that psychiatric 'mental disorders' have absolutely no scientific/medical validity and that psychiatrists falsely portray them as a disease or physical condition to convince teachers and parents that these are medical issues, which is a complete fraud. Psychiatric 'disorders' are simply checklists of behaviors--symptoms presumed to be related--and voted by members of the American Psychiatric Association to be included in their insurance billing bible, the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This has been used to justify the administration of dangerous drugs to more than 8 million children. Parents and teachers were never informed about documented side effects of many of these drugs, including suicide, violence, mania and psychosis."

CCHR says the next step in educational reform is to remove psychiatric and psychological testing and screening from schools which are the feeder lines to psychiatrists who have made turning schools into mental health clinics a business. Millions of students are now dependent upon psychiatric drugs or are taking them illegally. CCHR, joined by scores of parents and civil rights groups, say the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health's recommendations for mandatory mental health screening in school is a frightening representation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which Huxley describes a controlled "utopian" civilization achieved with the "technique of suggestion--through infant conditioning and, later, with the aid of drugs." While the "Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment" will help prevent some of psychiatry's propensity to drug all normal childhood behavior, many charge that the spurious sounding "Freedom Commission on Mental Health" and its recommendations will open another door to dangerous conditioning leading to massive increases in psychotropic drugging of a new generation.

Dr. Julian Whitaker, director of California's Whitaker Wellness Center warns that the motive behind mandatory mental health screening of children is obvious: "That means drugging them!" For psychiatry, this means, "52 million potential customers." He offers this advice to parents: "First of all, refuse to sign those consent forms when they come home from your child's school--if they can't test them, they can't drug them."

CCHR will monitor the implementation of this law so that any parent who may still experience coercion to drug their child can contact CCHR to report this and for assistance.

For more information on psychiatric screening of schoolchildren, read CCHR's new publication "Harming Youth: Psychiatry Destroys Young Minds,".

Requests for CFSA Review

December 6, 2004

A number of requests have recently been sent to the government of Ontario requesting a review of the Child and Family Services Act. The Act provides for two different kinds of review in articles 67 and 224. Each of the following three letters were sent to both Marie Bountrogianni, Minister of Children and Youth Services, and Michael J Bryant, Attorney General.

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Nov 13, 2004

Hon. Marie Bountrogianni
Minister of Children and Youth Services
14th Floor, 56 Wellesley Street West
Toronto, Ontario M5S 2S3

Dear Madame:

Thank you for your response to my request for the funding formula for children with special needs.

I am trying to understand the process wherein "children in care" are identified as in need of protection. I need a copy of your risk assessment tool.

I would like to know who is responsible for the case identification and coding?

Please forward me a photocopy of the Ministry regulations regarding Risk Assessment Tool and identification process. I want to understand the workings of your Ministry.

I have read what you have had to say before the estimates committee. I have read all the hansards. I would encourage you to do as you say, reform the whole process. The community and taxpayers demand it, but I see that you will be impeded by the "industry".

Through out the estimates committee meetings, repeatedly you ask Bruce to come up and elaborate on what you have to say. He never does. He leaves you on the hook.

Is this only one "renegade" CAS or does it mirror the rest of the province? I think that you already knew the answer to this question but you were afraid to admit it publicly.

In Windsor, piles of children are still being taken. They are using 22-year-old girls just out of school to go into hospitals to take these children. These young girls are paying the price of their conscience.

They will be forever scarred by what they have done. I know one such girl.

She herself is still a child. She is being asked to do something criminal that will change her the rest of her life. Whose duty is it to protect her? Your Ministry oversees her position. Is it your responsibility? I see that CAS as continuing to play dirty legal tricks on these families. I do not see it letting up in this community. The philosophy of Mr. Bevan continues to drive the dissent both within the organization and in this community. Need I remind you that these families and employees are also your constituents?

I can only express my disappointment that your auditors still do not have a grip on the problems here.

I view this process of child abduction as a criminal conspiracy. I have concluded that conspiracy goes to the highest level of government. The people I represent are seeking a criminal investigation. These crimes are not justified in the name of government or child welfare. They will not go unpunished.

The following is a parent whose children were apprehended from her ex-husband. She was not involved in the original incident. Following her divorce, she had remarried and has established a new life. She has applied for custody. The CAS wants to keep the children in foster homes. Because of age, they are not adoptable. She sent me this recent email. She has the 3 children on the weekend. As part of the dirty tricks she talks about, they have tried to decrease her weekends to every other weekend, i.e. to disconnect her children from her.

"I figured it was time for them to start their dirty play and go as low as they possibly could. After listening to my kids for 8 months and seeing what they have been going through, it has only worsened and become more severe...any efforts in the past to bring this to the attention of the CAS has ended in the foster parents being perfect and I being nothing more than a trouble maker as they noted.... the CAS has done nothing to ensure the placement homes are safe and my children are indeed being harmed physically and emotionally and I have no choice but to do what I must to make everyone involved held accountable for the damage that has already been done to my children. I have no intentions of giving up and will see this through to the end and those responsible punished accordingly."

There needs to be a public inquiry into the circumstances of Mr. Malone's actions. Mr. Bevan is telling his employees "to say only nice things about Mr. Malone". Mr. Malone's action sent a powerful statement about the unrest both within and without of the organization. The organization will crumble from within, not just from without. Mr. Bevan and the organization are ruined in this community. The large charitable donations will no longer flow.

The following statement was sent to the paper by a lawyer relative of a 20-year veteran worker, who was fired because she refused to identify a case, which she knew was "not high risk" as "high risk." On the instructions of her supervisor, she had set up the original situation. She was then told by the supervisor to rate the file "high risk." When she balked on the follow through, she was fired. Is this what happens to employees who try to honorably do their jobs?

"One question needs to be asked. What could the management of the Windsor Essex County CAS have done to Jim Malone that may have caused him to feel so hopeless, so devastated and so angry? The tragedy that occurred at the CAS on Tuesday October 26, 2004 begs for a full-scale government inquiry. It appears that funding and unreasonable management has reared its ugly head again, and Mr. Bevan has become skilled at the art of "spin". The wooden boards from the crash have tarnished not only the "façade" of Mr. Bevan shiny new riverfront building, but also the façade of his management style. The truth is 'heads equal dollars' to Mr. Bevan. Which may be why Windsor has the highest rate of apprehension in the Province? The more families scored as "families in need of care" the more money CAS gets. The paradox is unimaginable. In order to really help some who are truly in need, they abuse many others, by unnecessary intervention. Instead of cutting funds to the group home, why didn't Mr. Bevan just drag in a few more unwilling teens to boost the funding to the group home? Nobody would dispute the need for CAS to protect the interests of our most vulnerable in society, but that power must always be reasonable with appropriate checks and balances. It can never be misused. I dare Sandra Pupatello to walk in the shoes of one social worker at the CAS for two weeks Then, interview all 3,000 parents who have signed the petition circulated by "Citizens for Social Morality" and finally, speak to as many former workers of the CAS as you can (excluding of course, those who have been charged criminally). Sadly, both literally and figuratively, the writing really IS on the wall".

I would appreciate your prompt and helpful assistance in this matter. The people I represent will no longer remain silent. These issues will not go away. They have to be dealt with. You must rescue not only the families embroiled but also the employees who are made complicit to this abuse of the legal process.

This will not reflect well on Ontario or Canada as a whole. Along with the residential schools, it will be long remembered as a most shameful part of our history.

Sincerely,

Dolores A. Sicheri, MD FRCPC

---

Personal Attention MPP Parsons and all members of the Standing Committee on Estimates c/o MPP Cam Jackson who will receive a copy of this e-mail by fax today, November 24, 2004.

You are fortunate indeed to have been able to access all the facts where you can categorically state at the November 16th Standing Committee on Estimates:

"I would add to that, we never had a child in care who didn't belong in care. What happened to them was truly in their best interests. I'm not criticizing the fact that they went to school and never returned home. In every case, that was in their best interests."

Most foster parents only receive information through the CAS and there is no doubt that is a biased perspective. Ask Mr. Jackson and Paul Legall of the Hamilton Spectator about the Halton CAS case where the foster parents thought it was in the best interests of a Halton child to be in care and the police believed it was in their best interests to have a swat team in family court in Burlington and Milton on three occasions. Once we became involved and obtained the CAS files, the SWAT team disappeared and the child was returned home but not before she told the court about a sexual assault involving the CAS worker which to date as I understood it from the child and her parents was never addressed.

Our files contain the facts surrounding many interventions that were not only unnecessary and contrary to the CFSA but also victimized the children. The one above from Halton that made the National Section of the Globe and Mail for example. Minister Bountrogianni is aware of these files and our desire to share them with her but to date has not set a date for such a review. If you read "Speaking Out" the report put out by the Child and Family Advocacy Office you will have some limited understanding of what I am talking about.

"But they then enter a world where, essentially, there are two options available for them: They may return home or they become a crown ward. They become a crown ward with access or without access. If it's without access, they then become available for adoption.......

Some areas encourage kinship, and I know societies do, but sometimes with the kinship there aren't the financial resources there. For a family taking on three or four other children, it's a major financial challenge; they may not be able to. For the family that's prepared to do it, they're looking for financial assistance and they're looking for a long-term commitment of financial assistance, not a year-by-year commitment but some sense that this is going to be available till the children turn 16 or 18. I think it's an option that saves the government money, but even more importantly, it provides stability in those children's lives."

We have had calls from many, many grandparents from all over Ontario who are refused access to their grandchildren right from the beginning. One set of Halton grandparents were very wealthy respected community business people. The only access they could get to their grandchildren who had been apprehended from the mother's care without the knowledge of the father who was the son of the wealthy respected community business people, were supervised visits at the local CAS! Lack of kinship placements in our experience has nothing to do with funding and more to do with the CAS breaking the family bonds as quickly and firmly as they can. In our experience over the last decade of auditing numerous apprehensions by numerous societies the plan which is immediately implemented is to remove the child from their community, their school, their friends and their family. Several of the children interviewed thought they had been placed in care by their parents when nothing was further from the truth. They had no idea their parents were fighting tooth and nail to get them back and many wanted them placed with family or reputable community members until the issues could be addressed.

Two of the cases we reviewed were children apprehended from families covered by the Toronto CAS when Bruce Rivers was the CEO, he will remember me well. One was a Muslim family the other a Christian family. In both cases I was called in to assist the families, and particularly the children, by respected members of the community who had heard of the work we do advocating for the best interests of children. Mr. Rivers was fully updated on the atrocities these children suffered. Both sets of children were returned when they got a fair hearing in the courts but not without a great deal of damage.

At the invitation of a judge we joined the supervised visitation that took place with one family at the Toronto CAS and were horrified at what we saw happening. One of the children was screaming at us when he had to leave his parents, "call the police I have been kidnapped." He complained about sexual assault by one of the workers, which I understand to date has never been resolved. Shortly afterwards he was accused of sexually molesting his little brother and moved to a group home separating him out even more from his family. Being under 12 he did not become one of the many crossover kids you talked about at a previous standing committee. One of my associates was physically assaulted by a worker when the worker tried to grab her purse believing she had a tape recorder in there. A report to the police resulted in absolutely no accountability. If advocates get assaulted during supervised visits what happens to the children when no-one is around.

After we became involved two very respected lawyers represented the families in these two cases and can confirm the accuracy of the above as it pertains to the children. In the case of the Muslim family who were new immigrants to Canada and spoke very little English the first lawyer to represent them after being paid $600 cash advised the court that the parents were voluntarily placing their children in the care of the CAS which was an outright lie. This only came to light after I was able to show the parents how they could access the court documents. The Muslim children never got an opportunity to tell the court what they were experiencing in a foster home where they were exposed to all kinds of no-nos for Muslim children including the foster parent's boyfriend running around in his underwear (this came directly from the oldest daughter who visited our home to personally thank us for our involvement in their release back to their family). When I asked about the information that was put on the record by the four children's lawyers representing her and her siblings she categorically denied any of it was true.

MPP Cam Jackson is my MPP and is well aware of our child advocacy. I should say that any of the organizations associated with our advocacy do not accept donations and do not charge for any of the services we provide, not even expenses. We do what we do out of a belief that we are expected to use any gifts we have been given to serve the needs of others. That to us is "loving your neighbour as yourself."

I would be very pleased to submit a report to the Standing Committee of Estimates to document why we, and many, many others in the Ontario community believe it is necessary for a Section 67 (1) Review under the Child and Family Services Act take place. Minister Bountrogianni can confirm she received a letter dated November 13, 2004 from another respected member of the Ontario community which stated among other things: "The people I represent are seeking a criminal investigation. These crimes are not justified in the name of government or child welfare." The Minister with the support of the Attorney General has the opportunity to broaden the scope of the Section 67 (1) review to identify any criminal contraventions of the CFSA and to ensure accountability. The process does not need to be onerous, simply a judge reviewing submissions from those concerned about the best interests of children as it relates to the administration of our child welfare and youth justice legislation and policies.

We have fruitlessly lobbied every Minister of Community and Social Services since Tsbouchi's days to have such a review and so we continue to get phone calls that break our hearts because we know we are not superhumans and cannot give of our energy to every individual case regardless of how heartbreaking the story is.

The Brantford Expositor recently reported on a presentation I made to the United Family Front organization at the invitation of the organization who are presently dealing with some very sad cases indeed.

Please don't brush aside what I am saying, as a foster parent of such long standing you obviously care about the best interests of children. It can surely only be beneficial to the work you do in this area to hear all sides of the issues, and have a judge review the issues, especially when the children themselves are speaking out and contacting us for help.

Sincerely,

Anne Marsden

Co-founder Advocacy for Kids in Care

Audit Manager

The Auditors

The Canadian Family Watchdog

Tel. 905-639-5684

E-mail: watching@cogeco.ca

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December 6, 2004

Marie Bountrogianni
Minister of Children and Youth Services
56 Wellesley Street West, 14th Floor
Toronto Ontario M5S 2S3

Honorable Minister:

The Child and Family Services Act (section 224) provides for a periodic review of its operation. It is soon due for such a review.

The Province of Ontario generously supports children in foster care. Figures published by the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies report the amount of money paid in a year for foster care throughout Ontario, and the number of child-days of foster care provided, revealing that the province pays $71 per child day. In interviews with foster parents, they report receiving $27 per day. The difference of $44 per day is the funding that supports the agency. For a baby or toddler in foster care to age of majority, this adds up to over a quarter million dollars.

Ontario has 52 Children's Aid Societies, with the mission under the Child and Family Services Act to protect the children of Ontario. Some of them use their powers genuinely for the protection of children in their areas, some do not; instead they succumb to the temptation to take children for maximum funding. Analysis of complaints suggests that the worst agencies (alphabetically) are Brantford, Dufferin, Durham, Halton, Hamilton, Owen Sound-Grey, St Thomas-Elgin, and Windsor-Essex.

The Child and Family Services Act grants Children's Aid Societies great powers to intervene in the lives of families for the protection of children. When a society decides to abuse its powers, the consequences are devastating for affected families. Children's Aid Societies selectively target families, not for their abusive conduct, but for weakness. Single mothers are the weakest families, and the easiest source of children to fill the numbers of foster children. When they intervene in an intact family, they quickly seek a pretext to get the parents separated or divorced, easing the problem of wresting the children from parental control.

Once a family is targeted, CAS actions defy any rational purpose, aside from the pursuit of appropriated funds. Social workers enter homes under the pretense of assistance and dupe naive families into signing documents while misrepresenting their seriousness. Once a family can be induced to sign a Voluntary Service Agreement, the process of family destruction is under way. They make claims in court that are a mixture of truth, distortions and outright lies. They place such onerous burdens on families as to create a dilemma of losing their employment by compliance, or losing their children for non-compliance. Parents are humiliated by seeing their children only under surveillance by social workers, then when they do visit, the notes made by those same social workers become evidence against them. Examinations of a home are not to determine whether there is abuse, only to find circumstances that can be construed, or misconstrued, against the family. Workers search the catbox so they can report feces in the home. They report home renovations as safety hazards. They make up things never even observed; one family knew they were falsely accused when they were reported as having a toilet so dirty the worker found in hard to tell it was white -- their toilet was green. Locks and barriers in the home installed to protect toddlers from danger are reported as abusive, while other homes are cited for absence of the same barriers. Even positive proof of innocence is irrelevant -- CAS intervened in a family because a medical X-ray disclosed a broken bone, but when later medical evidence showed the bone to be unharmed, the intervention continued. CAS took a baby from a single teenaged mother and placed it with the teenager's mother. Grandmothers have helped their daughters in this way for a long time. But then CAS issued an order preventing the teenager from seeing her mother, and child, instead restricting her to a short supervised visit once a week. This action is senseless as a form of child protection, but purposeful in breaking family bonds in pursuit of provincial funds.

The social services system acts to separate parents against the will of both partners. The separation may start with a domestic disturbance call, with the father subject to bail conditions keeping him from his family. In other cases, women's shelter workers have cajoled a mother into filing criminal charges against her husband. Or CAS workers may take the children, then suggest to one parent that separation or divorce could improve their chances of getting the children back. Once any kind of separation document is in place, CAS is relentless. When parents meet, CAS will find out from the children and hold it against their parents. One father reported that an observer parked his car outside his home for several hours a night hoping to find him meeting his wife. There was even a fantastic claim in justification of child removal -- the social worker found that the parents had engaged in sexual relations.

CAS also intervenes in the lives of children of parents already divorced. They capriciously override custody arrangements ordered by a judge in divorce. When a social worker tells a parent to keep a child in contravention of a judge's order, the police respect the word of the social worker in preference to the order of the judge.

Not all CAS workers aim to destroy families, and there are plenty of decent workers in child protection. They are just not the ones doing the front-line work in the rogue CAS's. They are in peripheral areas, where they have no responsibility for seizing children, only caring for those already taken from their parents. In taking complaints from hundreds of families in Dufferin, not one has complained that their pre-teen child was harmed while in CAS care (though teenagers are another matter). So in at least some areas, they do conscientious work. For the job of removing children from good parents, CAS has no option but to hire staff lacking the empathy characteristic of the helping professions. The turnover in this job is enormous. Workers are quickly disillusioned, and quit after finding out their true mission. One CAS insider reported resignations at a rate that required replacing the entire staff every 18 months.

CAS uses its powers also to suppress dissent. They routinely claim confidentiality, even in cases where the family itself wants public disclosure, preventing families from publishing the circumstances of their own case. They threaten families with jail for mentioning their case in public. When a Dufferin family appeared at the courthouse with a CAS opponent, CAS changed their legal plea within a day to ask for the family death-penalty, crown-wardship. The habits of CAS in retaliating against families require in a letter such as this the omission of facts that would identify specific families, such as names, dates and places.

And what can families affected by CAS do to defend themselves? Resort to the law is ineffective for single mothers, since they lack the resources to hire the legal, therapeutic and investigative professionals required to mount an effective defense, and legal aid is ordinarily useless. Parents with means are faced with a legal system that is more interested in raising money than mounting a vigorous defense. The hearings occur in private, usually without any record made of the proceedings. Only those parents willing to pay over fifty thousand dollars have any chance of getting to a trial where witnesses can be cross-examined. In instances in which families have mortgaged their homes and retirement to fight a legal battle, CAS simply litigates until the family funds are exhausted, leaving them defenseless. Many families have counter-sued CAS for various kinds of wrongful actions. In all such suits, CAS moves immediately for a protective order keeping the proceedings secret. This ends any possibility that the suit could correct CAS policy -- from that point, the only issue is whether the parents will get some of the taxpayers' money. The CAS wrongdoing leading to the suit will remain confidential. Some community opponents have attempted to reform their local CAS by signing up members. When faced with this kind of opposition, CAS has not permitted free elections for their boards, nor have they changed policies in response to opposition. Instead, they have altered their bylaws to make opposition impossible.

What happens to children seized by Children's Aid? The preferred result is long term foster care, or a long-term arrangement in which the family is under continued control of the caseworkers. In the smaller number of cases that end in adoption, there are a remarkable number in which the adoptive parents are functionaries of the child-protection system itself -- former social workers, policemen, lawyers representing Children's Aid.

Children's Aid desperately needs the review provided in the act. For the review to be effective, it must go beyond merely interviewing executive directors and social workers. The person conducting the review needs to be empowered to examine the records of individual cases, and compare the statements in the record with the actual facts of the case. Another productive avenue is discussion with opponents who have already tried to reform Children's Aid or protect families from destruction.

Should you decide on genuine reform, here are some suggestions, with the most important first.

• Open the process.

  The process should be open to public scrutiny at all stages. An open-records rule for Children's Aid Societies might become ineffective through foot-dragging, but applied to the courts it could work.

  Most courts dealing with criminal and civil matters are now open to public scrutiny, and family courts should be as well. Then anyone could walk in off the street and sit in the courtroom while a family court matter was heard, and even more importantly, he could examine the document file where most of the legal action takes place, thus viewing the same record presented to the judge. For children as well as adults, public trial is an ordeal, but secret trial is worse.

  Such a reform could provide a remedy for families falsely accused, through reference to the court record exonerating them. Rogue Children's Aid Societies would come to public attention quickly, and scholars could sample the files to measure the level of effectiveness of child protection.

• Limitation or elimination of immunity for caseworkers

  Currently, child-protection workers are immune from all legal actions, placing them beyond the reach of the law even for blatant wrongdoing. In private meetings between caseworkers and parents, they regularly bully parents with their power. One caseworker told a father: "Fathers have no rights"; another was only slightly exaggerating when she boasted: "We have as much power as God".

• Never suggest divorce

  One activity that needs to be stopped is forcing a divorce on a couple against the will of both, a shotgun divorce. In tiny Dufferin county, a dozen instances have been reported, a rate that if true for the province, suggests thousands of such cases.

• Do not seize children until after hearing both sides

  The law now in most places requires judicial authorization before child removal, but excepts children in immediate danger. In practice, children are always picked up first on pretense of emergency, and court hearings are after-the-fact. Owing to caseworker immunity, they cannot suffer from any misrepresention.

  The law could be changed to eliminate the exception, delaying child abduction until a judge has signed a warrant on probable cause. This may have limited effectiveness, since Societies with millions of dollars in revenue may get friendly judges to rubber-stamp their requests. A more meaningful reform is to require an adverse hearing in which the parents can present evidence in opposition before the issuance of an apprehension order. This would at least protect innocent families with means to hire competent counsel.

• Trial by jury before crown-wardship

  Juries, not judges, should have the final word on removing parents from a child's life and turning them into crown wards. This protection exists now for liberty and money, things normal parents value less than their children.

• All persons exercising police power should be in uniform

  The law grants child protectors (and animal protectors) the powers of police, and immunities even superior to the police. Yet they appear in civilian clothes, misleading clients. The law could suspend the powers and immunities of child protectors when not in uniform. This would at least warn parents of the seriousness of contact with Children's Aid.

• Require that the child be in the courtroom during proceedings about him.

  This procedure is followed now in criminal matters, though not in the more consequential custody cases. It would prevent consideration of the case of any child currently out of the jurisdiction of the court, even when the court had jurisdiction in the past. And as long as the child is old enough to understand, he could witness the proceedings in his own case.

• Fully investigate all child deaths, including those in care

  Deaths sometimes occur of children under the protection of Children's Aid Societies, but their names, and even numbers, are usually concealed from the public. The publicity that is now claimed to hurt the emotional development of the child cannot harm him after death, and these cases should be fully opened to public scrutiny. The public has a strong interest in preventing child deaths, superior to any privacy concerns.

• Refusing psychotropics is not neglect

  Failure to follow a doctor's orders is now treated as neglect, so when a medical professional prescribes psychotropic drugs for a child, parents cannot refuse to administer them. In a few American states, parents now are granted authority to refuse such drugs, without that being treated as a reason for child protection intervention. Ontario should give parents the same authority.

• Open adoption

  Persons who are adopted should by right be able to see the record in their own case. What purpose is served by preventing an adult from finding the names of his birth parents?

• People should be able to see their own records at all levels

  The records open to an adult should also include the records made of his life while in foster care. Now the disclosure of records is discretionary with CAS, allowing them to conceal wrongdoing by social workers and foster parents.

• Outlaw anonymous reports, and fully disclose reports to family

  Anonymous reports of child abuse should be disregarded. Right now, an anonymous report is an easy way to sic CAS on a personal enemy. And parents kept in the dark may suspect the wrong accuser. In June 2003 the press reported an unnamed mother lost her children to Toronto Children's Aid. She (falsely) suspected a neighbor, Madeline Monast, attacking her with a machete and cutting off both hands. Had the identity of the accuser been disclosed to the mother, the neighbor might have kept her hands.

• Eliminate mandated reporting

  Because of mandated reports by child care professionals (doctors, teachers, day-care operators), parents are fearful of taking an injured child to a professional. Every child care professional knows of cases in which persons have been prosecuted for non-reporting, inducing them to over-report, causing extra work for CAS, and more fears for parents. Without prosecution of non-reporting, doctors could still report abuse, but the elimination of frivolous reports would allow parents to make use of a doctor's services without fear.

• Eliminate vagueness in definition of child abuse and neglect

  Both child abuse and neglect are vaguely defined in the law. In other areas where there is vagueness in a statute, examination of past decisions eventually builds up a body of common law as clarification. But where the courts operate in secret, no parent can know, until it is too late, what actions would avoid a charge of child abuse or neglect. The law should define child abuse and neglect with sufficient precision that parents can know their responsibilities.

• Notify parents when children are removed

  Several parents have reported not learning of an apprehension until their children failed to return from school, when they began frantic inquiries. Parents deserve to be notified immediately when their children are taken into custody.

• Require child protectors to tell parents their rights at start of case

  The United States Congress enacted a provision requiring social workers to notify a parent of certain rights at the onset of a case. That might be a good idea in Ontario as well, though no parental rights are now enumerated in the Child and Family Services Act.

• Video tape all contact between families and CPS

  This would eliminate much of the private bullying by CAS workers. It would also eliminate another abuse, coaching children. In Orangeville, a three-year-old girl was coached, off camera, then induced to say on camera that her mother hit her with a frying pan. The mother later found that the girl did not know what a frying pan was.

• Require child's guardian or lawyer to actually meet the child

  Children are now appointed lawyers through the Office of the Children's Lawyer. The most common complaint about these lawyers is failure to interview their own clients. Parents recognize this when the lawyer makes arguments at variance with the child's true condition. An actual meeting with the client should be a requirement for representation of a child.

• Provide meaningful accounting of the distribution of public funds

  Currently, the published accounts do not answer the most basic questions about CAS operation: How much is spent on foster care? How much on group homes? How many child-days of care are provided? How many child-protection cases were opened? There are lots of numbers printed in the financial statements, but they do not answer the real questions.

• Allow other family (grandparents) to get kids when parents are unfit

  The law formally favors this now, but it is rarely done.

• Do not separate parents from children when placing with family members

  When the child of a teenaged single mother gets placed with his grandmother, the mother should continue to see the baby.

I hope this letter is of some assistance to you in reviewing the workings of the Child and Family Services Act. Should you wish anything further from me, you are welcome to call or write.

Yours truly,

Robert T McQuaid
RR 5
Orangeville Ontario L9W 2Z2

phone: 519-942-0565
email: rtmq@stn.net

Addendum: The following is a community reaction to the letter writing campaign. Since most CAS opposition has to be discreet, identifying paragraphs have been omitted.

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Writing to Marie Bountrogianni or other government ministers may not be very productive. Unless this issue comes to broad public attention and a significant number of residents become concerned, these individuals will do nothing.

As chief psychologist to the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board (one of the more dysfunctional school boards in Ontario), Marie Bountrogianni has a long CAS association. Until this year, the Hamilton school board employed sixteen social workers to interview students behind parents' backs and inform CAS of anything they considered suspicious. Marie Bountrogianni was a key part of that system. Today, she makes gushing speeches at conferences sponsored by the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies and similar "child welfare" organizations, while deferring information regarding CAS corruption to ministry officials - without reviewing it and without responding.

If the government wished to do anything about CAS corruption, they would have done so long ago. The system is entrenched because a long list of vested interests - people that are corrupt (and often psychotic) - profit from it. The only way to fight the system is to attack its jugular. I remember reading comments made by a spokesperson for one of the local groups, suggesting they were not "against" CAS but merely wanted to change some of the organization's practices. If anyone in your group feels that way, they do not comprehend how evil this organization is. The entire child welfare system is rotten and has to be scrapped.

The local school boards are in bed with CAS. Teachers are professionally obligated to report the merest suspicion of abuse to the agency, no matter how ill-founded. At the same time, parental abuse of children is nothing compared to physical, emotional and sexual abuse inflicted by teachers and ignored by CAS. Of course, both these entities are paid from the same provincial pot. You probably know that when the province's elementary school testing program was initiated, over seventy students were reported to CAS, solely on the basis a creative writing exercise on the test. A delegation of parents committed to educating school boards about the damage CAS agencies is inflicting on their students would be wonderful.

As for specific problems with CAS, here are a few things the agency can't deny. We have clear evidence CAS:

• Fabricated two malicious court actions and knowingly attempted to jail us for no reason
• Exposed two children to extreme risk while attempting to conceal their negligence
• Knowingly attempted to exert unwarranted control over our lives
• Fabricated material evidence to conceal CAS wrongdoing
• Lied repeatedly and enlisted a third party to lie in affidavits sworn before the court
• Removed or withheld key documents from the court's official record
• Knowingly engaged in dirty tricks intended to diminish our ability to defend ourselves
• Attempted to cover up serious professional misconduct of several employees
• Refused to discipline these employees, contrary to the agency's code of ethics

I could go on, but you get the point. Another thing you might wish to address is CAS' corrupt complaints procedure, which forces families to seek satisfaction from the individuals that are abusing them.

Another key point to pick up on is the financial waste of these agencies - a billion dollars in direct costs without factoring budgets for courts and police services or the financial toil on families.

Addendum: Marie Bountrogianni responded, after almost two months. Bruce Rivers is also the Executive Director of the Children's Aid Society of Toronto.

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Ministry of Children and Youth Services Minister's Office 56 Wellesley Street West 14th Floor Toronto ON M5S 2S3 Tel: (416) 212-7432

Ministère des Services à l'enfance et à la jeunesse Bureau de la ministre 56, rue Wellesley Ouest 14e étage Toronto (Ontario) M5S 2S3 Tél 416-212-7432

February 3, 2005

Mr. Robert T. McQuaid
RR 5
Orangeville, Ontario
L9W 2Z2

Dear Mr. McQuaid:

Thank you for your letter concerning child protection services. I apologize for the delay in my response.

The safety and well-being of Ontario's children is a key priority for this government, and the role of child protection is a very difficult one.

You may be interested to know that my ministry is currently undertaking a review of the Child and Family Services Act, which is scheduled for completion by March 31, 2005. We have also created the Child Welfare Secretariat to look at how the child protection system works and suggest changes to improve it. Our goal is an Ontario where children will be safe, healthy and able to reach their full potential.

I have taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of your letter to Bruce Rivers, Executive Director of the Child Welfare Secretariat, so that he may be aware of your concerns. We will take your views and suggestions into consideration as we continue to work on behalf of Ontario's children.

The issue of adoption disclosure falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. I have taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of your letter to my Cabinet colleague, the Honourable Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Community and Social Services, for her consideration.

Once again, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,

/signed/

Dr. Marie Bountrogianni
Minister

c:

The Honourable Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Community and Social Services

Mr. Bruce Rivers, Executive Director, Child Welfare Secretariat

Addendum: Sandra Pupatello further responded, after almost three and a half months.

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Ministry of Community and Sicial Services Minister's Office Hepburn Block Queen's Park Toronto ON M7A 1E9 Tel.: (416) 325-5225

Ministère des Services sociaux et communautaires Bureau du ministre Édifice Hepburn Queen's Park Toronto (Ontario) M7A 1E9 Tél.: 416-325-5225

March 21, 2005

Mr. Robert T. McQuaid
RR 5
Orangeville, Ontario
L9W 2Z2

Dear Mr. McQuaid:

Thank you for your letter regarding access to adoption records. The Honourable Dr. Marie Bountrogianni, Minister of Children and Yourh Services, forwarded it to me for my consideration.

I appreciate the time you have taken to share your concerns and understand that the issue of adoption is of great importance to you. I would like to assure you that our government is reviewing the matter of access to adoption records and trying to find a resolution that will balance the desire of adult adoptees and/or birth relatives to access information and the desire of those who want to maintain their privacy.

On November 22, 2004, Premier Dalton McGuinty made a commitment in the Legislature that our government would be making changes to the rules that govern adoption disclosure services. I intend to bring these changes to the forefront of my ministry's agenda shortly. Our plan for 2005 is to change the adoption disclosure process to take into account the needs of all affected parties.

To date, I have met with representatives of various adoption disclosure advocacy groups and listened to their concerns. I have also examined the policies and changes that have taken place internationally. The changes made to adoption disclosure services will be informed by listening to the opinions of diverse stakeholders and by building on the best practices.

As you can appreciate, the issue of adoption disclosure is complex. That is why Premier McGuinty has asked me to draw on the experiences of other jurisdictions to improve upon the services we currently have in place. I can assure you that this issue is being examined very carefully and it is essential that we move forward in a thoughtful and responsible manner.

Once again, thank you for sharing your perspectives on this matter. We will keep your comments in mind as we move toward improving adoption disclosure services in Ontario.

Sincerely,

/signed/

Sandra Pupatello
Minister

c: The Honourable Dr. Marie Bountrogianni, Minister of Children and Youth Services.

Elections in United States

November 5, 2004

In Tuesday's American Elections, eleven states, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Mississippi, Ohio, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah, voted on referendums outlawing same-sex marriage, and all eleven measures were approved by large majorities. Voters in Louisiana and Missouri voted out same-sex marriage earlier this year, and a referendum in Massachusetts was scuttled by the state legislature two years ago, but will likely be on next year's ballot in some form. Same-sex marriage remains legal in Ontario, where there is no provision for a referendum.

Paula Werme, a New Hampshire lawyer who has made a career of opposing DCF, the local child protection agency, was defeated as a candidate for the state legislature. In a race in which top three vote-getters got elected, she finished fifth with 3775 votes, while the third-place finisher got 4103 votes.

In Charlotte North Carolina, Jack Stratton, a father of ten home-schooled children lost to child-protectors, ran for the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners. In a race in which the top three were elected, he finished a distant seventh with, by nearly complete early returns, 13,321 votes. The third place finisher had 144,409 votes.

In Massachusetts, a referendum asked whether voters want their state representative "to vote for legislation to create a strong presumption in child custody cases in favor of joint physical and legal custody, so that the court will order that children have equal access to both parents as much as possible, except where there is clear and convincing evidence that one parent is unfit, or that joint custody is not possible due to the fault of one of the parents". Legal maneuvering before the election eliminated the phrase "shared parenting" from the ballot question. Still, the vote was 557,615 yes to 90,708 no.

Jim Malone, r.i.p.

October 29, 2004

Jim Malone, the driver of the truck in the suicide bombing of Windsor Children's Aid, died today in Toronto. Following are two community reactions.

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JIM MALONE DIES: DEMAND PUBLIC INQUIRY
By: The Foster Care Council of Canada

Jim Malone, 49 year-old former employee of the Windsor Ontario Children's Aid Society has died from injuries sustained during a dramatic and fatal demonstration against the Children's Aid Society. On Tuesday October 26th 2004 at approximately 7:30am, Malone drove his truck into the front wall of the Children's Aid Society building in an attempt to seriously damage the building, and take his own life in the process.

Malone, reportedly a kind man was well liked by neighbours and youth he worked with, one of which was quoted in media reports as saying Malone was like a father-figure and a friend to him.

John Dunn, Executive Director of The Foster Care Council of Canada says "It is my belief that Jim was driven to perform this sensational act as a result of actions or inactions by members of the Windsor Children's Aid Society staff, Board of Directors, or by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services as a way for him to get a very important message to the public. A message which can only be fully discovered through an independant public inquiry into the death of Jim Malone and its cause."

Dunn has some questions that he would like answered in this case which are:

   a.. Were children being hurt by the C.A.S.' or the Ministry of Children & Youth Services' actions, inactions, or policies which made Jim feel he was powerless to effectively address these concerns in any other way?

   b.. Did the recent change to a "per-diem" or 'per-child' funding model from the C.A.S. to the group home Jim worked in have anything to do with this incident or with Jim's recent resignation?

   c.. How could this funding model be harmful to children in the group home? (Ex: Did it cause a shortfall in positive spending in the home which made the youth feel cared about and enjoy a better quality of life?)

We invite the family members and friends of Jim Malone who have some background on this story and want the truth to get out to please contact us when you are ready. We understand the suffering you must be going through at this time, and we are in solidarity with you.

Victims of Child Welfare Memorial Day

Jim Malone will be remembered, along with several other former youth in care and family members who have died as a result of being involved with child welfare next year in our third Annual Victims of Child Welfare Memorial Day on October 06th 2004.

John Dunn
Executive Director
613-786-1487
The Foster Care Council of Canada
http://www.afterfostercare.com

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October 29, 2004

Marty Beneteau, Editor
The Windsor Star
167 Ferry Street
Windsor Ontario N9A 4M5

letters@thestar.canwest.com

Subject: Attack on Children's Aid

In reference to the article published October 27, 2004: CAS rocked by man on suicide mission, by Kelly Patrick and Craig Pearson.

For publication

Dear Editor:

You have reported on the attack on the Children's Aid Society by Jim Malone. This same Children's Aid Society has been in the news several times before this year, for the discovery of pornography inside the agency, and for street demonstrations against the policy of seizing children from their parents. Have you considered that there may be some serious faults with this agency?

Children's Aid (CAS) operates behind a wall of secrecy. Court records are sealed. A provision in the Child and Family Services Act bars publication of the name of any child involved in a child protection case, effectively banning families from telling their side in any CAS action. One of the few ways to penetrate secrecy is to speak to affected families. I have done so with over two hundred families, and have some insight into their actual operation. Their most common case is seizing the children of single mothers. Typically, the mother has no assets, she cannot get help from the baby's father, she cannot get financial assistance from her own family. While she has enough resources to house and feed herself and her baby, she is unable to hire the investigators and lawyers required to fight the Children's Aid juggernaut. Another common case is what I call the shotgun divorce. Starting either with a child abuse investigation or a domestic disturbance report, CAS, on threat of child removal, coerces one parent to initiate a divorce that neither wants. Once the divorce is a fait accompli, the remaining single parent is at the mercy of the social workers. Yet another kind of case is that where the parents are already divorced. Acting outside the existing custody agreement between the parents, CAS takes children without warning or explanation from one parent and gives them to the other.

The force behind all of this is the quest for money. Children taken from their parents go to foster homes, contractors who get paid to care for children. All of the foster parents I have spoken to report receiving $800 per month for their efforts. An examination of the figures published by the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies shows that the amount paid to Children's Aid Societies is $71 per child day, $44 per day more than they give to the foster parents. That markup comes to over a quarter million dollars for an infant or toddler kept in their care until age of majority.

Foster parents enter the system for the most noble motives, but soon find they are subject to abuse as bad as natural parents. I spoke to a foster parent whose name I will not mention, but can supply privately. For biological reasons, he and his wife could not have children of their own, so they became fosters. He had a girl in his care, and at age fourteen Children's Aid suggested that he adopt her. He agreed. The foster payments stopped as soon as he made application to adopt. Since the adoption never occurred, the result was four years of free foster care. I am not in a position to audit the finances of CAS, but it's a reasonable guess that they continued to collect their $71 a day from the Province of Ontario.

Little is yet known of what drove Jim Malone beyond the bounds of rationality. From what you have published, he appears to be a foster parent who was faced with the dilemma of a reduction in income or loss of children with whom he had fallen in love. What you have published about Mr Malone comes from the mouth of a person you describe as a "14-year-old male, who can't be named because he's a CAS ward". You say:

He [Bevan] also cautioned that the 14-year-old is a teen who "needs a lot of guidance and has had a lot of trouble in his lifetime."

You ought to do this boy the favor of publishing his name, otherwise under pretext of guidance, he could face a grim future in the worst care the foster system has to offer as repayment for his criticism of Children's Aid.

And have you considered how Children's Aid managers, such as Bill Bevan, get their jobs? They are responsible to a board of directors elected by the membership, and any adult in the community can become a member of his local CAS and participate in their election. A few years ago, several CAS opponents, including me, organized membership drives in an effort to elect directors with more family-friendly policies. In response, Children's Aid Societies across Ontario altered their bylaws. Now any member can vote for directors, but choice is limited to candidates nominated by the incumbents. These elections are as representative as those in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Even to the most casual observer, the discovery of pornography in the organization shows that Children's Aid is not run by the likes of Mother Teresa. This agency deserves some genuine investigative reporting.

Robert T McQuaid
RR 5
Orangeville Ontario L9W 2Z2

phone: 519-942-0565
email: rtmq@stn.net
web: members.freespeech.org/herod

Details of suicide attack on CAS

October 27, 2004

The following article from the Windsor Star gives more on the suicide attack on the Children's Aid Society building in Windsor.

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CAS rocked by man on suicide mission
Group home operator angry about cuts: Teen.
$1.5 million in damage

Kelly Patrick and Craig Pearson
Windsor Star

October 27, 2004

A suicidal ex-Children's Aid Society worker who slammed his fiery pickup truck into the agency's headquarters Tuesday wanted to hurt the agency for "dicking around" with money and staff levels at the group residence he used to run, says a teen at the home.

"The story isn't what he did, it's what CAS does every day," said the 14-year-old male, who can't be named because he's a CAS ward. "They dick everyone, every way they can, to save money. Well, they wound up losing $1.5 million -- not to mention me almost losing a friend."

The teen and other sources said the truck's driver was 49-year-old Jim Malone, an ex-contract employee who in September left his job running a CAS group home at 1641 Lincoln Rd.

Around 7:30 am Tuesday, Malone lit a pair of 20-pound propane tanks inside the cab of his blue Ford pickup and sped toward the north facade of the sparkling Riverside Drive East building, said police.

AEROSOL CANS IN TRUCK'S BED

Malone also filled the truck's bed with aerosol spray cans and two five-gallon gas cans. The ensuing blaze caused more than $1.5 million damage.

"Oh, this was intentional," said Windsor Police Staff Sgt Gerry Corriveau after surveying the wreckage. "He was trying to blow up the building".

Nobody was hurt other than Malone, who suffered second-degree burns to 20 per cent of his body and is listed in stable condition at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital. Malone also stabbed himself at some point during the ordeal, police said. "He's got what appears to be a self-inflicted stab wound to the side," said Staff Sgt Stefan Kowal, the head of the Windsor police arson unit.

Kowal and fire investigator Shawn Boutette said Malone exited the truck after it struck the building. Malone fell to the ground and rolled across the lawn to a flower bed at the building's northeast corner where rescue workers found him. His prosthetic leg was found in the cab of the truck.

Staff Sgt Ed McNorton said police haven't decided what, if any, criminal charges will be laid against Malone.

Corriveau said only six of the CAS's 325 employees were inside when the pickup crashed through the building's blue glass walls. None was hurt. Corriveau and local CAS executive director Bill Bevan said it appeared Malone hadn't intended to kill or injure any of his former colleagues.

The building's doors open at 9 am and most employees don't arrive until 8:30 am, said Bevan, who refused to identify the driver. "This person knew that (the building would be empty)".

"This person was a well-respected employee," added Bevan.

He said he did not know what prompted the attack. "We don't have any early guesses around that. Let's hope the individual survives, and they can tell their story and we can find out why they would ever think to do this".

The Lincoln Road group home Malone previously ran is the only one of its kind in Windsor, said Bevan. Malone ran the residence from the time the CAS began leasing it three years ago and it houses a fluctuating number of teens. The 14-year-old resident, who has lived at the home for "seven or eight months" said three children live there now.

As he smoked a cigarette across the street Tuesday night, the teen described Malone as a "father figure" and "one of the nicest guys I've known". He said Malone was angry about recent CAS cuts to the group home. "When he first signed the contract there was so much money and a set number of (staff) hours, but they kept lowering it and lowering it," the teen said.

Bevan confirmed the CAS had recently revamped the program's funding to a per-child formula. When asked if those changes resulted in the home receiving less cash overall, Bevan said: "I would say that there's some truth to that. He could have received less money depending on how it worked, but he also could have done quite well with what the program provided".

The teen said Malone talked about taking his complaints to the media, but felt no one would listen. However, he said Malone gave no hint of plans to slam a truck into the CAS building. "I knew he wanted to hurt the CAS and get the idea out that they dick people around, but something like this? No".

Bevan said Malone didn't lodge a single complaint before or after his resignation. He also cautioned that the 14-year-old is a teen who "needs a lot of guidance and has had a lot of trouble in his lifetime".

As for CAS headquarters, Boutette said employees could be back in by early next week.

"Most of the damage was caused by the sprinkler system discharging, so we have a lot of interior damage: carpets, desks, people's property, files, computers," Boutette said.

The first floor sustained smoke and water damage, while the upper floors were damaged mostly by smoke. A prominent streak of black stained the exterior wall of blue glass on Riverside Drive, while several windows were busted out.

"The flames were roaring up the front of the building," said Bob Wilson, a maintenance worker who was inside when the crash occurred. "We had a wall of flame. There were flames four storeys high. And there's lots of water damage inside. Computers were soaking wet".

Ontario social services minister Sandra Pupatello, a Windsor MPP, said ministry counsellors were dispatched Tuesday morning to help CAS employees cope.

"It was quite a traumatic event," said Pupatello.

- - -

TEMPORARY OFFICES

Intake services for the CAS will be temporarily located on the first floor of the Cleary Centre. Some CAS workers will be headquartered in Club Alouette. The public can still call the main CAS switchboard at 252-1171.

CAS Bombed!

October 26, 2004

The Windsor Children's Aid Society has been attacked by a suicide bomber. The following article is from ClickOnDetroit. The original includes more pictures and a video clip.

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Police: Crash Intended To Blow Up Children's Center
Windsor Officials Await Driver's Psychological Exam

POSTED: 8:26 AM EDT October 26, 2004
UPDATED: 1:42 PM EDT October 26, 2004

WINDSOR, Ontario -- A pickup truck that crashed into a Windsor, Ontario, children's center and burst into flames Tuesday morning was intended to blow up the building, according to police.

The Ford Ranger pickup truck hit the Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society building in the 1600 block of Riverside Drive, just before 8 a.m. The driver -- whose name was not released -- is a former employee who was recently fired from the center, Local 4 reported.

Propane tanks inside the truck reportedly fueled the fire.

"At the time it drove into the building, it was on fire. It's my understanding that it's basically an attempt to blow up the building and an attempted arson," said Windsor police Staff Sgt. Gerry Corriveau.

The pickup truck drove across the lawn of the six-story building and crashed through the glass window, according to the station's report. The burned-out vehicle was left about halfway into the building.

The driver -- a man in his 40s -- was taken to Windsor's Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in serious condition. Police said the man will undergo a psychological examination before charges are determined.

Several employees who were inside the building were not injured. No children were inside at the time of the crash, Local 4 reported.

Bill Bevan, a representative of the center, said the employee knew the building is open day and night, but does not believe the man intended to harm any children who are often in the building during the day.

"When you're a business that cares about kids, and you have this start your day, it's a real shock to the whole staff," said Bevan.

Bevan said crisis counselors will be available for employees when the center reopens Wednesday.

The Children's Aid Society is similar to Child Welfare in America, except it receives funding by the Canadian government, but operates as a private company, Local 4 reported.

Addendum: This note comes from the website of radio station CKLW in Windsor:

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Neighbours of a Windsor man are speaking out after he drove a flaming truck into the Children's Aid Society building.

49-year-old Jim Malone crashed into the front of the building, with two 20-pound propane tanks and two 5-gallon gas cans in the truck.

Malone had been running a group home in the South Walkerville area for the C-A-S.

Neighbour Laura Lebute says the job must have pushed him to the brink.

Sources tell AM 800 News, Malone had recently lost an agreement to run a group home and was very upset.

Executive Director Bill Bevan says the man resigned a few months ago.

Malone is in "critical condition" with 2nd degree burns over 20 per cent of his body and has an apparent self-inflicted stab wound.

Damage to the C-A-S building is pegged at more than 1.5-million dollars.

Child Protection Article Features Ontario Family

August 24, 2004

The August 9, 2004 edition of the New Yorker magazine contains an article The Bad Mother dealing with the overused diagnosis of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, MSBP. It features a detailed account of an Ontario family, the de Sousas, and their encounter with Ottawa Children's Aid. Only the intervention of several lawyers for the family averted a child seizure that could have killed the medically fragile Katerina in the manner of Jonathan Reid, mentioned also in the article, or Trevor Nolan.

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The Bad Mother

By Margaret Talbot,, New America Foundation, August 9, 2004 | The New Yorker

In 1977, Roy Meadow, a British pediatrician, published an account of two children whose symptoms had, for a time, baffled him. Initially, there seemed to be no similarity between the cases. Kay, a six-year-old, had what appeared to be a recurrent urinary-tract infection. In the course of consultations with sixteen doctors, she had been admitted to the hospital twelve times, catheterized, X-rayed, and treated unsuccessfully with eight different antibiotics. Charles, a fourteen-month-old, had suffered for more than a year with bouts of drowsiness and vomiting, which came on suddenly and without evident cause, and for which he, too, had been hospitalized on several occasions. He would arrive at the emergency room with weirdly high sodium levels in his blood, but his renal and endocrine systems showed no evidence of disease; as Meadow notes in his article, "between attacks, Charles was healthy and developing normally."

Kay and Charles, it turned out, did have something in common. Kay's mother had tampered with her daughter's urine samples to make her appear to be ill when she wasn't. Charles's mother made him sick by feeding him high doses of salt.

Meadow gave this previously unrecognized form of child abuse a name: Munchausen syndrome by proxy, for the eighteenth-century German baron who was infamous for telling tall tales. Doctors had already identified a Munchausen syndrome, which referred to patients who feign illness or harm themselves in order to secure attention and sympathy -- unlike malingerers, whose fakery is motivated by material gain (receiving a disability check, staying home from work).

Meadow's landmark article, "Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: The Hinterland of Child Abuse," which was published in The Lancet, is a brief, discomfited piece of writing. He clearly finds it awkward to tell physicians that they might be complicit in a form of child abuse, particularly if they order unnecessary, painful medical procedures. He cannot decide whether it is problematic for parents to be allowed to remain at the bedsides of their hospitalized children, knowing that in some cases they might do harm. His explanation for the mothers' behavior is modest, and does not try to resolve apparent contradictions. Shortly after telling his readers that Charles ultimately died from salt poisoning -- an autopsy revealed gastric erosions, "as if a chemical had been ingested" -- he remarks, without apparent irony, that Charles's poisoner was a "caring, home-minded mother." Indeed, both mothers "were pleasant people to deal with, cooperative and appreciative of good medical care, which encouraged us to try all the harder." He adds, "Some mothers who choose to stay in hospital with their child remain on the ward slightly uneasy, overtly bored, or aggressive. These two flourished there as if they belonged, and thrived on the attention that staff gave to them."

Meadow's deliberately tentative conclusion is that Munchausen mothers "were using the children to get themselves into the sheltered environment of a children's ward surrounded by friendly staff." He leaves as an open question whether the disorder was unknown because it was so rare or simply because it lacked a name.

By defining two instances of abuse as a syndrome, Meadow made a significant diagnostic leap. Since then, a number of writers on the subject have taken an even bigger and more questionable leap: they have turned a bizarre and uncommon form of child abuse into a distinct psychiatric disorder, with its own checklist of symptoms identifying mothers who suffer from it. By now, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, or M.S.B.P., has generated a substantial body of literature -- more than four hundred journal articles, and numerous books and essay collections. The D.S.M. IV, the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association's guide to diagnoses, includes an entry on the syndrome, under the name "factitious disorder by proxy."

After Meadow, the physician who has perhaps done the most to draw attention to the syndrome is David Southall, who practices at a hospital in Stoke-on-Trent, England. In the nineteen-nineties, he pioneered the use of covert video surveillance to catch M.S.B.P. abuse in hospital rooms. Other researchers adopted this controversial investigative technique, and British and American TV have broadcast some of these images: blurry black-and-white clips of mothers smothering their babies, who struggle against pillows; a mother disconnecting her daughter's oxygen tube; another jamming her fingers down her baby's throat. These women seemed intent on creating a facsimile of breathing disturbances sometimes associated with sudden infant death syndrome, and counted on a doctor's subsequently reviving their children -- an appalling gamble. The thirty-nine abused children in Southall's original study had forty-two siblings, twelve of whom were found to have died unexpectedly. Confronted with the video evidence, four mothers admitted to having suffocated eight of the siblings.

In recent years, Munchausen by proxy has seeped into popular culture, with rapidity and a fervency that recall the fascination with child sexual abuse in the nineteen-eighties. In the 1999 film "The Sixth Sense," Haley Joel Osment's character discovers that a child has secretly been poisoned to death by her mother. In 2002, Eminem had a hit single, "Cleaning Out My Closet," which contains the lyrics "Going through public housing systems / victim of Munchausen syndrome / My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't." Last fall, Bantam published "Sickened," by Julie Gregory, the first memoir by a victim of Munchausen abuse -- an Ohio gothic featuring a viperfish mother, high on the fumes of medical melodrama, who pretends that her daughter suffers from a mysterious heart condition.

Paid experts now regularly testify in court about the syndrome and conduct workshops for law-enforcement officials and social workers. Web sites publicizing the disorder offer checklists and warning signs. And, lately, mothers of chronically ill kids nervously joke -- or openly worry -- about being accused of the disorder. It is the "omnipresent phantom which lurks around every mother of a child where illness is difficult to diagnose," Helen Hayward-Brown, an Australian medical anthropologist who has studied allegations of Munchausen abuse, has written.

That might sound hyperbolic, were it not for the fact that many M.S.B.P. experts advocate for a high level of distrust toward mothers. The editors of a 2000 book, "Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy Abuse: A Practical Approach," warn doctors that "factitious illness should be considered in any unresolved clinical problems in childhood." Mary Eminson, one of the editors, detects new temptation for mothers in the fact that "medicines are more powerful, operations more heroic, and opportunities for intimate access to children's bloodstreams (through drips or central lines), to their gastrointestinal tracts (through gastrostomy buttons and other stomas and feeding tubes), to their renal tracts (through catheters and urinary diversions) and to their respiratory systems (through tracheotomies and ventilators) are more extensive than at any time in our history." The book repeatedly invokes the dangers inherent in trusting patients -- after all, a few do turn out to be malignant fabulists. As the introductory essay explains, "We have to come to terms with the fact that the implicit trust expected on either side of a medical engagement may very well be misplaced."

This call for doctors who treat children to become hypervigilant for signs of Munchausen by proxy is more than a little odd, for the syndrome is, by most estimates, a rare thing. Most experts agree that there are probably about twelve hundred cases of M.S.B.P. a year in this country, from which perhaps a hundred deaths result. Donna Rosenberg, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado, said that, in fourteen years as a forensic pediatrician with the Colorado Child Fatality Review Committee, she saw about one death a year from M.S.B.P. In a 1990 study of 20,090 babies monitored for sleep apnea, the authors suspected -- though they did not prove -- that fifty-four cases, or 0.27 per cent, were related to the syndrome.

These numbers suggest that M.S.B.P., though horrifying, is far less common than other forms of child abuse. (There are about two hundred and fifty thousand confirmed cases of physical child abuse each year.) And it is also rare in relation to genuine chronic illness in children, at a time when kids are surviving with diabetes, asthma, renal disease, leukemia, and cystic fibrosis. Some Munchausen experts argue that cases regularly go unrecognized. Yet, given the rising awareness of the disorder among doctors, nurses, social workers, school personnel, and angry former spouses with access to the Internet -- accusations are now being made in custody battles -- it is not surprising that a different problem has begun to emerge: false allegations.

On a chilly afternoon in March, 2002, two caseworkers from the Children's Aid Society in Ottawa arrived at the home of Nicola and Eurico de Sousa and their eight-year-old daughter, Katerina. They said they had received a report of Munchausen abuse: someone at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, where Katerina had been treated off and on, was concerned that Nicola was subjecting her daughter to unnecessary medical interventions, including surgery. This was, on the face of it, a peculiar accusation, considering that Katerina had been born with a welter of serious congenital defects that affected her spine and liver.

Nicola de Sousa, who is forty-five, is thin, fair-skinned, and fragile-looking, with long blond hair and eyes as shimmery blue as a porcelain doll's. She has a fine-grained memory for medical details, and comes across as articulate and high-strung. Eurico, who is forty-three, has a brushy mustache and a genial manner. They are both nature lovers and introverts, who find hiking more rejuvenating when they don't meet too many people along the way. Throughout Katerina's life, they have worked as a team -- Eurico, who is a systems analyst at the Bank of Canada, did research on the Internet and prepared long lists of questions for Katerina's doctors; Nicola took her to most of her medical appointments.

The investigation, however, focused on one parent: Nicola. In an affidavit, Ned Jackson, a caseworker who interviewed her, noted that she "suffered from depression from the ages of sixteen to twenty" and "was presently being treated for depression by her family physician." Nicola didn't work, though she is bright and comes from a family of academics. She volunteered regularly at her daughter's school; according to the affidavit, Katerina's third-grade teacher found her to be overly demanding, and her "presence in class to be disruptive." Another caseworker reported that Katerina was "tremendously meshed with her mother; father appears to play a more passive role." But Jackson's affidavit offered perhaps the main reason that the investigation had centered on Nicola instead of on Eurico: "Most M.S.B.P. offenders are mothers of the victim." If Katerina was being harmed by unnecessary medical procedures, her mother was, by definition, the prime suspect.

When the caseworkers visited the de Sousas' town house, Katerina was in the bath and Nicola, who could hear her singing from downstairs, was cooking spaghetti sauce. The caseworkers asked Nicola detailed questions about Katerina's tangled medical history; Nicola dug out files to prove that certain procedures had been necessary. They wanted to talk to Katerina alone, so Nicola got her out of the bath and waited upstairs. "I did not want to leave her alone with them," she recalled. "They said I had to -- I had no choice. I was terrified they'd take her out the front door without my having a chance to apprehend them."

Nicola had been homeschooling her daughter in the afternoons; she had found that when Katerina sat upright for hours it often caused pain in her defective spine. The two caseworkers asked Katerina to show them how she and her schoolmate Victoria liked to play kitties by crawling on the floor; they told her that if she could do that she didn't need to come home from school early. The caseworkers also asked about the family's sleeping arrangements -- Nicola often slept in Katerina's room because Eurico has an "earth-shattering snore," and because Katerina sometimes needed her during the night. "My heart was pounding to the point I could hear it resonating in my ears," Nicola recalled. "All I could think about was how I could stop them from taking her away."

Several months later, Ned Jackson wrote up his affidavit -- a bill of particulars urging a family-court judge to place Katerina under a "six month supervision order." After meeting Nicola twice, he had arrived at a scathing assessment of her. He concluded that although Katerina did have congenital problems, she "may have been subjected to invasive and unnecessary surgical procedures and medical tests, as a result of what appears to be Mrs. de Sousa's insatiable need for attention from medical practitioners, family members, the community." The battle for Katerina had begun -- a battle that was, in large part, about how much mothering was too much, and about the suspicions that an assertive and anxious parent can arouse.

How it is that Nicola de Sousa came to be lumped together with the terrifying mothers whom Roy Meadow wrote about, and whom David Southall videotaped, is both complicated and disturbing. Over the years, psychologists have steadily loosened the narrow definition of an arcane syndrome -- a phenomenon known as "definitional creep." In an effort to prevent Munchausen abuse by drawing up a standard portrait of the perpetrator, they fashioned a profile that was broad enough to cast suspicion on many mothers whose children were genuinely ill. Not coincidentally, the M.S.B.P. diagnosis flowered at a moment when fretful overparenting was becoming common in the West; psychologists began to worry that some expressions of anxiously attentive mothering might be unhealthy -- or even pathological.

M.S.B.P.'s trajectory from scattered case studies to mainstream diagnosis is in some ways typical for a newly recognized disorder. Like attention deficit disorder, shyness disorder, and bipolarity, the syndrome has often been presented by rhetorical fiat as something that is surely underreported, and about which a silence prevails -- even as it becomes increasingly well known. Unlike most other syndromes, however, M.S.B.P. has been canonized without being subjected to controlled, empirical studies. Eric Mart, a forensic psychologist in Manchester, New Hampshire, writes that the literature is almost exclusively "based on the experiences of physicians and psychologists in diagnosing or treating the disorder," and lacks "well-defined criteria for determining what is and what is not a case of M.S.B.P."

None of this is to say that M.S.B.P. is a figment of the medical profession's imagination. In England, where three mothers accused or convicted of infanticide on the basis of testimony by Roy Meadow have had their cases overturned in the past five years, there has been an outsized backlash against the diagnosis. Articles in the British press railed against Meadow's rule of thumb that a second crib death in a family was suspicious, and a third was murder, unless proven otherwise. (In the overturned convictions, the British appeals court suggested that genetic factors might explain the incidence of multiple infant deaths in some families.) The British government has ordered reviews of hundreds of cases in which parents were accused of killing their children. Many of these cases involve accusations of M.S.B.P., and if even one of them is found to have been false it will be troubling. But recent press accounts in Britain casually refer to M.S.B.P. as a "discredited" diagnosis -- as though the issue weren't whether people had been falsely accused but whether the syndrome itself was real. Those who need reminding that it is might look to the case of Maxine Robinson, one of the first cases to be reviewed. At a hearing in April, Robinson confessed that she had killed three of her children.

The larger question, then, is whether M.S.B.P. is best thought of as a disorder or simply as a criminal act. People who rob banks aren't usually called victims of "bank robber's syndrome," after all, and parents who beat their children are simply called child abusers. And nobody assumes that these wrongdoers are all driven by the same set of motives -- let alone by a discrete mental illness.

One of the primary aims of psychologists and pediatricians who first defined M.S.B.P. was to ascertain a motive for such perverse behavior. In a 1994 article for the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Roy Meadow abandoned his initial circumspection in favor of something like the deep-dyed specificity of the short story: "The perpetrating mother is commonly an alert, intelligent, and socially more aware person than her rather feeble, unenterprising husband. Alternatively, she is a worried, inadequate woman with a dependent personality, and has a particularly 'macho' partner who spends the evening in front of the television, reading Gun Weekly, whilst his wife cooks offal for his Alsatian dog." Meadow noted, "Sharing an ill child with your partner may be better than sharing nothing." A woman who tends to a child with a "rare" illness attracts sympathy and attention and admiration from friends and relatives, feels a sense of purpose, and gains temporary residence in the hospital ward -- a comforting world where the clamorous demands of other children are held at bay with the best of excuses. "A pediatric unit is a disguised mental health facility…and rather more acceptable than one with an alternative title," Meadow wrote.

The same year, two Americans -- Herbert Schreier, a psychiatrist at the Children's Hospital and Research Center at Oakland, and Judith Libow, a psychologist there -- published a book, "Hurting for Love," that has become perhaps the most influential meditation on the Munchausen mother. Schreier and Libow described the syndrome as something that has broad and familiar social determinants. For some women, Schreier and Libow argued, concocting fake afflictions for their children was a way to break out of the "tragically limited" role of "devoted caretaker": "The unusual and damaging role that some women eventually embrace for themselves by means of medical fabrication offers them an opportunity to obtain 'power' over physicians and gain entry into an exciting social world without threat to their 'perfect mother' status." In this view, the child was a fetish offered up by Munchausen mothers so that they might keep alive a relationship with an idealized authority figure, or, as Schreier and Libow put it, "to entice and simultaneously control their powerful, professional victims." M.S.B.P. was framed in psychiatric terms, as a "female perversion" in which the perpetrator "feels a sense of elation when brazenly defying the moral order." In fact, the authors suggest, the disorder "may be a gender-related form of psychopathy."

The book was published to acclaim; the social dynamics it described, however, were from an earlier era. Schreier and Libow depicted a world in which "isolated women in rapidly expanding suburbs" were in thrall to fantasies of all-powerful male doctors -- fantasies fed by soap operas and sixties shows like "Dr. Kildare." But by the nineties women had entered medicine in record numbers; TV depictions of doctors had become cynical; patients had become stroppy, self-taught medical consumers; and the realities of managed care made Schreier and Libow's depiction of a pediatrician lavishing special attention on a mother and her child seem quaint. Furthermore, the quasi-feminist context in which the authors placed M.S.B.P. -- frustrated smart women looking to exercise their thwarted ambition in socially acceptable ways -- was both dated and facile.

By the mid-nineties, clinicians in the United States, Britain, and Canada had begun to disseminate a psychological profile, a set of suspect traits, of the Munchausen mother. According to various journal articles on the subject, a perpetrator was "masterful in the world of deceit, because she gains the support of the nursing and medical staff," who view her as a dedicated, committed, loving, and caring mother." She might call doctors and nurses by their first names, or bring them cookies. She was familiar with medical terminology and knew complex details of her child's case. She might "solicit and encourage diagnostic procedures," and be calm in the face of them. She might have worked in the medical field at one time, or wanted to. Typically, she was married, and her husband was inclined to leave medical decisions to her. When she was asked about her child's illness, she appeared to be "tearfully frustrated with the chronic nature of the condition." She was reluctant to leave the sick child's side; her constant hovering made her, in the words of one expert, a "helicopter mother." She was likely to be "overinvolved" and "overprotective" of the child, and would "tend to him as if he were younger." The Munchausen mother was prone to bond with other parents of sick children on the ward. She was, in sum, "obsessed with the child's illness."

Profiles can be useful, but they are rarely predictive. (Most anti-American terrorist may be young Arab men, but few young Arab men are terrorists.) And in this case the profile was especially unhelpful. The relatively few clinical assessments that had been made of Munchausen mothers indicated that the perpetrators were not nearly as similar as the profile suggested. Some showed a high incidence of depression or a likelihood of having been abused as children; some did not. A few studies reported that the mothers had a history of psychosomatic illnesses; others equivocated. Some showed a high preponderance of personality disorders, but this was clearly an insufficient explanation, since most mothers with personality disorders do not harm their children in this way.

One particularly dubious element of the standard M.S.B.P. profile, which was published in such periodicals as the Journal of Mental Health Counseling and Archives of Disease in Childhood, was its assertion that perpetrators were "deniers" who would firmly deflect accusations of abuse. This placed accused mothers in an absurd bind. "The 'perpetrator' may genuinely be innocent and that is why she persistently and vehemently denies harming her child," C.J. Morley, who is now a professor of pediatrics at Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, wrote in 1995. "In some cases the mothers are told if they do not confess they are unlikely to have their children back. This is blackmail and may result in a false confession."

Many of the profile's other supposed warning signs -- familiarity with a child's medical history; a protective relationship with a chronically sick child -- are actually signs of good parenting, as studies have confirmed. In one survey of parents with sick children, subjects were asked to list helpful things that hospital staff could do for them; the most important was "being allowed to stay with my child as much as possible." A study comparing paternal and maternal styles of coping with a child's chronic illness noted that "mothers tend to use contact with the medical team treating the child as a coping behavior more frequently than fathers," and feel more personally responsible than fathers for a child's therapeutic needs. Furthermore, parental attitudes that might seem worrisome if a child is healthy -- overprotectiveness, a tendency to treat the sick child as if he were younger than he is -- can be functional if the child is chronically ill.

Indeed, habits characterized as "abnormal parental health-seeking behaviors" by Munchausen experts can appear unremarkable in this age of widespread parental anxiety. Middle-class parents tend to be exquisitely aware of health and safety issues, and often micromanage their children's lives in order to fend off a buzzing pack of threats. (Tainted vaccines! Stranger danger! Playground hazards!) David Anderegg, a psychologist at Bennington, argues, in "Worried All the Time" (2003), that this is in part because safety innovations like childproof bottles and bicycle helmets can actually make us more uneasy by reminding us of the threats they were designed to avert. Moreover, the one-child family is increasingly becoming the norm in the West, and these families are characterized, in Anderegg's words, by "high parental investment"; first-time parents tend to worry the most.

Perhaps it was inevitable that some expressions of fretful child-rearing would eventually be cordoned off and declared a syndrome, if only to distinguish them from what the rest of us do all the time. Just as, in the nineteen-eighties, satanic ritual abuse represented the worst fears of what could happen in day care, so M.S.B.P. has come to represent the danger posed by mothers who are excessively involved with their children.

The notion that mothers can love and protect their children too much is not new. In Puritan New England, ministers warned mothers not to attach themselves too fondly or mourn their children too fiercely. A beloved child's death was not something to accept, graciously, as God's will. Thus Increase Mather inveighed against a mother who had "doted" on her son and, when "the lovely youth fell ill of small pox," vowed not to let it take him. It was her "unruly passion," Mather chided, that kept her from taking the counsel of her ministers to accept whatever God decided for the boy -- and she was duly punished for her excessive love when she died during the birth of her next child.

In "A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear" (2003), Janna Malamud Smith, a psychotherapist, chronicles the ways in which maternal anxiety, and even maternal doting, have been denounced for centuries -- first because the unruly passion of mother love could render a woman insufficiently submissive to God (and to men of God), and later because it could lead her to defy the advice of male doctors. In the nineteen-twenties, the behaviorist John Watson railed against sentimental mothers who destroyed their children's character by coddling them -- which, in his view, included hugging them. David Levy, a child psychiatrist in New York, coined the term "maternal overprotection" and published a book about this menace in 1943. It was a sickness "well portrayed," Levy wrote, "by a mother who holds her child tightly with one hand and makes the gesture of pushing away the rest of the world with the other." Some of Levy's colleagues preferred the term "octopus mother," with its intimations of slimy engulfment. Pop psychology of the fifties blamed "smother love" for breeding mama's boys, homosexuals, and Communists.

By contrast, the anxious dad is more a figure of fun than of menace -- like Marlin, the fin-wringing clownfish papa in "Finding Nemo." And, in any case, fathers make far fewer appearances in psychiatric literature than do mothers. Smith writes, "It is remarkable that a professional discipline could assume so casually the right to assess stringently the unconscious minds" of women, "and use pseudoscientific yet exacting calipers to measure the way those mothers fail at love."

Nicola de Sousa gave birth to Katerina on July 19, 1993. The delivery was normal, but when Katerina was two days old Nicola and Eurico noticed a bruiselike mark on her arm. Nicola remembers thinking that it looked as if someone had accidentally smacked the baby's arm. But the mark got bigger, and the de Sousas soon noticed similar ones on their daughter's chest and scalp. Her belly seemed to be swollen, too.

In August, an ultrasound revealed that Katerina had large hemangiomas on her liver. Hemangiomas are benign tumors made up of clustered blood vessels, and in their most common manifestations -- as discolored swellings on the skin -- they are harmless. However, in rare cases hemangiomas can crop up in the brain, the airways, or the liver; these can cause heart failure, because the infant's heart must work especially hard to shunt blood through the densely bunched vessels.

Katerina was admitted to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. The de Sousas say that a pediatrician told them that she was likely to die; a letter from this doctor in Katerina's file states that "the baby has attacks of pallor for a few minutes, when she turns purple under the eyes…The heart sounds were rapid…I'm really concerned." The cardiologist who examined Katerina during her hospital stay, however, was optimistic, and reported, in another letter contained in her file, that "from the cardiac standpoint, I think the baby should do fine." He did not think it would be necessary to see her again. The de Sousas were confused. Katerina was being treated with high-dose steroids, but the hemangiomas on her liver were still growing, and she seemed to be getting worse. She sweated when she nursed, which can be an indication of congestive heart failure, and her belly remained distended by an enlarged liver. They also felt that their worries were not being taken seriously by their doctors. Nicola was infuriated when a dermatologist she had consulted about Katerina told her that she was being a "neurotic mother."

Meanwhile, Nicola and Eurico began researching treatments for Katerina's condition. They learned about an experimental protocol in which interferon was used to slow the growth of tumors by switching off their blood supply. The study was taking place at Children's Hospital in Boston, and was conducted by Judah Folkman, the renowned cancer researcher. (This early work on hemangiomas in children was a crucial step in the development of angiogenesis inhibitors, which are promising new cancer drugs.) Nicola called Folkman's office, and his nurse told her that Katerina could receive immediate treatment. When Nicola reported back to Eurico, he said, "Let's do it." But she was apprehensive. Under Canada's healthcare system, all citizens are insured, but the waiting lists for specialized procedures can be long. In Boston, the doctors were eager to act immediately. If the experimental therapy worked, this haste would be justified; if it didn't, Nicola would feel that they had taken a foolish risk.

Nicola had liked Folkman's nurse, so she called her back and asked whether she would enroll her own child in the study. The nurse said that she would. Within a week, the de Sousas were on their way to Boston; within another week they had brought Katerina home and were giving her interferon shots themselves. Six months later, the tumors had shrunk substantially; after fifteen months, they were gone.

When Katerina had initially been evaluated in Canada, none of the medical reports said that she was experiencing congestive heart failure -- only that she "might be on the verge of cardiac decompensation." Ned Jackson, the caseworker, expresses alarm over this apparent discrepancy in his affidavit: "Mrs. de Sousa has maintained this version of events throughout Katerina's life, despite the fact that cardiac testing performed on Katerina when she was an infant produced normal results, and that her treating physicians concluded that there was no evidence of congestive heart failure." But when I spoke with Folkman this spring he said that when he saw Katerina she had indeed been in congestive heart failure. He added, "The interferon alpha saved Katerina's life."

The decision to seek experimental treatment was, as Folkman put it, a "triumph" for Katerina's parents. The de Sousas, for their part, began to think of the American medical system as more responsive than the Canadian system. Some of the de Sousas' Canadian doctors, however, thought they were seeking care in the States unnecessarily and habitually -- almost addictively.

Suspicion began to build, against Nicola in particular. Even some of the doctors who supported the de Sousas' medical decisions felt that Nicola was unusually persistent, and that the trauma of having a child who was gravely ill as an infant had made a nervous temperament more so. On one occasion, when Nicola took Katerina in for a checkup, the chart noted that "mom is very anxious, tired, and not getting enough sleep." The account of another visit is more overtly disapproving: "Child is in hospital, monitor is going off, but then correcting itself immediately, mom becoming increasingly upset with disturbances, mom became angry when alarm rang and insisted on taking baby home, mom signed refusal of treatment form and left hospital -- she stayed overnight at crib despite doctor saying that child was fine."

In 1999, the psychiatrists Marc D. Feldman and Deirdre C. Rand published a report in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry describing several cases in which the M.S.B.P. profile had led to false allegations. In one, the mother of an eighteen-month-old boy had brought him to the doctor for recurrent infections. She was labeled an M.S.B.P. perpetrator partly because her child's illness was recalcitrant, but also because of the way hospital staff judged her demeanor. She was seen as "unusually attached" to her infant, and her insistence on being present when tests were performed was interpreted as "eagerness to see pain inflicted." Her use of medical jargon conveyed an "unhealthy interest" in her son's condition. The boy was placed under surveillance, and the mother was allowed to visit only under supervision. (The staff noted that the "mother is very resentful.") Nonetheless, the child got worse, and he ultimately received a diagnosis of Kostmann's syndrome, an immune-deficiency disorder. Feldman and Rand note, "The physician who entered the provisional M.S.B.P. diagnosis declined the mother's request to refute it explicitly" on the updated medical chart, saying that "she was still a 'possible M.S.B.P. perpetrator' who might engage in M.S.B.P. abuse in the future."

In systematic studies of the M.S.B.P. profile, its predictive value has not held up well. A 2000 study conducted at a children's hospital in Atlanta, employing covert video and audio surveillance, concluded that the profile had not helped identify which mothers would turn out to be guilty: "While many of the families fit the usual stereotypes of M.S.B.P.…we were unable to predict the certainty of diagnosis using these factors." Fewer than half of the twenty-three mothers whom video surveillance proved to be abusers had read medical journals or had seemed, according to the staff, to be particularly close to doctors or nurses.

Leading authorities on M.S.B.P. have begun to acknowledge that the profile is flawed. "Some non-experts have been sloppy in their thinking," Randell Alexander, the director of the Division of Child Protection and Forensic Pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine, in Jackson, said. "They've jumped at some aspect of a person's behavior or personality and said that shows she did it." Donna Rosenberg, of the University of Colorado, told me that researchers' focus on intention was misguided. "I haven't the foggiest idea how one penetrates motivation," she said. "There's a reason our skulls are soundproof." Marc Feldman, who argues that it's not useful to think of M.S.B.P. as a psychiatric disorder, also opposes profiles. "I don't think there are any personal characteristics that define a potential perpetrator," he said.

Despite such critiques, the profile has continued to gain mainstream acceptance. The checklist has been published in the F.B.I. Law Enforcement Bulletin, in various newspaper articles, and in a number of publications for nurses -- in which the suspect traits are listed, often without disclaimers. The profile also continues to carry weight in the judicial system; in cases in which there is very little evidence of a mother's having harmed a child, it can keep the accusation alive. Eric Mart, the forensic psychologist, told me that in courtrooms, where he often testifies as an expert witness for the defense, "they're treating these things as probative when they're not." He went on, "What's the average amount of time someone spends at a child's bedside? That's used as an exemplar. The courts think a lot of visits to the doctor, the mother used to work in a pharmacy, the child had asthma as a kid but it was never really clear what was going on -- we've got a case of Munchausen."

A few months ago, I met a woman on whose behalf Mart recently testified as an expert witness. Heather, who asked that I use only her first name, is thirty-six and lives in New Jersey, in a pretty condominium where the baby's room has a basket of board books on the floor and antiques prints of mice on the walls. She is an operating-room nurse who put herself through nursing school by working as a bartender at night. It's easy to imagine her in both roles: she is warm, brassy, and efficient.

In April, 2003, she gave birth to a boy, just as she and her husband, an electrician, were on the verge of breaking up. Soon after his birth, Heather's baby was given a diagnosis of acid reflux, and twice, when she thought he was choking, she called 911. According to a pediatrician who attended to the child, Heather's husband thought she was making a fuss over nothing, and on the second visit to the emergency room he told the attending doctor, "I think she may be hurting the baby." A physician is required by law to report credible suspicions of abuse, and the doctor called child-protective services.

The two incidents involving reflux, and a visit Heather made to a urologist to consult about adhesions she had noticed on the baby's foreskin, were the only medical inquiries she had made that were not routine. Nonetheless, Heather fit the profile: she was a nurse; she had a good store of medical knowledge, which she was not shy about sharing; she was a worrier; and she was crazy about her baby.

As a result of the investigation, the child was placed with Heather's in-laws, with whom she did not get along. She was allowed to see her baby for two supervised visits each week. During these visits, Heather was not allowed to give any food or liquid to the baby -- if she really was a Munchausen mom, she might try to poison him.

The state's investigation dragged on for six months, as a family-court judge held hearings on the dispute. The gastroenterologist who treated the baby did not think Heather suffered from M.S.B.P. He thought that she might have overreacted, but that such overreactions were common among new parents. (Heather herself acknowledged as much -- the divorce had been stressful.) The urologist, too, agreed that Heather's inquiry was appropriate, and confirmed that the baby had redundant foreskin. In January, the judge dismissed the allegation against Heather, and her son was returned to her. Heather's stepfather, Tom, who, along with her mother, had accompanied her to court and helped pay for her defense, sent an e-mail to family and friends: "Lawyer's fee -- $25,000 plus. Dr. Mart -- $7,000. Dr. Annie -- $5,000. Sitting on the couch with a smiling, laughing baby boy -- priceless."

When I visited Heather on a wet, gray afternoon recently, she was padding around in a cardigan and socks. She served Tom and me a lunch of homemade lasagna and cooed at her son, who sat in his high chair, pink-cheeked and wriggly. "Hi, handsome!" she said brightly, kissing him on his head and offering him a teething biscuit.

She said that she felt lucky to have her baby back, yet she was furious to have "lost six months of his life." The false accusation, she said, made her feel "like I was being swept out into a riptide. In the beginning, I just kept thinking, these are professionals; they'll figure it out. I'll have him back in a few days. And then it went on and on."

More recently, some experts have begun stretching the M.S.B.P. diagnosis even further. They are applying it to mothers who spend too much time visiting schools, not hospitals -- to moms who "overadvocate" for special-education services, or aggressively seek diagnoses of cognitive or psychological difficulties, such as attention deficit disorder or dyslexia, for their children.

Herbert Schreier, the influential coauthor of "Hurting for Love," has written that school psychologists and behaviorists have become the "new targets" for manipulative mothers. He describes them, chillingly, in a 2000 article in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as powerful figures with "the uncanny abilities of the psychopath or imposter to simulate someone above suspicion." To complicate matters, some of these bad mothers are themselves psychologists or learning specialists, Schreier maintains, and thus have "broad and detailed knowledge of the mental-health field" with which to dupe school officials.

Shcreier has argued that "we need to change the definition of M.S.B.P. "by expanding the target audience of the mother" still further "to include police investigators, child-protection workers, lawyers, and school personnel" -- anyone, it seems, in authority. The philosophers David B. Allison and Mark S. Roberts note, in their book "Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis?," that the definition of a Munchausen mom has devolved into "a manipulative person who seeks attention from somebody who can be construed to hold power of some kind: that is, probably, anybody."

Randell Alexander, the M.S.B.P. scholar at the University of Florida, told me, "I think most of us would prefer to be more conservative. We'd probably like to save the M.S.B.P. label for something where the child is going to be poked with a needle by a doctor." But it's probably too late for such circumspection. A 2002 special issue of the journal Child Maltreatment carries an article entitled "Munchausen by Proxy: Presentations in Special Education." It ends by listing some "common presentations" of mothers who have this problem -- a new profile that's strikingly like the old one, but with "educational" substituted for "medical." Thus diagnosticians are warned to be on the lookout for "a parent (usually the mother) who appears to be educationally knowledgeable and/or fascinated with details of educational or learning disabilities, appears to enjoy the school environment, and often expresses interest in the details of other children with educational problems."

Family courts considering M.S.B.P. cases are likely to hear estimates of mortality rates presented by the prosecution. These will probably be based on cases of medical abuse in hospital settings. Yet the new cases are often presented as though they shared a similarly dismal prognosis. The Child Maltreatment article quotes death rates of between nine and twenty-two per cent in Munchausen families. Even for hospital-abuse cases, twenty-two per cent is probably too high; Marc Feldman and others say nine per cent is more realistic. And, in any case, it seems a stretch to suggest that a mother who tries to get a child a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder (even if she's doing a normal child a disservice) is as dangerous to her children as a mother who systematically smothers her baby. Yet some M.S.B.P. experts argue that the one behavior lies on a continuum with the other. In a variation on the old slippery-slope argument, angling for a learning-disorder label (and perhaps a better class placement) is seen as the equivalent of smoking marijuana, and smothering a child is tantamount to smoking heroin: one, it is feared, could lead to the other. A judge who worries that a child could end up dead may well err on the side of caution, and place him in foster care -- a drastic step that can cause children to suffer tremendously.

Eric Mart recently testified in a case involving an M.S.B.P. accusation from school officials. The mother, who lives in Massachusetts and has a son and a daughter, "came to school and said her kids had terrible learning disabilities and kept demanding more evaluations and out-of-district placements. When officials took a good look, they were concerned whether there was anything wrong with these kids, and it actually went to court." More than three years later, the case remains unresolved; the son, who turned eighteen, is now free to see his mother, but the daughter, who is in her mid-teens, remains in foster care.

When Richard Asher, a British physician, first identified the original Munchausen syndrome, it was 1951, and Britain's National Health Service was only a few years old. Asher and the other doctors who first wrote about "peregrinating problem patients" characterized them with unusual vitriol, as Allison and Roberts observe in "Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis?" One early article recommended that the British Medical Journal publish a "rogue's gallery" of known fakers. In a remarkable violation of patient privacy, some case studies did print the names of their subjects. Several recommended that the lying "hospital hobos" be confined in mental asylums for life.

What accounted for the animosity toward these patients? In part, Munchausen sufferers rankled doctors because they presented so many opportunities for well-meaning professionals to make mistakes. As one writer who responded to Asher's original case study observed, "All the rumpus and cost to the Health Service were caused by the many doctors who ordered expensive investigations and treatment, not by the patient, who merely, and quite lawfully, presented to his medical advisers with a tall story."

It is also telling, however, that the Munchausen diagnosis emerged first in England, at the same time as the National Health Service. As Allison and Roberts note, millions of Britons "suffering from the massive dislocation, stress, abandonment, and grief created by the war" had a need for "comfort, housing, food, and shelter." Many of these people turned to the new National Health Service scheme, "which offered free medical treatment within the reassuring confines of hospital care." At the same time, "the creation of the national health care system was itself an 'incentive' for physicians and hospital staffs to take a dim view of patients in general, for fear that their private practices would be eliminated and they would be overwhelmed by additional thousands of 'dole' patients."

In this way, the social and economic circumstances of medicine helped bring needy patients into contact with frustrated doctors; one product of this interaction was the portrait of the despised Munchausen patient. Similarly, it is no accident that the rise of the Munchausen by proxy diagnosis has run parallel with the rise of aggressive behavior in medical patients. During the past decade, people have routinely shown up at doctors' offices armed with Internet printouts, or displayed a suspicion of "mainstream medicine" fed by alternative practitioners and by dissatisfaction with managed care. These patients, caught up in their conceptions of themselves as "empowered advocates," can come into conflict with doctors and caseworkers.

In the H.M.O. era, many parents see themselves as needing to fight for their children's rights in an overtaxed healthcare system. Yet doctors and nurses are frequently exasperated by what they consider to be pushy behavior. A 2001 study of children's pain management in hospitals concluded that nurses often resent parental involvement because they think it increases their workload: if parents were "passive," then nurses "were not being approached and having demands made on their time."

False allegations of M.S.B.P. can arise from the misreading of insistent patient behavior as malicious behavior. Eric Mart told me, "My wife has coined a term: obnoxious mother syndrome. I think that's part of what's going on here." Penny Knapp, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Davis, who has studied cases of M.S.B.P., recalls "receiving a number of referrals from a physician who is a rather colorful character, strong-willed, and sharp-tongued. He used to get into struggles with some parents, and then he'd call me up and say, 'O.K., I've got a Munchausen up here.' I'd go and do an evaluation, and what I'd find is a troubled parent who wasn't communicating well and wasn't complying with treatment and maybe wasn't coping -- but not somebody who was deliberately harming her child."

According to some experts, M.S.B.P. diagnosis is applied most frequently to working-class moms. Perhaps this is because their demands are not as easily met by doctors. "If I have a million dollars and I want to take my kid for three or four psychoeducational evaluations, they'll take my money till the cows come home," Mart explained. "It's when somebody is getting Medicaid, or getting some services and starts asking for more help, that very often you'll find that somebody -- a caseworker, a nurse -- gets into a little argument with them, and then we're off to the races."

In 1997, the child-protective services of Los Angeles County placed Debra Reid's nine-year-old son in foster care. Jonathan had asthma, but social workers reported that Reid appeared to be exaggerating his symptoms, had missed doctors' appointments, and had taken him to the emergency room too often -- all of which, they said, suggested M.S.B.P. Reid was a single mother of four who lived in Gardena, a racially diverse town where she was a community activist. According to the Los Angeles Times, social workers described Reid as a "loud-mouth," and she came across as hostile or pigheaded to many professionals she met while trying to retain custody of her son -- though this anger was directed only at them, not at her children. According to an article by Michael Gougis in New Times Los Angeles, Reid told one caseworker that "he had no life and needed to get one."

A juvenile-court commissioner who considered Reid's family situation did not fault her for calling 911 too often, noting that, "faced with a child either having great difficulty breathing or not breathing at all, a reasonably prudent person would call 911." But the judge added, "Although Ms. Reid is knowledgeable and concerned for her children's medical needs, she does what she thinks is right and to a significant extent disregards what others think is the correct course of treatment based on their professional opinions. The totality of the evidence supports a pattern of non-cooperation, unrealistic positions, and behaviors by Ms. Reid."

When it came to the severity of Jonathan's asthma, and her own ability to keep him alive, Debra Reid was, apparently, quite realistic. Six weeks after the county removed him from his mother's care, Jonathan died of an asthma attack in the middle of the night, at a hospital to which his foster parents had taken him. His foster mother said that she hadn't been told how bad his asthma was. In 2002, the county approved a million-dollar settlement for Reid. One of the supervisors, Gloria Molina, cried as she apologized to Reid on behalf of the county. "They said my child was healthy," Reid told the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. "Well, that child now lies in an Inglewood Cemetery."

When Katerina de Sousa was four years old, Nicola took her to Children's Hospital in Boston for an annual checkup of her liver, and while she was there she mentioned Katerina's difficulties with bladder and bowel control, and some conflicting diagnoses that she had received from Canadian doctors. A neurologist at the hospital ordered an MRI, and discovered that Katerina had a tethered cord: her spinal cord was fastened to a benign fatty tumor and could not move freely. A tethered cord can cause various problems, including spinal curvature, back and leg pain, and incontinence. As a child grows, the cord becomes stretched beyond capacity, damaging surrounding nerves and blood vessels. The de Sousas couldn't afford elective surgery in Boston, so they returned to Canada; two months later, a neurosurgeon in Toronto performed an operation to untether the cord.

Katerina was beginning to thrive -- she attended a nursery school, at which Nicola was a frequent volunteer, and she took swimming lessons and gymnastics. She was on her way to becoming the pre-Raphaelite beauty that she is today, with milk-white skin, a luminous smile, and a scattering of pale freckles. But she also had several symptoms that, as she grew older, became more pronounced. She experienced continued incontinence, and pain and weakness in her legs, which the tethered-cord surgery does not always correct. (Indeed, scarring can make the pain worse.) Other symptoms were more baffling: her left eye sometimes rolled upward independently; she had headaches; sometimes she seemed to have double vision, and complained that she saw two Mommies. At other times, she insisted that she had "bees in her ears" -- probably tinnitus -- and she couldn't stand loud noises. She sometimes had choking spells when she ate. Nicola's father, Ian Templeton, a retired physicist, recalls that he and his wife, Elsa, were often nervous when Nicola dropped Katerina off for lunch at their house: "It was scary. She'd just be eating and then -- for a moment she wouldn't be breathing." With the exception of the eye-rolling, doctors did not witness these symptoms, which were described by the de Sousas as unpredictable and intermittent.

During a visit to a physical-therapy specialist in Toronto, a nurse asked Nicola if she had ever considered whether Katerina might have Chiari syndrome, a developmental anomaly in which the lower portions of the brain are compressed. Her symptoms were consistent with the disease, the nurse said. At the de Sousas' behest, a neurosurgeon in Canada examined Katerina but concluded that she did not have the classic Chiari malformation, in which the tonsils of the lower brain project downward. But, in the meantime, Eurico had read about a neurosurgeon in Brooklyn, Thomas Milhorat, who was adept at reading MRI scans for subtler signs of skull crowding. Milhorat, who now heads the Chiari Institute in Great Neck, New York, examined brain scans of Katerina and concluded that there was clinical and MRI evidence of Chiari syndrome. The de Sousas sought a second opinion from David Frim, the chief of pediatric neurosurgery at the University of Chicago. He, too, saw evidence of brain crowding, and believed that Katerina's clinical symptoms pointed to Chiari syndrome. He also offered to perform the surgery for free.

Frim recently told me that treating Katerina's condition as Chiari syndrome "was kind of a presumption," because the brain scans weren't "a hundred per cent classic." On the other hand, "she had all these symptoms," he said. "Her imaging wasn't convincing, but her clinical picture was." Five per cent of patients with tethered cords have Chiari syndrome, Frim reasoned, and "in patients where there are progressive life-threatening symptoms" -- by which he meant Katerina's choking spells -- "there is a place for this operation." Still, as he explained to the de Sousas at the time, the operation "was a little bit of a leap of faith."

In Canada, the doctor whom the de Sousas informed of their decision, E.C.G. Ventureyra, the chief of neurosurgery at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, was extremely dubious. In December, 1998, he wrote a scathing letter to them outlining his objections. "I have read with interest both Dr. Milhorat and Frim's correspondence," the letter said. "Based on my findings I must disagree with their recommendation for posterior-fossa decompression in Katerina's case…I strongly feel that advocating posterior-fossa decompression in this particular case is equivalent to advocating acupuncture, herbal medicine, or electromagnetic-wave therapy…In my view, when a surgical indication does not exist, surgery should not be used."

It's not clear who first used the phrase "Munchausen syndrome by proxy" to describe Nicola de Sousa's care of her daughter. Susan Bennett, the chief of child protection at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, would not comment. A spokesman for the Children's Aid Society said that the agency could not comment on specific cases. But it is clear that the Canadian doctors who knew about the Chiari diagnosis didn't approve, and were alarmed by the de Sousas' pursuit of surgery.

Frim found the de Sousas' approach neither unusual nor disquieting. "This is how medicine is now," he said. "We have patients who come in with hundreds of pages they've printed off the Internet, and they've seen six other neurologists. The de Sousas were looking for the best possible care, and they were demanding, but that doesn't mean they were wacko." In January, 1999, Frim performed cranial surgery on Katerina. He found that Katerina had abnormal tonsils that were impeding the flow of fluid between the brain and the spinal cord, much the way a classic Chiari malformation would. According to the de Sousas, within a few weeks after the operation all the symptoms associated with Chiari syndrome -- the eye-rolling, the choking, the headaches -- vanished.

Katerina continued, however, to experience pain and weakness in her legs, as well as incontinence; her charts show a number of consultations with pain clinics. In the spring of 2001, the de Sousas decided to see Frim again. He suggested that the cord might have become retethered -- a fairly common occurrence -- and that a second operation might be advisable. Once more, he offered to waive his fee, and, once more, the choice was not an obvious one. Bowel and bladder problems can be made worse by surgery, and back and leg pain isn't always resolved, either. The de Sousas opted for the surgery. They believe that it did give Katerina some pain relief and greater mobility, though it was not a cure.

One of the issues in the M.S.B.P. investigation was that Nicola had made far too much of Katerina's leg pain -- that she coddled her daughter, sometimes carrying her to the car after school. Ned Jackson, the caseworker, notes in his affidavit that he "personally observed Mrs. de Sousa carry Katerina out of the school on one occasion." One of the caseworkers who first interviewed Katerina noted skeptically that she "confirmed that she has pain in her leg, and pointed to a certain spot, but no further detail."

The case file, which the de Sousas shared with me, also contains a passionate letter from Peter Morrice, a pediatrician who saw Katerina. He wrote, "The impression my nurse and I have of Mrs. de Sousa is that she appears driven and highly anxious. We have wondered about an element of depression with her and have noted the very strong bond between herself and Katerina -- understandable from Katerina's life-threatening early months of life. Although physical causes have undoubtedly played a role in Katerina's symptoms, one has to query psychological 'stress factors' as super-added factors." He speculated that Nicola's anxiety might be "related to the number of investigations and treatment at different centres….It was my wish that the parents reduce drastically…the number of investigations that Katerina has to undergo….It is quite possible that at least some of her chronic constipation and urinary symptoms have a psychological origin. On the surface she appears to be a healthy girl though at times sad and withdrawn. Would her symptoms (those that still exist) diminish if she could be given a rest from investigation and allowed a more normal and happy childhood?"

Ned Jackson makes a darker speculation in the affidavit. Nicola, he reports, "stated that Katerina wears a diaper as her legs go numb when she sits on the toilet." Though he admits to a "lack of medical knowledge," he nonetheless wonders if "Katerina's incontinence is a result of her never being properly toilet trained." How can Jackson imagine Nicola engaging in such a cruel trick? In his opinion, she had subjected Katerina to "extensive and invasive tests throughout her short life," nearly all of which "produced normal results." Jackson suggests that, in the end, Nicola's imagination had caused her to harm Katerina: "The vast majority of Katerina's reported symptoms do not appear to have been witnessed by health practitioners or individuals other than Mrs. de Sousa."

By the time the caseworkers showed up at the de Sousa home, however, Nicola said that she had begun to think of Katerina as "pretty healthy." She felt that Katerina did better when she came home in the afternoon and could take a bath if necessary, and lie down or try other comfortable positions while doing her schoolwork. Diane Beckett, an environmental consultant whose son attended Katerina's school, remembers thinking that Nicola's decision to volunteer at the school by working in the library or helping with the reading program allowed her "to be available to Katerina in a supportive role if she needed her without being a hovering mom, as so many would be in that situation."

The M.S.B.P. investigation of the de Sousas lasted longer than a year. During that time, Katerina remained with her parents, pending a possible appearance in family court to decide whether she should be placed in foster care. The de Sousas began homeschooling her, partly because they believed that it conferred some academic advantages -- but mainly because they worried that social workers might arrive at school and take their daughter away. In the meantime, Katerina did lots of things that propelled her into the world: she took weekly classes in drama, pottery, painting, drawing, and swimming, and she practiced woodworking at a local home-improvement store. (To Nicola's delight, Katerina turned out to be a whiz with power tools.) She played regularly with her old schoolmate Victoria. Still, keeping Katerina at home only reinforced the suspicions of Nicola's accusers. In his affidavit, Jackson calls the de Sousas' decision "surprising, and concerning." Homeschooling is a kind of sheltering, and the M.S.B.P. investigation was based, in part, on the idea that Nicola sheltered Katerina too much.

Eurico enlisted the support of the de Sousas' family physician, Nancy Clevette, who told caseworkers that she had never seen anything but a loving relationship between Nicola and Katerina. They got Nicola's psychiatrist, who had known her since 1987, to write a letter, and he, too, told caseworkers emphatically that he did not believe Nicola was a Munchausen mother. Several medical professionals whom the de Sousas had seen in t

As time wore on, the de Sousas began to feel isolated and bitter. Eurico's father died of a stroke in November, 2002, without knowing whether Nicola and Eurico would be able to keep his only grandchild. Katerina, who had overheard the caseworkers say "We're not going to take her today" on their first visit to the de Sousas' home, had nightmares about being placed in foster care. Some acquaintances and friends stopped speaking to the family when they heard that Nicola was being investigated for child abuse. In the grocery store, when neighbors saw Nicola, they escaped to another aisle. The de Sousas hired four lawyers and spent about fifteen thousand dollars on Nicola's defense. They began writing indignant letters, some of them rather ill considered, to various officials, members of the press, and politicians who they thought should know about their ordeal. They became increasingly terrified of losing Katerina.

In May, 2003, the de Sousas received a letter. It was very short, and its tone was dispassionate. It said, "I am writing to advise you that the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa will be closing its file.... I trust the above is satisfactory."

Though the accusations against Nicola have been shelved, she is still shaken, and bewildered. She said, "I asked them, 'How could you say we put our daughter under the knife for surgeries that are unnecessary? How could you be threatening to take our child away?' We went to the ends of the earth to help her. I just hope they'd do the same if it were their child."

Source: The New Yorker
copy appended December 2010

Mother and Daughter Wanted

August 3, 2004

Peel Regional police want to arrest a mother for taking care of her daughter, and want to arrest the daughter to return her to custody, which they euphemistically call care. The press release from Peel Regional Police follows the girl's picture.

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Peel Regional Police - Police seek mother wanted in daughter's abduction

MISSISSAUGA, ON, Aug. 3 /CNW/ - Peel Regional Police are seeking the public's assistance in locating a 12-year-old female, who investigators believe was taken by her mother from a day camp three weeks ago.

Renata SHAW, 12 years, of Mississauga, was last seen on Tuesday, July 13th, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., getting into a white taxi cab after leaving a school on Freshwater Drive, Mississauga. She was in the company of her biological mother. The school was being operated as a day camp at that time.

Renata's mother, Catherine SHAW-MARSHALL, 40 years, of no fixed address, has contravened a custody order. On July 31st, 2004, a warrant was issued for SHAW-MARSHALL's arrest for Abduction in Contravention of a Court Order. She is described as female white, 5'4" tall, 140 lbs, with shoulder length blond hair and green eyes.

Investigators are concerned for the mother's ability to care for the 12-year-old and urge her to surrender to police and return the child.

Investigators have also obtained a Warrant of Apprehension for 12-year-old Renata SHAW, to ensure her safe return to care givers. Renata is described as female white, 5'0" tall, 120 lbs, with shoulder length, reddish-blond hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a grey tank-top, yellow jacket, yellow shorts and was carrying a black backpack.

To view a photo of Catherine SHAW-MARSHALL please visit: http://files.newswire.ca/53/renataSHAW.jpg

Anyone with information is asked to contact 11 Division Criminal Investigation Bureau at (905) 453-2121, ext. 1133 or Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS / 8477.

For further information: Cst. Craig Platt, Media Relations, (905) 453-2121 ext. 4027; Archived images on this organization are available through CNW E-Pix at http://www.newswire.ca. Images are free to members of The Canadian Press.

Pedophile Assistant to Foster Family Profiled

July 11, 2004

The Toronto Star has published a two-part series on Douglas Donald Moore, the pedophile who worked as an assistant to a Peel Region foster family.

Police Kept Doctor from Dying Grandmother

July 7, 2004

In the legal aftermath of the Halifax standoff Larry Finck has been found competent to stand trial. Here is a report from CTV on the bail hearing of Carline VandenElsen, Finck's wife.

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Bail hearing offers details of Halifax standoff

CTV.ca News Staff

Updated: Wed. Jul. 7 2004 11:09 PM ET

A bail hearing has offered an unexpected glimpse into a three-day armed standoff in Halifax. Mona Finck, the woman who died during the May ordeal, wanted a doctor and a priest, but police wouldn't let either in the house.

Wednesday's hearing was for Carline VandenElsen, 41, who is seeking bail on three charges stemming from the incident: obstructing police, forcible confinement and breaching a court order.

Her partner, Larry Finck, who is Mona's son, is facing the same charges, as well as six weapon-related charges.

ATV's Rick Grant reports there were times during the bail hearing when police and VandenElsen offered similar stories.

VandenElsen said she and the family were awakened around 1 to 1:30 am on May 19 by loud banging on the front door of their home. Police were coming in with a battering ram. Children's Aid workers had called police to help enforce a court order to apprehend a baby.

VandenElsen confirmed that the door was being barricaded from the inside, and that a shotgun blast was fired through a window over the door and pellets lodged in a house across the street.

VandenElsen said there was a single shot fired to let police know she was not giving up her baby.

Tapes of phone conversations were played in court. In one tape, VandenElsen said they wanted to leave the country and not return, but seek political asylum.

Const. Tom Martin testified that there were concerns over the health of Mona Finck who died during the standoff.

He said one doctor was brought to the scene and volunteered to go in, but a police commander refused to allow a civilian inside the house under the circumstances.

The ailing woman refused an offer to come outside the house to meet the doctor. She asked for a priest but he wasn't allowed in either

VandenElsen's lawyer questioned Martin about another taped conversation in which the policeman pleaded with her not to walk outside the house, asking if there was any thought to shooting.

VandenElsen broke down when she was asked if she would leave the country if granted bail. She said: "My baby is still here ... I can't leave without my baby."

Crown attorney Len MacKay opposes the woman's release, claiming she is a flight risk and poses a danger to the public.

The judge is expected to make a decision on bail this week.

Ministry scrutinizes Windsor CAS

July 3, 2004

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Windsor Star

July 3, 2004

CAS scrutinized

Minister wants concerns addressed

By Dave Battagello
Star Staff Reporter

The Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society must address 18 recommendations made in a provincial review of its files or it can expect further scrutiny, says a spokesman for Minister of Children and Youth Services Marie Bountrogianni.

The review prepared for the minister showed the local children's aid society conducted more investigations, resulting in ongoing service at more than double the rate of the rest of the province.

"The next step is to monitor the recommendations made in the report", Andrew Weir, spokesman for Bountrogianni, said Friday. "The minister will monitor the society closely to see if they look to address the issues.

"If the recommendations are implemented, we will just continue to monitor them, the same as we do with all the children's aid societies".

The local CAS will continue to welcome any type of government review, executive director Bill Bevan said earlier this week.

"Absolutely", he said. "If you have a number of complaints and concerns by parents and ministry concerns, by all means, the government has every right to review files, talk to staff and see what we are doing.

MPPs initiated review

"We don't mind talking about this. We are doing a pretty darn good job, but we aren't perfect".

The ministry report was initiated after MPPs Sandra Pupatello (L -- Windsor West) and Dwight Duncan (L -- Windsor Tecumseh) raised concerns about the increase in calls they were receiving about the CAS's practice of taking children into its care.

The complaints often revolved around how quickly children were being apprehended and alternatives available to CAS that were not being considered.

After seeing the report's data, Pupatello said a more in-depth review of the children's aid operations may be warranted.

Weir said the ministry's regional office has been asked to work with the local children's society as it addresses the issues in the report.

"The ministry has identified ways for them to improve", Weir said. "The ministry sets high standards and for the most part children's aid societies in the province meet those expectations. We expect (Windsor's children's aid) to bring their performance up to that level. They certainly have been a willing participant in the process.

"In some areas it is clear the agency is performing well, but in other areas there are real ways they can improve. We expect them to take the necessary steps to make those improvements".

Pupatello cited a number of the findings of the report, prepared for Children and Youth Services Minister Marie Bountrogianni, as troubling.

• 80 percent of referrals to CAS resulted in an investigation, more than 1.5 times higher than the provincial average of 53 per cent.
• More than 24 per cent of referrals resulted in a transfer to ongoing service, 2.2 times higher than the provincial average of 11 per cent.
• Only 5.3 per cent of the society's foster care days were listed as "regular" compared to the provincial average of 47.6 per cent, while the local CAS instead listed 68.4 per cent of its foster care days as "specialized", well above the provincial average of 35 per cent, resulting in an increased level of funding given to the local CAS of $337,018.
• Of 111 service complaints filed since April 2003, only four reached the executive director under a CAS review process and zero went before the board.

"I've talked with others from around the province and there is something unusual going on in Windsor", Pupatello said. "There are not the same numbers going on across the province. Clearly they are higher in a number of areas in Windsor than the numbers across the province. I want to know why.

"Clearly it's been identified we've got issues here, that it's not just the regulations. The next step is more important than this report. This was not an operational review. The minister has told me she will look at the next step".

The ministry report was initiated after Pupatello and fellow MPP Dwight Duncan (L -- Windsor Tecumseh) raised concerns about the increase in complaints they were receiving from parents about the CAS's practice of taking children into care. The report also listed issues with the CAS's new building, noting it was $724,709 over the ministry approved budget, with a $834,368 shortfall in fundraising efforts for the project.

The report's recommendation calls for the CAS to somehow make up the project difference of $1,559,077. That is likely to occur through the organization selling off some of its properties.

Bevan and CAS board president Norm King, at a Wednesday news conference, focused on the report's lease condemning aspects -- among them that 95 per cent of CAS paperwork as being in compliance on the 163 files reviewed in the report.

"I think we learned what we expected from the reports", Bevan said. "That we are a pretty well run organization, but no organization is perfect. We do need to spend more time on how we write about situations going into them and how we write about the situations we are in. We know there are issues in training staff, how we are writing reports. We do have a younger staff".

Bevan said the local CAS would welcome further provincial scrutiny.

Note by Dufferin VOCA. Here are the reports referred to in the article. Both are in pdf format:

Full report
Bevan's version

Election Results

June 29, 2004

In the federal election of June 28, CAS opponent Michael Menear was defeated in London West, while CAS champion David Tilson was elected to represent Dufferin-Caledon.

Federal Candidates Questioned on Family Law

June 16, 2004

Three of the Dufferin-Peel candidates for federal parliament in the June 28 election appeared at an all-candidates meeting this evening at Monora Park. Rita Landry of the New Democrats had to attend her father in the hospital, Ursula Ellis of the Christian Heritage Party did not appear.

Two questions related to family law.

Before a child reaches age of majority, about half of Canadian fathers are restricted from access to their own children. The main reason in the federal Divorce Act. Do you favor changes to the Divorce Act so that more fathers can see their own children?

Murray Calder (Liberal) answered: Yes. Then he elaborated that the same problem existed for grandparents, and some consideration should be given to them as well.

Ted Alexander (Green) expressed unfamiliarity with the issue, but was sympathetic to fathers.

David Tilson (Conservative) said that these matters should be decided in the best interest of the child. He said it was correct to handle these matters by hearing all sides of the issue in the courts. He said grandparents should have no say in the matter, because children have enough problems being torn between mother and father, they did not need more people contending for custody.

The next question was:

Do you favor same-sex marriage?

Mr Tilson opposed same sex marriage.

Mr Alexander supported same sex marriage.

Mr Calder said he was in favor of traditional marriage. He continued stating that it was possible to make changes in the wording of some laws to allow for civil unions of same sex couples, without it being a marriage.

A later questioner suggested that Mr Calder could have saved some problems for the voters by crossing the aisle.

Dufferin CAS Annual Meeting

June 15, 2004

The Dufferin CAS annual meeting at Monora Park was uneventful.

The meeting began with 45 minutes of music, close to the loud, culturally offensive music deemed torture by Amnesty International. The meeting chairman, Tom Murray, called the meeting to order and dealt with just four items of business, approving the minutes of the last annual meeting, approving the auditor's report, appointing the auditor for the coming year, electing four new directors, followed by adjournment.

The four new directors are Allan Bennington, Sandra Card, Michael Craig and Jackie Wilcox.

The meeting was followed by a speech by Dr Dirk Huyer. Among his credentials is a period working at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, including the SCAN clinic. The theme of his somewhat disorganized talk was the case of Farah Khan. Dr Huyer served as an expert witness at the trial of the parents convicted of her murder. In the concluding part of his talk he dealt with child protection generally. His statements showed that the shaken baby syndrome, now beginning to be scientifically discredited, remains alive and well as a diagnostic criterion in Ontario. Dr Huyer also mentioned that child abuse statistics cannot be collected from families or children, but are always gathered from professionals. So when viewed critically, they are nothing more than opinion surveys of social workers.

Following Dr Huyer, Tom Murray lamented the lenient treatment by a judge of a mother who had broken her child's bone. He expressed the hope that a new generation of judges would soon be on the bench showing more sympathy to child protectors. He showed no understanding that Children's Aid has lost the confidence of judges by its excessive intervention in families where no abuse has occurred.

CAS clients needed

June 9, 2004

We repeat here a request from Gary C Dumbrill. He is looking for parents who have received services from Children's Aid.

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Starting in September - I was planning to meet with groups of parents who have received CAS services to develop a "CAS service users guide." This guide would be written by parents for parents.

There are a few ways of getting involved:

1/ If you are a parents and know other parents who have received CAS services, you could form a group and I would come to meet with you.

2/ If you are a CAS worker or supervisor, you could give the parents you are working with the opportunity to take part.

I am really hoping this guide will help parents work WITH the CAS in ways that help children and families. If you are interested, e-mail me and I will give you the full details of the project. This will be set up as a formal University based research project, so there will be an "informed consent" form to sign that sets out the principles (and limits) of confidentiality and measures to protect participants etc. Some enumeration for parents taking part is also possible.

I am really only interested in doing this in Ontario and I will travel anywhere in Ontario to meet with groups, and I can travel more than once so I can meet with each group a few times. Although the project will be based in Ontario, if parents/agencies outside Ontario already have groups working on these issues, I would be willing to travel to meet those groups too - that is if these groups have ideas that would benefit parents in Ontario.

Gary
gary.dumbrill@utoronto.ca

Martin to Subsidize Child Care

June 3, 2004

Prime Minister Paul Martin, no longer a shoo-in to win the federal election on June 28, 2004, is promising a national child-care program, modeled on Quebec. The report cited here suggests that day-care will be subsidized so that parents will pay $7 per day, instead of the market rate near $30 per day. There is no word on whether day-care operators will resort to the temptation to collect the subsidy by enrolling children under duress. Here is the report from the Globe and Mail.

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Martin lays it on the line with platform launch

By DARREN YOURK
Globe and Mail Update

UPDATED AT 9:27 AM EDT Thursday, Jun 3, 2004

Liberal Leader Paul Martin tried to push the focus of an attack-filled election campaign back toward policy Thursday, unveiling a left-leaning platform that focuses on social program spending.

Speaking in his hometown of Windsor, Ont., Mr. Martin laid out a "forward looking and very responsible" platform that has a price tag of about $40-billion over five years. About $12-billion of the plan is for contingencies, leaving about $26-billion to $28-billion for promises. The largest item will be the $9-billion-plus for health care announced last week.

"This is a country of great opportunity, and our plan is about providing all Canadians with the means to share in those opportunities," Mr. Martin said in prepared comments. "As a people, we know what we can do and we know how to do it - we just want to get on with it. This platform represents what we will deliver as we work to achieve our goals."

The 60-page platform, entitled Moving Canada Forward, includes a five-year, $5-billion major child-care plan -- called the Foundations Program -- which will hold up Quebec's $7-a-day daycare scheme as a model for the rest of the country.

(paragraphs unrelated to child care omitted)

CAS recruits Moslems, blocks petition

May 30, 2004

In Windsor Ontario CAS has organized a group called the Islamic Social Welfare Association (ISWA), to recruit followers of Islam into the child protection system. They have represented themselves as protectors of orphans, and possibly supplied funding to the organization. Pakistanis have been asked to set up a group home for boys and one for girls

Citizens for Social Morality, CFSM, attended a dinner at a mosque where CAS spoke to veiled women about apprehension, even though most did not understand English. At question time CAS ignored questions from CFSM members.

Later CFSM met with the directors of ISWA. A psychologist and three social workers attended, with three veiled women, one clearly a CAS worker under the veil. The principal of the Arab school proudly stated that he worked for CAS.

In Windsor, where CAS scouts the hospital emergency room for prospects, CFSM has gathered thousands of signatures. Several batches of petitions posted for signature have simply disappeared when not watched. The hospital employing Dr Dolores Sicheri has asked her not to circulate petitions.

Halifax Siege Ends

May 22, 2004

The Halifax siege of a couple defending their five-month-old baby ended with the death of the baby's 80-year-old grandmother, a possible result of the stress of the siege. Depending on your viewpoint, you can blame the parents or the police for her fate. Here is the article from the Halifax Herald, including pictures. The story suggests that the parents are normal people, who never got into trouble aside from that imposed on them by the family law system. It is unlikely that the baby girl will ever again have parental care.

The original link, now dead, was: http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2004/05/22/f237.raw.html

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Saturday, May 22, 2004
The Halifax Herald Limited

Tragic conclusion
Baby's grandmother dead as couple ends custody standoff

By JOHN GILLIS and DAN ARSENAULT

The longest police standoff in Halifax history ended Friday evening when Lawrence Finck and his wife Carline VandenElsen walked out the front door of their home at 6161 Shirley St. with their baby and the body of Mr. Finck's mother.

Ms. VandenElsen carried her five-month-old daughter, Mona-Clare, strapped to her chest in a baby knapsack. The baby was the subject of a child apprehension order from the Children's Aid Society that sparked the 67-hour standoff.

Mr. Finck, 50, and Ms. VandenElsen, 41, carried the body of his mother, Mona Finck, on a makeshift stretcher covered with a plaid blanket.

"Medical personnel at the scene pronounced the elderly woman, who was believed to be in her 80s, dead at the scene," Chief Frank Beazley of Halifax Regional Police said - without naming the woman - at a 10 p.m. news conference.

"We'll have to wait for an autopsy but it appears that she had been dead for some time. It would appear it would be more than a couple of hours, I would suggest."

Chief Beazley said police did not know she was dead until the standoff ended.

"My officers are very upset at the way this has ended," he said.

Mr. Finck was armed with a loaded rifle when the group crossed Shirley Street at about 7:25 p.m.

They went about a block before police officers carrying drawn weapons surrounded them.

"The first thing I heard was ... the woman hollering, 'My baby, my baby. Don't take my baby,' " eyewitness Doug King told The Canadian Press.

He said the man and woman were forced face-first onto the ground as up to a dozen officers surrounded them.

"They were putting up a fight, kind of a struggle, for the baby," Mr. King said. "They didn't want to release the baby."

Police said the couple were arrested without any shots fired.

"They did not surrender," Chief Beazley said. "The individuals were afforded every opportunity, and encouraged to surrender, throughout the incident."

He said the couple would likely face firearms-related charges, as well as those of obstruction and forcible confinement.

A member of the police emergency response team wearing body armour carried the baby to an unmarked police car. The baby cried but appeared to be in good health.

The infant was taken to the IWK Health Centre "just for routine checkup," said Michelle Pierce of the Emergency Health Services ambulance system.

Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen were arrested. Paramedics assessed Mr. Finck at the scene but his wife refused to be examined, Ms. Pierce said.

"There was a lot of commotion," said Const. Kevin McLellan, spokesman for Halifax Regional Police. "Thankfully, the two were taken into custody without incident."

He said the woman was screaming as she was taken away.

Police were still not confirming the identities of any of the people involved.

Const. McLellan credited the peaceful resolution to both the negotiators and the baby's parents.

"It was because of the communication, because of the ongoing contact that our negotiators made, that they walked out of that house and they are in custody and they are unharmed," he said.

Earlier Friday, Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen startled police and onlookers by making casual appearances on the roof, holding their baby.

Just before 4 p.m., Mr. Finck emerged from a second-floor window and took a seat on an overhang above the main entrance. He appeared relaxed, crossing his legs and smoking a cigarette.

At about 4:20 p.m., he was handed the baby, who seemed calm and content. He cradled the baby and let her stand between his knees while he supported her arms.

Fifteen minutes later, Ms. VandenElsen joined him on the overhang. She sat down and cradled the baby, putting a pink sweater on over the girl's white dress.

At 4:45 p.m., they all returned inside. Ms. Finck was not seen.

Police said they had no warning that the couple would appear, but Const. McLellan told reporters shortly afterward that the unexpected turn of events wouldn't hinder the continuing negotiations and that there was no reason for police to take immediate action.

"There was no sign that they were a threat to themselves or anyone else," he said.

There were reports Friday morning that police thought at least one occupant considered leaving the house, possibly to seek refuge in a church.

Police started widening their taped-off buffer zone and began stopping people from walking within sight of the Finck house.

Soon after, a remote-controlled police vehicle approached the house from Garden Street but stayed about 10 metres from the front door. After an hour without moving, the machine backtracked to its previous position.

"We thought there was some indication that some movement might have been made in the house - movement where people may have exited the house," Const. McLellan said a few hours later.

"As it turns out, it didn't happen."

He said police locked down a wider space for safety reasons.

"This particular area, a couple of hours ago, we thought was unsafe based on the information we were getting from our ERT (emergency response team). They wanted people moved.

"That's why the perimeter was extended and why we did issue warnings."

Const. McLellan said at that time that communications with the family were continuing.

Mary Deyoung, who has lived in the same Vernon Street house since 1936 and has known the Fincks for decades, said earlier in the day that Mona Finck was in poor health.

"She has very, very bad heart trouble," she said.

Ms. Deyoung said Larry Finck as a youngster was a regular guy.

"He was an ordinary young person, he went to school and didn't get into any problems that I knew of," she said.

Police first went to the Finck house just after midnight Tuesday night to try to carry out a child apprehension order from the Children's Aid Society.

They were denied entry, and after a second attempt was made later in the night, shots were fired from the house, sparking the standoff.

No reasons have been given for the issuing of the apprehension order that police were carrying out on behalf of Children's Aid.

Police originally arrived at the home to remove the baby in January but Ms. VandenElsen and the infant had disappeared. Neighbours noticed they were back in the house about two weeks ago.

Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck have both lost previous custody battles involving other children from previous marriages.

In October 2000, Ms. VandenElsen, then living in Ontario, disappeared with her three seven-year-old triplets. They were found the next January living in Acapulco, Mexico. The children were returned to their father in Stratford, Ont., where they remain.

Mr. Finck served a prison term for abducting his four-year-old daughter from an Ontario reservation in 1999.

Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen married last April and Mona-Clare was born in December.

The standoff attracted two vocal supporters Friday. Two women carried petitions seeking changes to Children's Aid policies that they said Mr. Finck had earlier helped them write.

The previous longest standoff in Halifax police history was in August 1996 when a man barricaded himself in a house for 12 hours.

Const. McLellan said that despite the length of this week's standoff, Halifax Regional Police and RCMP members staved off exhaustion because of help from extra duty officers and relief staff from other specialized teams.

"The officers are doing quite well," he said.

Const. McLellan said he didn't know what the operation would cost. Dozens of officers worked around the clock for almost three days straight.

"I wouldn't even dare to comment," he said.

Couple Resists Child Abduction

May 20, 2004

A couple in Halifax are resisting police efforts to seize their baby. Both have previously lost children to the family law system, though neither have ever harmed a child. The mother was charged with child abduction in Ontario and acquitted by a jury.

This Story from the Halifax Herald gives the parent's side of the story as well as that of Children's Aid. The original story includes pictures of the mother and father.

The original link, now dead, was: http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2004/05/20/f224.raw.html

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Thursday, May 20, 2004
The Halifax Herald Limited

Desperate mom won't give up baby
'If I walk out of here ... I know I'll never see her again'

By SUSAN BRADLEY / Staff Reporter EXCLUSIVE

Carline VandenElsen sounded desperate Wednesday morning as she talked about why she will not allow the Children's Aid Society of Halifax to take away her five-month-old baby.

"Why are they resorting to this?" she said by phone from inside her Shirley Street house during a standoff with police.

"I am not a criminal. I'm not a violent person. I don't use alcohol or drugs. Why do they want to take away what's left of my family?"

Ms. VandenElsen, 41, called the police actions "barbaric."

"At 1:30 this morning, we heard a loud banging on the door," she said. "The bangs got louder. Then there were threatening telephone calls. We didn't answer the door.

"The police brutality started. They used a big heavy tool for breaking down the doors. Larry, my husband, barricaded the door."

She said her husband's mother, Mona Finck, was also in the house.

"This isn't good for her. She's almost 80 and she's ailing."

At the time Ms. VandenElsen spoke, neither she nor her husband had communicated with a police negotiator, who was part of a heavy police presence in the locked-down south-end neighbourhood.

But Ms. VandenElsen voiced a demand that she said might help defuse the volatile situation.

"What we would like ... is for a lawyer with the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society to take this case before the Appeal Court."

By early afternoon, the family's phone service had been cut off.

Mr. Finck, 50, a Halifax native, played junior hockey for St. Catharines, Ont., and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1974, although he never played in the National Hockey League.

Ms. VandenElsen said she was "in shock" and fearful about what might happen to the family.

"I know what I'm up against," she said. "I'm sitting here looking at a bullet hole in my window. But if I walk out of here with my baby in my arms, I know I'll never see her again."

She said she is still breastfeeding Mona-Clare.

Ms. VandenElsen wouldn't say who fired the weapon or if it was still in the house.

"I'm not prepared to discuss that right now," she said.

And she couldn't predict how the standoff might end.

"I'm in protective mode and weighing my options," she said. "I'm afraid, afraid of what the police could do."

She said her husband "is very angry - an anger born of fear. This has been done to us before."

In fact, both have lost custody of older children from previous relationships and have been prosecuted for child abduction. Their legal troubles and their response to them weighed heavily in a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge's decision to remove Mona-Clare from her parents.

On Oct. 14, 2000, Ms. VandenElsen, then in Stratford, Ont., disappeared with her seven-year-old triplets after a bitter divorce. It happened just before a court hearing that she feared would result in her losing access to the children.

In the next three months, she brought them to the Queensland area of Nova Scotia before settling in Acapulco, Mexico.

The children, two boys and a girl, were found and reunited with their father in January 2001. They continue to live with him in Stratford.

Ms. VandenElsen, charged with child abduction, successfully argued in court that taking off with the children was necessary to protect them from the emotional harm of being separated from her.

But last August, the Ontario Court of Appeal threw out her acquittal and ordered a new trial, scheduled for this September.

Mr. Finck was convicted in 2000 of abducting his four-year-old daughter, whose mother had died, from an Ontario reservation in 1999.

He served a prison term and since his release has refused to undergo court-ordered psychological assessment and counselling.

The court wants both parents to undergo a mental health assessment as part of the custody case, Ms. VandenElsen said.

Both have refused.

"There is not one piece of evidence, nothing," she said. "No one can substantiate an allegation that I, or my husband, need mental assessments. This is not about fitness. We are political misfits. We are a real threat to the family law system."

Ms. VandenElsen has written a book called America's Most Wanted Mother about her treatment by the legal system and her flight with her three children.

The couple are determined to keep fighting what they consider to be a corrupt family law system. Mr. Finck has a website detailing his battle to keep his daughter, Chantelle Rose, whom he has not seen in 4 1/2 years.

"There was never one shred of evidence that either one of us ever harmed our children," said Ms. VandenElsen, a former high school teacher.

"This is a political witch hunt . . . a multibillion-dollar standoff - that's what it has cost taxpayers to pay for this family law industry."

The industry abuses and exploits children and their families, she said.

Ms. VandenElsen described Mona-Clare as "healthy and very attentive."

"She's just thriving, she's sitting up, rolling over. She's in the beginning stages of crawling. Her needs are her mother and father."

Indeed, evidence given at the Nova Scotia Supreme Court hearing in January included this statement from a Halifax doctor:

"No concerns re: baby/interaction. Mother seems very stable and extremely loving toward baby."

The doctor also said she observed both parents on several occasions, calling them "loving, caring and concerned about their baby."

But Justice Deborah Smith questioned whether either Ms. VandenElsen or her husband was mentally healthy enough to provide stable care for the infant.

A report from the Children's Aid Society in Stratford, Ont., described the pair as "confrontational and verbally aggressive. Mental health requires assessment."

In January, Ms. VandenElsen left Halifax with her baby, then three weeks old, fearing rightly that Children's Aid in Halifax was preparing to take her newborn daughter.

When society workers went to the Shirley Street home with an apprehension order, neither she nor her baby could be found.

Mr. Finck said at that time that the couple had begun making plans months before the birth to prevent Children's Aid from taking the baby. He said he did not know where his wife and daughter were.

Ms. VandenElsen would not say when she and her baby returned to Halifax but she revealed that she and her husband have taken the baby out for walks around the neighbourhood.

"Anyone who has seen us can tell we are loving parents and our baby is healthy and happy," she said.

Baby used as Hostage

May 8, 2004

A breastfeeding mother is being held against her will. Social workers have told her she will lose custody of her child on leaving their facility. She can leave for only an hour at a time, but never with the baby. No other family members are allowed to visit her, though at least three have tried including the baby's father. While kept in isolation, she has been given legal documents to sign.

To avoid bringing further wrath on the woman, we are deliberately vague about identifying details. In further news we will identify her by the pseudonym Helen.

More Power for Children's Aid

May 7, 2004

Ontario's new Liberal government has already appropriated more money for Children's Aid, now they are giving them more power as well. For years, foster children enmeshed in unwanted 'care' have been able to return to their parents at age 16. Now they will have to wait two more years.

Here is the short article from the Globe and Mail:

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Children's aid societies may get more authority

UPDATED AT 8:02 PM EDT Thursday, May. 6, 2004

Toronto -- Ontario is considering increasing the authority of children's aid societies so that they have the power to take children from age 16 to 18 out of prostitution, Children's Services Minister Marie Bountrogianni said yesterday.

"If they're 16 and find themselves being sexually exploited, the police can step in, but not children's aid," Ms. Bountrogianni said.

As part of a review of the province's children's aid societies, Ms. Bountrogianni said the government is also looking at whether children's aid should have authority over children as wards of the province until they turn 18. The present cutoff is 16. CP

Stratton to run for Office in Charlotte

April 29, 2004

Today Jack Stratton, a man who has lost ten children to North Carolina child protectors, announced he will be running for office in Charlotte. He has established a website above, and he has promised to expand it rapidly with new, and interesting, material. His announcement of his candidacy follows:

Note: The website was removed folowing the end of the campaign

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April 29, 2004

From Charlotte, NC
Mecklenburg County

Mecklenburg County vs. The Stratton Family

Today I filed with The Mecklenburg County Board of Elections to run for an at-large seat on the Mecklenburg County Board of County Commissioners. The Board of County Commissioners is also the oversight Board of Social Services. I am running on the Libertarian ticket.

Should I win, I will be a member of the Board of Social Services. As such I will have complete and unfettered access to all the records and case files of the Mecklenburg DSS / CPS. Need I say more?

Among my opponents running at-large will be incumbent Mecklenburg County Commissioners Parks Helms (D) and Ruth Samuelson (R). There is also a newcomer, Andy Dulin (R), who has already raised $ 65,000 for his campaign. Also running at-large is Lewis Guinard (R), whom I support. Helms and Samuelson are well-connected insider incumbents and obviously Dulin has the funds to mount a substantial campaign. The Republican Primary is obviously going to be tough, with Samuleson, Dulin, and Guinard. Of the three, Guinard is the clear choice but like me is a decided underdog. The reason I am running is to get our children back. This cannot be done through the North Carolina Courts because they have proven to be composed of the exact criminal elements that illegally kidnapped our children in the first place. I have ascertained that the only way to get our children home is to expose the criminal child stealing network, thereby causing it's collapse with the resulting scandal and political pressure forcing the return of our children. Once the lower level criminal elements are exposed, a domino effect will begin and the higher-ups in the operation will sacrifice the lower level individuals to criminal prosecution in order to protect themselves. The attrition of the criminal element will continue to work it's way up the criminal chain of command until our children will have to be returned by the higher-ups in order to halt the process. Therefore, the central theme of my campaign will be proving that the Mecklenburg County Child Slave Trade exists and exposing it's elements to the general public. Expect Charlotte, NC to become one of the hottest spots in the country in the the next six months leading up to the November elections. I intend to turn our local county commission race into a national campaign and I hope to make my Mecklenburg County campaign a prototype for how to use guerrilla tactics to defeat the DSS / CPS agencies across the nation. I am currently building a new website at jackstratton.com. It will be an active website. In addition I hope to fly in Roger Brown as a guest speaker here in Charlotte. As far as I'm concerned, Roger is the top expert in the nation on the government child slave trade operation. In addition to the BOCC campaign, we will launch a multi-pronged defense of our children as well as a multi-pronged attack on those who are holding them hostage. Thanks to those across the nation who are encouraging and supporting us.

Jack

Addendum: Within a day of his announcement, Jack Stratton, while addressing the judge about the case of his own family, suffered a heart attack. He remained hospitalized until May 6.

Press Coverage in Windsor

April 27, 2004

Citizen's For Social Morality, CFSM, plans regular demonstrations. The next will take place on Friday May 7 from 1 to 3 pm in front of the office of Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Community and Social Services, at 1483 Ouellette Ave. A simultaneous demonstration will take place in Brantford. A Dufferin demonstration requires at least one more organizer. If you are willing to help organize, please call Dufferin VOCA at 519-942-0565 or 519-942-9341.

There is a new website for this activity, Family Rights, Operation Fight Back.

The Windsor Star published the following article in response to the last CSFM demonstration:

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CAS boss welcomes probe

CRAIG PEARSON
STAR STAFF REPORTER

Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society executive director Bill Bevan confirmed Monday the province is investigating his agency but said he welcomes the review.

Bevan said he expects the Ministry of Youth and Children's Services, which began looking into the Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society in February, will find the local institution has acted properly -- though he's ready to fine-tune operations if need be.

"We're open to any public scrutiny", said Bevan, noting all CAS's are already audited twice a year.

"We're accountable for what we do. But if there's something that we can learn about what we're doing, then we'll look at that".

"On the other hand, with the mandate we've been handed and with the legislation that's there -- and what the ministry staff set out to do -- we feel we stick pretty darn close to that".

The local number of kids in care per 1,000 is 9.83, marginally higher than the provincial average of 9.61.

Windsor cabinet ministers Dwight Duncan and Sandra Pupatello say they have in the last five years received a significant increase in complaints about CAS from parents who feel their children have been apprehended unjustly -- a trend they passed on to Children's Minister Marie Bountrogianni.

A recently-formed group called Citizens for Social Morality has picketed Pupatello's office twice in the last two weeks and plans to continue in order to push for a change in the Child and Family Services Act, which they say gives too much power to the CAS to intervene. Regulations tabled in 1998 and officially adopted in 2000 allow case workers to apprehend when they suspect neglect rather than needing proof of abuse.

"We have some individuals picketing the minister's office and that's certainly a concern", Bevan said, and we are happy to have a review. "We'd rather get to the bottom of how we're conducting our business and be able to say to the public, 'Yes, everything's fine'. Or if there are some areas we can work on better, then we'll adjust".

Bevan said he understands that the community might wonder about rising numbers of apprehensions, which can be traumatic for the child and the family. The number of kids in care in this area is a record 828.

CAS CALLS Referrals to Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society: 1999 -- 1,871 2002 -- 3,441 Percentage change -- 84 Children served for every 1,000 children in the community (selected municipalities) Durham -- 7.67 Waterloo -- 7.72 Provincial average -- 9.61 Windsor -- 9.83 Niagara -- 10.07 London -- 11.49 Hamilton -- 12.63   Source: Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society

Between the 1998-99 and 2002-2003 fiscal years, apprehensions climbed 40 percent across the province -- and 63 percent in Windsor -- though seven of the 52 CAS's in Ontario have seen even steeper increases.

"Windsor is increasing at a high rate, but not the highest rate", Bevan said. "Not close to the highest".

Bevan said that a judge, not the CAS, ultimately decides which children come into care. As well, he said, the community is facing more problems, such as the rising use of crack and other serious drugs, which mean children need more protection.

And since the legislation requires professionals to call when they suspect abuse, CAS fields a lot more calls these days, especially from community workers and police who together account for 65 per cent of referrals.

"Police are a big part of the increase in calls", said Bevan. "But it also reflects a better knowledge base on the part of professionals.

"A lot of lightbulbs went on in our community. People were saying, 'My God, we really weren't calling Children's Aid that much before'".

In response to Bevan: Government audits are limited to assuring that appropriated funds are expended for the intended purpose. They cannot deal with the question of whether children are seized unnecessarily. A judge does not decide which children go into care -- Children's Aid workers do that without judicial review. Parents who want their children returned are reduced to responding to a court application, at which point a judge may make a ruling returning the children, but that relief is limited to parents with the means to hire a lawyer. The use of crack rose two decades ago, not in the period since 1998. CAS bullies professionals into snitching. Every professional child care worker knows of cases in which a person has been criminally prosecuted for failure to report.

Windsor Demonstration

April 21, 2004

There will be another demonstration in Windsor Ontario on Friday April 23, 2004 at 1:00 pm. The location is outside the constituency office of Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Community and Social Services, at 1483 Ouellette Ave. Participants from outside Windsor are invited. The organizers are:

Dave Dunkelberger
wddpooldoctor@netzero.net
586-445-1695

Amal El-Hage
amal_elhage@hotmail.com
519-948-4744

Dolores Sicheri
socialperspective@hotmail.com
519-735-7818

Police tell family to shut up

April 16, 2004

The following article is from the Toronto Star on the case of pedophile Douglas Donald Moore. The foster family that employed Moore has been advised not to speak. The article also questions the authenticity of the suicide claim.

There are many more questions to answer. The police turned a known monster loose on the community, resulting in the death of three men. The crown took children from their parents by force of arms and placed them at the mercy of the monster. Misfits like Mr Moore don't act responsibly, but what about the police and child protectors? They are busy shifting the blame to Mr Moore and the foster parents.

Note: The original url, now expired, is: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer ?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1& c=Article&cid=1082067019582& call_pageid=968350130169&col=969483202845

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Apr. 16, 2004. 06:57 AM
GTA COLUMNISTS

Pedophile's past stuns family
'Polite' man had list of sex crimes
Woman denies he babysat kids

MELISSA LEONG AND BOB MITCHELL
STAFF REPORTERS

A member of a Caledon family whose foster children are alleged to have been among those sexually assaulted by Douglas Donald Moore says they were "shocked" when they learned he was a convicted pedophile and suspected of being a serial killer.

Police have advised family members, who want to tell their side of the story, not to speak to the media. But in a brief interview, a woman who identified herself as the adult daughter of the foster parents said the Moore they knew was "polite and well mannered."

"He didn't appear to be a monster," she said, indicating that the photo of Moore released by Peel police doesn't look like the man they knew.

Moore, 36, who was found dead in his jail cell April 2 -- an apparent suicide -- is the prime suspect in the murders of Rene Charlebois, 15, of Mississauga; Robert Grewal, 22, of Mississauga; and Giuseppe (Joseph) Manchisi, 20, of Milton.

The woman, who didn't give her name, said her entire family was "in shock" after learning of Moore's past. He had a long history of sexually assaulting children. He had been arrested March 15 and charged with 11 sexual assaults against three young children, two of whom were allegedly violated while in the Caledon family's care.

At the time Moore died, the Ontario Provincial Police were set to lay more charges in connection with alleged sexual assaults on at least two other children, one of whom was also thought to have been victimized while in the same family's care.

All the children have been removed from the foster family by the Peel Children's Aid Society.

The March 15 arrest was Moore's first since he finished an eight-year prison sentence on Dec. 27, 1997, for several sexual assaults involving youths.

The woman who spoke with the Star said the family understands the public has many questions about its involvement with Moore. She said the family would tell its story when the time is right, but also insisted, contrary to media reports, that Moore was never allowed to babysit any of their children.

Despite rampant rumours that Moore might have been killed in his cell to prevent him revealing the reasons behind the killing of the three men, a police investigation yesterday concluded that Moore's death wasn't due to foul play.

But Halton investigators wouldn't confirm that Moore hanged himself in his cell at Maplehurst Detention Centre in Milton; they would say only that they have determined that "no criminality" was involved.

The ruling paves the way for a mandatory coroner's inquest, probably a year away.

The coroner won't officially reveal the cause of death until then, and Sergeant Jeff Corey said nothing would be released "that might jeopardize or prejudice a coroner's jury."

Even the relatives of some of Moore's victims have found it difficult to believe the sexual predator could have killed himself while under a suicide watch.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act prevents the reporting of virtually everything known about the Orangeville 14-year-old who was charged earlier this week with two counts of accessory after the fact in the killings of Manchisi and Grewal.

Police won't reveal what they know about the connection between Moore and the accused teen or whether the teen knew any of Moore's victims.

All that can be said about the Grade 9 student is that police allege he helped Moore dispose of and take the bodies of Grewal and Manchisi to woods about 20 kilometres south of Montreal, sometime between Nov. 12, when the men went missing, and the Nov. 15 discovery of Grewal's mutilated remains.

A DNA match didn't identify Grewal until April 7, five days after Moore was found dead.

A search under way in the same area near Mercier has yet to find Manchisi's remains.

The accused teen wasn't charged with any crime connected to Charlebois' slaying. The remains of the Meadowvale Secondary School student, who disappeared Dec. 12, were found under mounds of garbage in a landfill site north of Orangeville on March 19.

CAS Foster Home Employed Pedophile

April 8, 2004

A foster home operated by Peel Children's Aid employed Douglas Donald Moore, 36 years old, as a baby-sitter. Police believe he committed 11 sexual offenses against three children, two of them euphemistically called mentally challenged. The Peel Children's Aid Society told the Toronto Star that two of the children involved were living in their foster homes when the incidents occurred. According to the Star, the father of one of the alleged victims said his son described being taken by his foster mother to Moore's Orangeville cottage, where he was sexually assaulted.

These facts came to light after the March 19 discovery of the body of Rene Charlebois, 15, at the Mono dump site on third line north of Mono Centre Road. Police believe Mr Moore murdered Rene, as well as two other missing young people, Giuseppe (Joseph) Manchisi, 20, of Milton and his friend Robert Grewal, 22, of Mississauga. Rene was last seen alive December 12, and the two other young men were last seen November 12, 2003.

Police recount a history of offenses by Mr Moore. In 1986 he was convicted of four counts of sexual assault in Brampton and placed on two years' probation. In August, 1998, he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old boy in British Columbia and was sentenced to four years in prison a year later. Police, and reporters, say Moore sold cocaine, and Charlebois got cocaine from him for resale.

Police traced Moore to the Royal Motel on Plains Road in Burlington by cellphone intercepts and arrested him there March 15 after breaking down the door to his room. They entered his room this way because he was considered a suicide risk. After arrest he was charged with committing 11 sexual offenses at a Mississauga residence. He was found dead in his cell at Maplehurst Detention Centre in Milton at 3:30 am April 2, 2004. There has been no comment on why a suspect considered suicidal was left to kill himself. Before his death, Moore was expected to be charged with other sex offences. Police declined to say what the connection is between the deaths of Rene Charlebois and the other two victims, declined to name another person connected with the deaths, declined to reveal the circumstances surrounding the death of Rene Charlebois, and declined to say how Mr Moore became a suspect.

This story is extracted entirely from press reports in other media, but with the spin favorable to Children's Aid removed. What follows is a press release by the Peel Police.

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PEEL REGIONAL POLICE

Attention News Editors:
Peel Regional Police - Body of missing boy found

BRAMPTON, ON, March 31 /CNW/ - An investigation by the Peel Regional Police in conjunction with the Ontario Provincial Police has led to the discovery of the body of 15-year-old Rene CHARLEBOIS, who went missing from the area of his Mississauga home on December 12, 2003.

The body of Rene CHARLEBOIS was discovered on March 19th in a public landfill for the Town of Mono, which is located on 3rd Line east of Highway 10. In addition to the recovery of Rene CHARLEBOIS' remains, clothing was located on the 3rd line enroute to the dump which may have belonged to the deceased. The cause of death is as a result of foul play. A homicide investigation has commenced.

Rene CHARLEBOIS was last seen around 3:30 p.m. leaving Meadowvale Secondary School, at the end of the school day. When he did not return home, and was not heard from by 9:00 p.m. police were contacted. Since this time, two news releases were issued and media coverage was provided.

The investigation is continuing. Anyone who knew Rene CHARLEBOIS or who has any information with respect to his whereabouts or activities prior to his disappearance is urged to contact the Peel Regional Police Homicide Bureau at 905-453-3311 ext. 3220, or Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS/8477.

A photograph of Rene CHARLEBOIS can be seen by clicking on http://files.newswire.ca/53/CHARLEBOIS.jpg.

For further information: Contact: Cst. Wendy Sims, Media Relations, (905) 453-2121 ext. 4027;

Addendum: The Globe and Mail, reports on April 10, 2004:

The alleged sex assaults that finally led to Mr Moore being detained all occurred at a bungalow in rural Caledon where a couple in their 50s had a number of Children's Aid Society youngsters in their care. Over a period of several years, while helping out as a babysitter and handyman, Mr Moore is believed to have attacked three, possibly four of the boys living there, including two described as mentally challenged.

Windsor to Demonstrate Against CAS

April 4, 2004

A group based in Windsor Ontario plans a demonstration against the Children's Aid Society. The demonstration will take place 1 PM Tuesday April 6, 2004 at 1438 Ouellette Street in Windsor. Large numbers have already been recruited, along with media coverage. People within range of Windsor have an opportunity to express themselves by attending. Contact information for the organizing group is in their flyer and petition, which follow:

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CFSM
"Citizens for Social Morality"

Our children are not business units subject to provincial re-imbursement ..."

Please take the time to contact the following MPP's and make your informed opinion of the "Children's Aid Society" known to them.

Marie Bountrogianni @ Fax# (416) 325-6195
Sandra Pupatello @ Fax# (416) 325-1498

* If you would like further information, assistance or would like to sign our petition, please feel free to contact us: Amal @ Ph# (519)948-4744, Dolores 735-7818, Dave email: wddpooldoctor@netzero.net

THIS PETITION IS FOR A NEWLY FORMED ADVOCATE AND SUPPORT GROUP, THE CFSM "CITIZENS FOR SOCIAL MORALITY". OUR PURPOSE IS TO ADVISE GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA AS TO THE NEGATIVE IMPACT, BROUGHT UPON OUR GOOD CITIZENS, BY THE "CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY". WE'D ALSO LIKE YOU TO KEEP THIS IN MIND, THE NEXT CHILD APPREHENDED COULD BE YOURS, A RELATIVE'S OR A FRIEND'S. TO THOSE ALREADY AFFECTED, PLEASE KNOW THIS. SOMEONE DOES CARE AND YOU ARE NOT ALONE. PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR NAME AND PHONE NUMBER, WHICH WE SHALL KEEP 'CONFIDENTIAL'. SHOULD YOU DESIRE FURTHER INFORMATION OR ASSISTANCE, CALL ANY OF THESE #'S AMAL (519)948-4744, DOLORES (519)735-7818, DAVE (586)445-1695.

[The petition includes space here for the name and phone numbers of up to 13 signatories per page.]

To: Honourable Member of Parliament
Re: "Citizens for Social Morality"

This correspondence is intended to announce the formation of the "Citizens for Social Morality" or CFSM. This is a group of parents who have come together to advocate for the reform of Ontario's Children Protective Services (CPS). CPS philosophy continues to be child focused. As a result the family unit is harmed. Delivery of services must be to the child within the family unit, not just to the child.

We, the parents have designed the "Citizens for Social Morality" to be a political action/support group. It will function as a parent information/resource centre.

We intend to work through the public media to bring pressure on the ministry of the Child, Family, and Community Service to bring CPS back to its original legal protection mandate. CPS should not see itself as the default provider of Children's Mental Health Services nor as the sole provider of other children's services as its philosophy is adversarial to the family.

It is our intent to force the reform of the Child and Family Service Act of 1999. This law has been misused to apprehend large numbers of Canadian children. This behaviour is not only morally and socially reprehensible; it is also financially onerous to the people of Ontario. The Minister's solution is now to put all these reimbursement units up for adoption. This present legislation is so vague that aspiring bureaucrats are using it to create a business dealing in children. Our children are not business units subject to provincial reimbursement. We wish to make this absolutely clear to our elected representatives. As the funding of this agency is piecework based, it is financially rewarded for each file opened and each child apprehended. Files are being opened in this community, which should have never been opened.

The current legislation gives CPS workers more power than any policeman, physician or judge. CPS social workers lack both the training and skills to wield this power. The rights of Canadian parents and children are being routinely trampled on in the name of "child protection". This is a flawed piece of legislation, which must be rewritten. The time lines of the revised Act of 1999 are biased against the parents. We, the parents need to open up the process to proper public scrutiny, in order to ensure a level playing field. Families must face proper judicial review and be allowed fair and proper legal representation. Under the present legislation, even the lawyers do not want these cases because they realize that these families cannot be fairly represented.

We, the undersigned, wish to bring the light of day to the workings of this secretive organization.

Dave Dunkelberger 17135 Forest Eastpointe MI 48021 Ph&Fax (586)445-1695
D.A.Sicheri (519)735-7818
A.El-Hage(519)948-4744

Addendum: According to the organizers, about 15 demonstrators came, including ten wearing CFSM T-shirts. There was some coverage on local radio, tv and the Windsor Star. No news items on this demonstration could be found by Google. Feedback from the publicity has added several new members to the group. Another event is now in planning.

Brantford Wants CAS Reform

April 2, 2004

Brantford wants to reform their Children's Aid Society. A note placed in a free advertising flyer suggesting that people call about problems with Children's Aid produced thousands of calls to the phone in the ad, that of Brantford MPP Dave Levac.

There are already over three hundred signatures on this petition:

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To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Whereas The Children's Aid Society of Brantford needs a review of it's Operating management Plan to better relations between The Children's Aid Society of Brant and the families of Brantford.
We the undersigned petition The Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows. To review the operating management plan of the Children's Aid Society of Brant. The review to include more effort in investigation, more training and supervision of staff of the Children's Aid Society of Brant. This will allow for proper and fair treatment of families involved with The Children's Aid Society of Brant.

More efforts to reform Children's Aid can be expected soon in Brantford.

Ontario Taxpayers Cover Prodigal CAS

March 30, 2004

The Ontario government recently announced supplementary funding for Children's Aid Societies throughout Ontario to clear up existing debts. Children's Aid can now overspend its budget, and the Province will cover the gap.

Gary Putman complains of inequities in the funding formulas. Since those formulas are a secret, this claim could be as misleading as the allegations used to steal children. If CAS can succeed in getting $210 reimbursement per day, eighteen years of care comes to $1,380,645. Custody of even a single child can produce large rewards for CAS, rewards beyond the means of all but the wealthiest parents.

The following article is from the Orangeville Banner:

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Friday, March 26th, 2004
Family services gets relief from debt
KAREN MARTIN-ROBBINS, Staff Writer

Dufferin Child and Family Services will be getting $286,900 in additional funding from the provincial government, which will clear up a deficit it has been carrying since 2002/2003.

"We are very pleased," says the local organization's executive director, Gary Putman. "It doesn't mean we will be providing additional services, but it pays off a debt we have been carrying."

The province promised this week an additional $20.7 million to clear Children's Aid Societies (CAS) deficits across Ontario.

In February, the government also promised $64.1 million to relieve escalating deficits in the current year.

"We must find more permanent homes for children and youth to give them a bright future," said Dr. Marie Bountrogianni, minister of children and youth services, in a press release. "By investing in children and youth today, we are helping Ontario succeed tomorrow."

With the funding, the Liberal government committed to reforming the child welfare system -- which Putman says is much needed.

In 1998, the Tories introduced a new funding formula for CAS, which included reviewing the benchmarks every three years.

Putman says the benchmarks have not been adjusted since 1998 -- so the organization was forced to carry a deficit.

"There was a real variance between the funding we were getting and the real costs," he says.

For example, Putman says the organization presently has about 15 children in its care that are considered needy. He says these children are in group homes outside of the community, where there is adequate staff to meet their needs.

But, those group homes cost on average $210 per day per child. The government's funding formula only provides $72 per day per child.

"I think, with this (new) funding, the government has shown that it recognizes the need for a new funding formula," he says.

For the record, here is a fact sheet released by the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services:

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Fact Sheet

March 22, 2004

NEW FUNDING TO CLEAR HISTORIC DEFICITS
A Real, Positive Change for Children in Care

The Ontario government is providing an additional $20.7 million to clear Children's Aid Society 2002/03 deficits. Since January, the government has provided approximately $85 million in new funding to help relieve financial pressures at the agencies, and has indicated that future funding will be tied to specific targets that help ensure brighter futures for children and youth.

ADDITIONAL CHILD WELFARE FUNDING	(in 000s)
CAS of London and Middlesex	$1,801.1
CAS of Owen Sound and the County of Grey	606.7
CAS of the City of Guelph & the County of Wellington	20.5
CAS of the City of St. Thomas and the County of Elgin	263.1
CAS of the District of Rainy River	313.4
Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto	979.5
CCAS of Hamilton-Wentworth	200.7
Chatham-Kent Integrated Children's Service	370.8
Children's Aid Society of Northumberland	290.8
Children's Aid Society of Ottawa	351.4
Children's Aid Society of Oxford County	3.7
Children's Aid Society of the Region of Peel	9.7
Children's Aid Society of Toronto	4,953.3
Children's Aid Society Stormont, Dundas, Glengarry	316.2
Children's Aid Society, City of Brockville & Counties of Leeds & Grenville	17.1
Dilico Ojibway Child and Family Services	93.6
Dufferin Child and Family Services	286.9
Family, Youth and Child Services of Muskoka	203.0
Hastings Children's Aid Society	733.5
Huron Perth CAS	2.6
Jewish Family and Child Service of Greater Toronto	70.0
Kawartha-Haliburton Children's Aid Society	835.2
Kenora-Patricia Child & Family Services	644.2
Payukotayno: James and Hudson Bay Family Services	0.8
Services aux enfants et adultes de P-R Services to Children and Adults	625.6
The Children's Aid Society of Haldimand-Norfolk	27.8
The Children's Aid Society of the County of Simcoe	721.3
The Children's Aid Society of the District of Thunder Bay	686.8
The Children's Aid Society of the Districts of Nipissing and Parry Sound	60.9
The Children's Aid Society of the Districts of Sudbury and Manitoulin	1,696.6
The Children's Aid Society of the Durham Region	1,036.6
Tikinagan Child and Family Services Inc.	1,669.6
Weechi-it-te-win Family Services Inc.	836.6
Total	$20,729.6

For more information visit www.children.gov.on.ca

For further information: Andrew Weir, Minister's Office, (416) 212-7159; Anne Machowski-Smith, Ministry of Children and Youth Services, (416) 325-5156

ONTARIO MINISTRY OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH SERVICES

Conservatives nominate CAS opponent

March 11, 2004

Michael Menear, the lawyer successfully opposing the Children's Aid Society on behalf of a family in the Church of God congregation in Aylmer Ontario, is the Conservative candidate for federal parliament in the riding of London West. Following are excepts from the article announcing the results from the London Free Press:

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Conservatives acclaim candidates in two ridings

CHIP MARTIN, Free Press Politics Reporter
2004-03-11 03:55:15

Conservative candidates have been acclaimed in the London West and Sarnia-Lambton ridings. One's a rookie, the other's a seasoned political veteran. Nomination meetings set for tonight are now "meet the candidate" nights, as London lawyer Michael Menear and former Petrolia mayor and two-term MPP Marcel Beaubien were acclaimed in London West and Sarnia-Lambton, respectively.

(snip)

Menear, 51, is a former law partner of past London mayor Dianne Haskett. He has set his sights on toppling Liberal incumbent Sue Barnes, also a lawyer.

He couldn't be reached for comment yesterday, but said earlier that, if elected, he plans to bring "a principled conservative approach" to government.

He has attracted national headlines for his legal defence of an American tourist charged in London for spanking his child, and for representing Church of God parents in Aylmer, whose seven children were seized by the Children's Aid Society because the parents struck their children.

Menear is a founding member of the Christian Legal Fellowship of Canada.

(snip)

Tilson to be Conservative Candidate

March 7, 2004

The Conservative Party of Dufferin-Caledon voted today to make David Tilson the candidate for federal parliament in the next election, to be called possibly as early as this spring.

The vote was:

Peel Police Charge Six People in School Board Fraud

February 5, 2004

The following article on malfeasance by staff of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board has no direct connection to child protection, but we will keep watching. It comes from the Toronto Star.

Note: The original url, now expired, is: http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer ?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1& c=Article&cid=1075979013066& call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

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Feb. 5, 2004. 08:24 PM
Six charged in $780,000 school board fraud
'Fraudulent use' of grants to the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board

CURTIS RUSH
THESTAR.COM REPORTER

Six people, including a school superintendant, a principal and two teachers, have been charged with defrauding $780,000 of money intended to help students get career counselling and vocational training.

Four had worked for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, but only one was still employed by the board as of yesterday.

One was terminated in May, 2002, for "various serious wrongdoings" as a result of a forensic audit carried out by the school board during the investigation.

A principal retired in June, 2002, and a secondary school teacher resigned in August, 2003.

A teacher was suspended with pay today, said Bruce Campbell, a spokesperson for the board.

Two of the people worked as outside consultants and police allege they were acquaintances or business associates of one or more of the school board employees.

"It is a sad day for us," Campbell said.

Peel police allege that the former and current school board employees, as well as two individuals and one corporation, were involved in using false invoicing to divert money received from the federal Human Resources Development Corp.

The alleged fraud also involved secret commissions and was managed through a program called Project Place, which was disbanded in 2002.

From 1998 to 2002, Project Place received about $4.3 million in total funding, Campbell said.

The school board spokesperson added that the board has implemented corrective measures, including a new code of ethics, to prevent further alleged frauds.

"A lot of things got done and some good work got accomplished," Campbell told thestar.com.

Detective Sergeant John Betts of Peel Police said more charges are expected to be laid in the next four to eight weeks but won't necessarily involve people tied to the school board.

Asked if more money is involved, he said: "Yes." He said he didn't know how much.

"We've interviewed over 100 witnesses," Betts told thestar.com.

In addition to money supplied to the school board from Ottawa, police allege that general funds at the school board had also been obtained by employees and related parties through fraud.

"It first came to our attention in late 2001 through our finance department," Campbell told thestar.com.

The funds were accessed through private companies owned and operated by school-board workers, police added.

All those charged with various fraud and bribery offences are from Ontario.

They are former school superintendant Beverly Williams of Brampton, former principal John Price of Burlington, former teacher Nick Kotsos of Georgetown, and Toronto's Patrick Hinchey, Larry Cash and Joanne Menard. Menard was the only teacher still working.

The Toronto-based corporation Cash Lehman and Associates also faces fraud-related charges.

Nomination of Conservative Candidate

January 30, 2004

An important election will occur on Sunday March 7, 2004. At that time, the Conservative Party will select its candidate for the riding of Dufferin-Peel.

In the last federal election, the combined votes for the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance exceeded the vote of the Liberal Party. That means it is entirely possible that the meeting on March 7 will be choosing the next federal MP for the riding.

David Tilson, former MPP for Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey will be a candidate, as will Don Crawford, the Canadian Alliance candidate for the same riding in 2000. There is a substantial difference in views toward social services and family law between these candidates, so the choice will make a real difference to those concerned with family rights. Mr. Tilson has been a champion of Children's Aid, Mr. Crawford has not.

In order to vote in the election, you must become a member of the Conservative Party of Canada on or before February 15, 2004, at a cost of ten dollars. You must also be prepared to spend most of the afternoon at the meeting, since there may be several ballots and there is no proxy voting.

If you wish to join, Dufferin VOCA has application forms. Email rtmq@stn.net or call 519-942-0565 or 519-940-9847. You may also join directly through the Conservative Party of Canada.

Tilson to run for Federal Parliament

January 23, 2004

According to today's Orangeville Citizen, David Tilson, champion of Children's Aid, will run for the nomination as the Conservative candidate for the riding of Dufferin-Peel. The nomination meeting is to occur on March 7. The article quotes Mr. Tilson as saying:

There are several ways in which someone can represent a riding. One is dealing with constituency problems, people that have problems with the government. How you deal with those problems are very similar from Queen's Park and in Ottawa. The second way you represent your riding is making sure your riding's interests have been heard on any kind of issue".

David Tilson has been a champion of Children's Aid in the past, and publicly lauded the law firm representing Children's Aid. When he was the MPP for Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey, he appeared regularly in the press smiling next to Children's Aid Society workers. Mr. Tilson's wife, Judith Birchall, is a lawyer who practices family law. The experience of Dufferin VOCA is that in the past Mr. Tilson did not hear the voice of people that have problems with Children's Aid.

Missouri Ends Registry of Child Abusers

January 9, 2004

In Ontario, parents accused of abuse by Children's Aid and later exonerated by a judge remain on the child abuse registry. In Missouri a judge has rejected that procedure as unconstitutional. Perhaps an Ontario judge, under different constitutional law, will eventually make a similar decision.

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January 9, 2004

(Jefferson City-AP) -- A judge has declared Missouri's list of suspected child abusers unconstitutional.

Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan says the list does not adequately protect the rights of people who may have been accused, but never charged or convicted.

His ruling yesterday is in a case involving employees of the Heartland Christian Academy, a non-denominational school in northeast Missouri.

In 2001, school founder Charles Sharpe and three employees were placed on a registry of suspected child abusers, by a Division of Family Services officer. That was for paddling two children.

Neither Sharpe nor the other employees were convicted of child abuse. But requests to remove their names from the state-maintained registry were rejected during an administrative procedure.