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These articles were posted to the Canada Court Watch message board by an author using the screen name "stunned". The author, initally anonymous, later identified himself online as Andrew Skinner. Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:03 am Hey everyone, I hope I am doing this correctly. First timer here, both dealing with C.A.S and writing on boards, the C.A.S is way more scarier though, my spouse and I are still having nightmares. I wish I knew how our children were doing coping with this. It's been 5 months. We wanted to share our encounters this far, very short and watered down version I will add. As we all know the struggle gets harder to deal with and explain as time goes by. We can honestly say after reading this much about C.A.S and seeing these things happen, we are truly terrified, but refuse to back down. Maybe we can save some innocent children from this in the future. We have accepted that we may lose our children and our family will never be the same again. I worked in the civilian aviation industry prior to 9/11. Immediately following the tragic events of that day, I joined the military, as my father had done and his father before him. For starters no aviation companies were hiring and to be honest, I had a sense of honour and duty in serving my country, to fight for democracy, freedom and human rights. I was truly inspired and motivated to do what was asked of me to defend my country and uphold basic human rights and freedoms. More importantly I joined for my family... my 2 beautiful children and spouse. I was 30 years old and scared out of my mind at the decision I made, but I had made the decision and was going to carry it through. It was a drop in the bucket compared to some other peoples sacrifices. I fulfilled my contract in 2006 and opted to try the civilian sector again. I released with only 2 weeks notice and prepared to move out of military housing in Trenton, Ontario. My spouse returned to the workforce and was offered an assistant manager position in Kingston, Ontario. She had spent the last 3 years at home, raising our 3rd beautiful child. Normally we both worked, but with military commitments and a new child, my spouse decided to stay at home. While waiting for our apartment we decided to stay at a families residence in Kingston, Ontario. Just prior to this, the estranged grandparents had contacted us. The history of these grandparents is full of violence, drugs and crime, hence the estranged. We have had approximately 2 years contact with them in 16 years, my children less. They had made attempts to gain custody of 2 other grandchildren in 1996 and when we made contact with them in 2001, they threatened custody of our 2 children and we broke contact. There was no contact again until around Christmas 2005. They had expressed an interest in visiting with the children and after some short visits and a few 1 night sleep overs, they had asked about watching our 2 oldest children while we settled in Kingston, Ontario. Everyone seemed excited and after a month discussions, we agreed. The children did take a liking to the grandparents and our 11 year old daughter took a real liking for her over indulgent grandmother as did the grandmother to our daughter. The grandmother is a step-grandmother and could not have children of her own, plus they had lost contact with their 2 other grandchildren. I think they spoiled our children just a little more due to this. What else can you ask from grandparents, spoiling and over indulgence are a rule with grandparents. I can't wait to spoil my own grandchildren some day, if I get the chance. On October 15 2006, I think I woke up in Nazi Canada. Our Rights and Freedoms non-existent and to this day we feel we are wearing arm bands. I have been to Dachau growing up in the military and have been taught of the horrors and suffering that took place. I mean absolutely no disrespect and tear up now as I remember the things I saw there as a child. I just do not know how else to explain what is going on. The rights I was willing to fight for have disappeared. We have been forcefully evicted from a families home by the Children's Aid Society with threats of abducting relatives children. We have lost our income and our children may be in need of some real protection. Is The Charter and Law actually being ignored. Is there some sort of corruption happening here. I thought maybe no one knew what was happening, in the beginning. Are we wearing arm bands? The grandparents had contacted Children's Aid Society about abuse taking place in our home. Now we are not perfect parents, but not to boast, we think we do an excellent job teaching our children ethics, values, responsibility and consequences. We are involved with our children, but who can't say they couldn't do more. We have to admit we have spanked the older children as a last resort, never our youngest as he is only 3 years old. When questioned by the Society, both my spouse and I could not recall the last spanking, the children are getting older, grounding and loss of privileges works best, but 2 or 3 spanks to the bum has happened. We have never referred to any of our children in a demeaning way. We love our children. Like all responsible loving parents, we have been tough at times. Coming home after school 5 hours late, will get you yelled at and punished for 2 days, I accidentally swore I was so upset. If you decide the next day not to come home again, you will get double. I did not accidentally swear that time. Skipping school at 10 years old to go to the museum is unacceptable, even if grandpa was going to be there. Wearing make-up is not acceptable at 11 years old, gloss is acceptable for now and we will talk about make-up later. These confrontations and disrespect for rules did happen more frequently in the last 2-3 months before moving. Right about the time the grandparents started having more visits. We thought the rebelling was pre-teens, stress from loss of friends, the move. We were extremely naive looking back. The grandparents were letting our daughter wear make-up, and walk up and down the road. “Showing off for the boys” the grandmother commented. My spouse had immediately told our daughter to remove the make-up. One of many underhanded strategies the grandparents used to make us look like unfair parents to our 2 oldest children. We have not seen or heard from our children in almost 5 months. The Children's Aid Society has cut off all contact in court and used it against us, then tried to deny there was an order. According to affidavits filed by the grandparents we smoke crack, speed and meth., I beat my spouse up, have even given her a black eye and broke her glasses. This is the grandparents' history, not ours. We have worked hard to accomplish our goals, not smoke crack. I was in the military for heavens sake. I think about my poor little 3 year old boy being all alone with strangers, and cry. According to the Children's lawyer he doesn't want to come home. I look at the police report saying my 2 oldest children wish to return home, but their lawyer says they don't. We feel helpless and scared. We have tried to contact many government officials only to be ignored and right out lied too. Everyone does agree Children's Aid Society has too much power and is out of control, but appears to do nothing. We have been over the internet and from what we have read, 100's if not 1000's of people are crying for change and losing their families while waiting. We fear we are going to lose our children through injustice. Children must be protected but not through injustice and unaccountability, this is how mistakes are made. We have been told unbelievable things by our so called lawyer and we can't understand why the lawyers have not spoken out, the judges. Is there really some corruption happening here? Since the Children's Aid Society has abducted our children we have been basically cast out in the street, lost our employment, have had no adequate representation and have become completely untrusting of democracy and justice in this country. As I wade through the false affidavits, lies from Children's Aid Society, conflicting reports from police and the Society. I think there is something wrong in this country. We fight for Democracy... we just don't practice it. It must be the arm band. Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:39 am Thanks for all the replies... so quickly. Nice to know some people out there are listening. I'll try to sum up some of the things you all mentioned. We had taken up an offer from the grandparents to allow our 2 oldest children to stay in the grandparents home while we moved about 1 hour away. We all had agreed to allow the children to stay to approximately Nov. 1 2006, which was 3 weeks. My spouse and I thought it would be easier for the 2 oldest children to stay in their school until we had apartment set up and new school registration done. The day this all happened, our youngest, my spouse, and I, were actually going to visit the oldest children. We were going out for supper and then a movie together. A few minutes after we arrived at the grandparents, the grandfather said there was a problem with the children staying there and going to school, so if we wanted them to stay there we would need to sign temporary custody to the grandparents. Of course we refused and said we would just take them with us, there was lots of room where we were staying and it was only for another 2 weeks. We knew something was up. This is when the nightmare started, the grandfather said that they had contacted C.A.S and if we tried to take the children they were suppose to call C.A.S and the police immediately. My spouse and I figured this would be straightened out once the police arrived. It definitely did not happen that way. We were told that the 2 oldest children were remaining with the grandparents and our youngest could either go to a foster home or a relatives by the worker that arrived. After being called a liar by C.A.S, I was then told by the O.P.P officer that I was lucky this didn't take place in his jurisdiction, cause he would arrest me, cuff me, ruff me up, and tell me to my face I was a liar. My spouse and I were then escorted 2 minutes down the road to the Military Police Dept, where I would be placed under arrest. The Military Police questioned my spouse for awhile by herself and then we were told we could leave. From what I heard from the Children's Aid Society was I had smashed my daughters head into a wall, was beating my spouse and the children were scared to come home. We only seen the 2 oldest children for a minute upon arriving, they went to the back room. When the grandmother started yelling we would never see our children again and we went outside I seen my daugther crying and my oldest son looked scared. We asked the 2 oldest to wait in the car. We did not agree at all to let the oldest children remain there. We were actually quite vocal about the grandparents involvement. We asked if all 3 children could be in a foster home together for support. When we tried to explain the estranged grandparents history and previous threats we were told we were pointing fingers, of course the C.A.S documents state we agreed on a temporary basis. The Military Police video of my spouses interview that day states she really thought this was the grandparents doing. As for our youngest son, we did agree to temporary placement with my familiy, we were told a few days. I have also been told by Legal Aid, that we can not change lawyers, which seems absurd, and the other really strange thing is... When we initally started calling lawyers, it seemed 3/4 of them immediately said "No, we don't deal with Children's Aid Society matters" I have been told that there are less than a handful in our immediate area. I have told our lawyer we would do drug testing, and suggested all parites be tested or at least 1 of the grandparents. Lawyer says it is not important. Eventually telling us that it cost to much and Legal Aid will not pay. We know the grandparents are involved with drugs. It was one of the things we had talked about before allowing the children to go there for the 3 weeks. I really dont know how to get the testing done myself, but will check online. I hope it is not to expensive. As for the worker's name, I would prefer not to give it at this time. To be honest, C.A.S calling me a liar and an abuser meant nothing to me. It was not putting down what we had said about the grandparents that burned us up. Atleast we have the Military Police video and we have asked our representation right from court date number 1 to mention it. They never went into details in court, but our concerns were mentioned. I can understand C.A.S wanting to get to the bottom of the accusations, looking out for the children, but disagree if they used illegal or underhanded tactics to get us to leave our children. I really hope they didn't, but seems they are very deceitful and one sided. As I also mentioned, we haven't had contact with the children since early December. First time I met anyone from the Society besides the worker that arrived was at the end of March. Took C.A.S approximately 5 1/2 months to talk to us. When they approached us at court they wanted to talk. I told them to wait for my lawyer to arrive. We had a brief meeting about our youngest son, birth information, etc. As for going to court within 5 days that didn't happen, but I think we did receive the court documents to appear within the 5 day time frame, but will double check now. Thanks all, We feel better just knowing people are there. Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 6:44 am Thank you for posting Viz, As I mentioned in the post they are estranged grandparents, but my spouse and I have noticed the grandfather looking a little exhausted and stressed in the last few appearances. We dont communicate anymore with them, but we think he may realize what is happening. They thought they would have control, but found out that they do not. They have had to sit in a few session and listen to the lies, with him knowing all along that its not the facts. We also know the false afidavit he signed is eating away at him, we have quite a bit of proof. Now if I can only get our lawyer to stop saying its irrelevant. I think enough recordings of her deny our rights will bring make her a little more agreeable. Oh wait thats their tactics Very Happy Here are two more posts, from other threads on the same message board. Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 1:40 pm Recently we have been taping all conversations with CAS and our lawyers. We have been mislead by our lawyer as well. It would almost seem some lawyers are involved with the scams being brought before the Family courts. We contacted The Upper Law Society of Canada, within 1 hour our lawyer has called us back and is being as nice as pie. Then again we do have recordings of her telling us false information and refusing to bring forth our evidence, etc. Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:49 am We just wanted to say how great of a job you have been doing exposing this complete perversion within the Children's Aid Society and Family Justice system. We really think you have done an awesome job with your web site and documenting this. We have some information ourselves on Kingston Children's Aid Society, which we will be exposing along with our tapes as well. We have went from a high double income family to Welfare and our family is totally broken up. Three children dispersed throughout the region. No contact for 5 months when our older children started saying they wanted to come home and our 3 year old was abused in care, leaving marks on his face back in December 2006. Hang in there, I know how difficult it gets at times. Thinking about all the lies being told, worrying about your childrens well being and mental anguish over these civil right violations. Its disgusting and some times hard to appear calm and together because they are STEALING OUR CHILDREN against their wishes with lies. We do not drink or use drugs and to be totally honest we have thought about having a few drinks to help us forget or going to the doctor for something to help us cope. But are still managing to hold together somehow. I hope you have a good support network for yourself because your well being is just as important to your children as their well being is to you. Children's Aid Society will try to break you and then hold it against you as most know. If you live in the Kingston area we would really like to talk with you personally. We presently reside just outside Kingston. Please shoot us an email and we can talk via email, phone, or in person. Networking and organizing ourselves is paramount when fighting injustice and power mongers. fixfamilylaw@sympatico.ca The same person posted his story on another board, this time using his real name, Andrew Skinner. Children's Aid Society Corruption Fixfamilylaw May 3, 2007 6:49 AM Due to the unethical tactics, lies, mistakes, unprofessionalism, rights infringements of the Children's Aid Society, we have become extremely hesitant almost paranoid to deal with this private, unaccountable, out of control organization alone. After refusing to talk with Children's Aid Society without a representative or our ability to record all meetings, our lawyer finally agreed to attend the office of the Society on 17 April 2007 to set up a time to visit our 3 year old son for the first time in over 4 months. The meeting lasted approximately 45 minutes and we were told to bring some pictures and a letter for our son as soon as possible. A meeting was scheduled for 24 April 2007 for our first visit (Documented). We were asked to bring some toys and books from home. Our lawyer would be unable to attend but we had another advocate which would be in attendance. We left the appointment with wishes of good luck from our lawyer on seeing our son. We dropped off the pictures and letters to the Society on 18 April 2007. We arrived at the Children's Aid Society just before 1300 hrs on 24 April 2007. We were asked to wait in a room and 2 workers came in. This is when we were told that our son would not be present. IT HAS BEEN OVER 4 MONTHS SINCE THIS LITTLE BOY HAS SEEN HIS PARENTS. According to the Children's Aid Society it wasn't agreed that our son would be there. They then proceeded to say that it was understood we were only meeting with the 2 workers. Demeaning remarks like “doesn't that ring a bell”, “don't you remember” and “your lawyer agreed” were used. (Documented). All I can say to this point is that we are totally disgusted and thank god for digital tape recorders that fit easily in any pocket. We definitely want to go to trial now and await Children's Aid Society next round of threats and unethical, illegal actions. Recently we have had some concerned words with our lawyer, who has told us on several occasions that we might as well sign our children over for crown wardship if we will not talk to Children's Aid Society on our own. This seems absolutely absurd. This is the agency that has taken our children and put them with criminals, addicts, and individuals with mental problems. Does it make sense to communicate with the people who are taking you to court? These people can say whatever they want with absolutely no fear of repercussions against them. We are informed by our lawyer that Family Court does not operate like the criminal system. It runs on hearsay, sometimes 3rd and 4th party hearsay. So if this system operates on hearsay, does it not make sense to be able to show a persons credibility. Our lawyer tried to make us sign a 2nd affidavit that had 2 grammatical errors, 1 completely misspelled word, and a date that was wrong by 4 months. Our lawyer then told Children's Aid right in front of us that we refused to sign the affidavit. Our Lawyer has stated on numerous occasions that Children's Aid has horrific power and are very militant. After holding firm that we would not allow our children to be stolen away by criminals with the assistance of Children's Aid Society. Our lawyer finally told us that because Legal Aid does not provide enough money for certain things, we can not fight this properly. We have information such as:
I would like to stress that there are hundreds if not thousands of stories and cries for help. Why is nobody listening. This is an out of control, private agency. Will the Children's Aid Society gain revenue by stealing and/or adopting our beautiful children out? What about the recent reports of corruption, drug, and gun scandals within the organization. This is absolutely unbelievable. This organization must exist, but changes are paramount. I have served this country in its time of need. I was willing to risk my life not only for my family, but for all Canadian families. I had worked in the aerospace industry and was directly affected when the aviation industry crashed. I joined the military right after 9/11 to fight terrorism, to fight for democracy. I was almost shot in the back while guarding one of this countries weapons of war. The bullet hit inches from my feet. I swore an oath to this country to obey and protect democracy and human rights. I have been grossly mislead. It appears I was used only to be stabbed in the back by the corruption of the very laws and people I swore to protect. My spouse and I have recently joined a political party and a few advocacy groups and hope to be protesting in front of local government and Children's Aid Societies offices very soon. I hope you will not only hear our cry for help, but countless other families. You are allowing this agency to steal people's children. With the amount of information on the internet, government reports, and in the recent media. I think it is irresponsible of the government to not intervene. This agency is suppose to protect children. Somewhere they have lost their focus and seem to be acting out of fanaticism and right out disregard for the law, peoples rights and the safety of children. Extremely appalled with the country I served in a time of war, Andrew Skinner Source AETV Community Center After a six week delay, here is another post. screen name: Stunned Hello all, Just wanted to continue to update our story and advocate for everyone involved with this absolutely corrupt Family Law System and the Children's Aid Societies that our government allow to operate in our country under present Canadian Law. We have been extremely busy over the last few months gathering information, recording conversations, which I must add has only happened because we have educated ourselves on the tactics of Children's Aid, Family Law, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, have not relied on our legal aid lawyer, and have taken steps to protect our family. Back in December 2006, when we first started to see the unethical tactics of Children's Aid Society we decided to seek information online, which was in fact how we came across CanadaCourtWatch. Based on the horrific stories from citizens and government reports we began to record everything, including conversations with our lawyer, which I will cover. I would like to start on a positive note by saying that we have been able to visit our youngest child after 5 months of separation and my spouse has finally had one conversation with our oldest children in 8 months. I do believe that these are ending very soon as I have really exposed, in my opinion, the illegal actions of these people involved and have run out of resources to enable us to keep up with the Societies unethical tactics and demands. During our first meeting with C.A.S, which took almost 6 months for C.A.S to initiate, we were told with our lawyer present, that we would have a visit with our youngest child the following week. As I had stated in an earlier post that visit never happened. Instead we were put in a room with 2 C.A.S workers, which our recording shows were more interested in what we were going to tell our children about them and what they had done by cutting off contact by a court order than anything else. They were also extremely concerned about the advocates we had brought with us, actually showing concern about their presence and wanting full names of the parties. They say it is for the children's protection, but I would bet they really wanted to know if these people were involved with advocacy groups, political parties, or maybe civil lawyers. but that is our assumption. These people have actually known our family and are closer to our children than the estranged drug dealing grandparents who have custody. During our first actual visit with our youngest son, an emotionally traumatized women started freaking out outside the visitation room window, you can hear my son asking us what is wrong and why is that lady crying. The toys are filthy and almost all of them were broken. The teddy bears had stains and anything that was mechanical or took batteries was broken. Clearly stated on recordings. During a second visit, we had requested to go outside to play, as a family we have always been very active and outdoorsy. They actually say it is an unusual request to take your children outside. It was finally approved and we were allowed to take our child outside to play in an area of grass about 10' feet wide and 25' long. This is an unfenced chunk of lawn next to a main 4 lane highway. Absolutely unbelievable. I have taken pictures of the area. During our forth visit at a different office we again expressed a desire to go outside to play with our child. After much confusion as what seems to be a very unusual request we were allowed to go around the back of the building and play with some stones next to the maintenance shed. This is also about 20 feet from the C.A.S workers smoking area. I have pictures but our child is in every one, so will take new ones. I hope they do not call the police when I'm out back taking pictures. During our fifth visit, again our tapes will show that a frantic women came into the office screaming, crying, and demanding to see her children. The tapes clearly show my sons concern and worry about what is going on. I had to step outside of the visitation room, and plead with the women to stop and call CanadaCourtWatch, We understand her frustration, we truely do. Once again all recorded. Now I would like to comment on just these 5 visits for a moment. In 2 out of 5 of our visits to one of the Society's safe visitation rooms our youngest child has been exposed to trauma 40% of the time. The tapes clearly prove these things happened and effected and worried our son. Secondly our tapes clearly have the Children's Aid Society saying they have no funding for outdoor activities at either of their offices, but they can go to Carribean getaways and buy expensive vehicles. These tapes clearly have one worker saying they have absolutely no plan for our children. These tapes clearly have me following the C.A.S complaint procedure and a worker actually threatening me by saying "I better watch what I say". Now keep in mind this is all in the best interest of my children. When our children were apprehened we lived in another city, 2 districts away from the agency we are dealing with. According to the Society they were not apprehended but we agreed. This office illegally and against the Charter of Rights threatened to apprehend a family members children if we were not removed from the home. We have the letter. This left us basically homeless, but still with 2 incomes. Within 3 weeks my spouse was let go from work for being unable to carry out her managerial duties due to taking off days for court, lawyers appointments and her refusal to work overtime because this was the only time we could visit our youngest child. Our youngest child was placed in a third totally seperate district. After our son was physically hurt under their care and we called the police, the Society placed a court order cutting off all contact and moved our son to another district, unknowing to us. During this time we made arrangements to move to where our youngest child was, we were running out of resources and the travel, motels, and long distance were eating our savings up. Now our youngest is in another district. According to the tapes we have the agency with all its resources can not allow visits in our community due to the time and distance, but are expecting the parents whom they have sabatoged twice, to do the same thing. We have read the policy on a tranfer of files and have a tape of a worker starting to say they can not transfer files and than changing her story to say it is an unusual request they have never had to deal with when I question her first answer. It would appear to us that the Society is not only trying to sabotage our attempts to stabilize, but is trying to use these unethical tactics to their advantage to make it difficult for us to stay in contact with our children. On to our lawyer who has been caught numerous times on tape lying and trying to mislead us. We have done some research through The Law Society of Upper Canada's web page and can specifically point out 2 things our lawyer has breached. We have conversations of our lawyer saying everything we have is irrelevant. During our second visit we decided to take an advocate, just to keep our laywer honest. This second visit is completely different than the first or any other recording. In this meeting with our advocate present they clearly say they didn't know or were not aware of our evidence. They clearly state that they are going to look into specific things and actually take some of our daughters diaries and other letters to look over. Our advocate has also come to swear an affidavit on our behalf. The lawyer says to slow down we do not need to go that far yet. We received a letter dated shortly afterwards where this lawyer, it appears is trying to cover up their lack of action and responsibility to their clients. The letters states we have provided no evidence and they have not received any information about parties wanting to file afidavites. It seems they are trying to create a paper trail which gives the impression we have done nothing. We have also, as I stated in an earlier post, suspected the Children's Lawyer of lying about the children's wishes in court. The Society clearly stated that the children did not wish to return to our care. Now because our lawyer is either comletely incompetent or is somehow scared to speak up, I stated in court that we have official Military Police reports stating the opposite true. It was not until the papers were found to exist did our lawyer just happen to bump into the Children's lawyer and now 2 of the children wish to return home, and the third does not care one way or another. I was really hoping they would try to say the Military police had it all wrong and let them fight it out amongst themselves, but just the same their position has now changed. Is this due to a change in my children's wishes or just because they do not wish to call into question the police report. This is extremely disturbing. All this is on tape. Keep in mind our lawyer has no idea that they have been recorded. UNTIL TODAY. This is why we are now posting this update. We are mentally prepared to lose our children to lies, injustice and corruption. We have no choice but to accept the worst may happen due to all that we have read and witnessed. This agency has taken a loving, hard-working, responsible family and utterly destroyed it. We have ended up on social services and realize that the Society has systematically tried to destroy and paint a picture that facts show differently. They have showed double standards in their comments and actions about the best interest of the children. Today we finally confronted our lawyer with our tapes. We have them on tape now saying they are going to suggest we get a lawyer in our area. It was not until we told this lawyer we had taped everything did they want to drop our case. I actually told them we want to keep them in hopes they will change their corrupt ways and if they do not, we still wish to keep them because it will make the civil suit easier. They are not going to get away with what they are doing. We will take no other options now but a trial. We will end this mockery called Family Court and be preceeding with civil action. Our plan at this point is to draw closure to this outrageous explotation of our children. We will be both going back to work and we will then be using every dollar we make to seek justice and compensation, not in this joke called family court but in civil court. Wishing you all the best in your struggle. We hope you all have the same fortune as us in recording and fighting these tyrants, Stunned Source Canada Court Watch forum
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