Is there any reason to trust the Ontario children's aid society?

According to Premiere Wynne the public should just assume the school boards would work closely with the children's aid society without any kind of legislation or regulation or even a legal right to enter schools and needlessly interrogate children hoping to meet the agency's funding goals, so then by the same token (and as a sign of good faith) why can't we just assume the children's aid society would consent to be investigated or willingly register with the College of Social work or work closely with the Ombudsman's Office and the Privacy Commissioner without legislation or accept the findings and recommendations of Ontario's Auditor General unless the societies have something to hide.

Wynne didn't sell her soul to be Premier, she sacrificed children and their families having shielded the children's aid societies from all meaningful external oversight and accountability. The ministry can't be counted as external oversight and the child advocate doesn't have the same mandate as the Ombudsman's Office does.

Quote from the Toronto Star.

“The recent auditor general’s report demonstrates
what we have known to be true for a long time; that
the government has a reluctance to take ownership
and responsibility for a system that protects children
in this province,”

Irwin Elman, Office of the Provincial Advocate for
Children and Youth said in a statement to the Star.

“That reluctance has to stop now.”

The auditor’s report describes a child-protection system riddled with problems, from - improperly conducted investigations into child abuse to a Ministry of Children and Youth Services failing to fully enforce standards.

Societies also fail to make mandatory checks of the Ontario Child Abuse Register, which would signal if caregivers have a history of abuse.

According to Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, not one of the child-protection investigations her office reviewed was done within the required 30 days. Instead, the cases took an average of more than seven months.

In 2006, the auditor said that in about half the files reviewed, the full investigation was not completed within the required 30 days of referral.

In 2015, the auditor said not a single child protection investigation was completed within the required 30 days of being notified of concerns.

Why complete an alleged investigation when you can just take the family to family court and get a supervision order or just apprehend more long term funding with a sworn affidavit and no supporting documentation?

As the law stands now clients of the Ontario children's aid society under Wynne's fiberals are routinely denied a timely (often heavily censored) file disclosure before the court begins making decisions and the clients can not request files/disclosure under the freedom of information act nor can censored information reviewed by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario or the federal counter-part.

The Former Privacy Commissioner, Anne Cavoukian, wrote in her 2013 annual report.

“I am disheartened by the complete lack of action to ensure transparency and accountability by these organizations that received significant public funding and as part of the modernization of the Acts called on the government to finally address this glaring omission and ensure that Children’s Aid Societies are added to the list of institutions covered in order to guarantee that the sensitive data being managed by these agencies was being properly handled and secured. She was ignored. In her 2004, 2009, and 2012 Annual Reports she recommended that Children’s Aid Societies, which provide services for some of our most vulnerable citizens – children and youth in government care, be brought under FIPPA.

See: Unprecedented' hack (or not so unprecedented incompetence) allegedly puts Ontario children's aid info on Facebook.

http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2016/04/19/child-services-lanark-leeds-grenville-hack.html

The only oversight for the province’s children’s aid agencies comes from Wynne's liberal Ministry of Children and Youth Services.

Read more here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/beef-up-information-laws-ontario-privacy-czar-says/article1120573/

The Peel Memo Leak - back in 2013 the children's aid society claimed there was a province wide funding shortfall of 67 million dollars and decided the best way to deal with that was to act in bad faith and defraud the government out of the tax payers money by adding as many cases to ongoing services as they could, up to 1000 if possible.

Between 2011 and 2013 the 46 separate societies investigated a combined total of 42 000 families or about 14 000 investigations per year, in 2014 - after the Peel memo leak (see link below) - the societies investigated a combined total of over 82 000 families (reopening 20 000 previously closed files) in a single year as reported by the Toronto Star.

Is there any good news Ontario can extrapolate from these facts?  Yes, there aren't nearly enough parents legitimately abusing or neglecting their children in Ontario to meet the children's aid society's fundings goals and child abuse isn't nearly as bad in Ontario as the society would have us believe.

Read more here:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/14/in_leaked_memo_peel_cas_staff_asked_to_keep_cases_open_to_retain_funding.html

Province in talks with Peel Children’s Aid Society over strategies in leaked memo.

Defrauding the tax payers is just a funding strategy?

Read more here: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/15/province_in_talks_with_peel_childrens_aid_society_over_strategies_in_leaked_memo.html

Gene Colman, a Toronto family lawyer who handles cases involving CAS, said his office has been puzzled by the substantial increase in people calling because of CAS intervention in their families.

“I thought, ‘What’s going on, why are we getting so many calls?’ I wonder if it’s related. I don’t know,” he said not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth definition. Don't question the value of a gift. 

Child welfare agency found to have wasted money on office renovations, consultants and bloated management.

In a 25-page report kept under wraps for months, the ministry slams the CAS for budget deficits, having too many executives, paying them too much, its medical clinic and questionable expenses in its 2013-14 budget.

Highlights of the report, obtained by The Free Press after the paper filed a freedom-of-information request:

• The CAS spent $300,000 to renovate a leased office at 685 Richmond St.
• The agency shelled out $51,000 in parking fees.
• 22 executives were paid more than $100,000. The number at comparable agencies was 15.
• The agency spent $50,000 in taxis, including $3,535 for one client during two months.
• The bill for technology was nearly $85,600.

Included in the tab were 23 iPads ($19,600), $26,000 for remote access to desktops and $40,000 in other costs.

The agency trimmed staff and cut some programs and services, freeing up space at its headquarters but left the bloated management intact.

Read more here: http://www.lfpress.com/2015/03/16/child-welfare-agency-found-to-have-wasted-money-on-office-renovations-consultants-and-bloated-management

“Justice will not be served until the taxpayers who aren't directly affected are as outraged as those who are.”

Between 2008/2012 natural causes was listed as the least likely way for a child in care to die while "undetermined cause" was listed as the leading cause of death of children in Ontario's child protection system. 

Watch the 2014 Ontario's Pediatric Death Review Commission Music Video. "A child in care is a child at risk."
https://www.facebook.com/FamiliesUnitedOntario/videos/564870907056011/

Read more here: The written PDRC report.
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/DeathInvestigations/office_coroner/PublicationsandReports/PDRC/2013Report/PDRC_2013.html

The little PDRC pie chart that knew too much.
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/sites/default/files/content/mcscs/images/195633-19.jpg

Little Shop Of Horrors - Any Suspision Will Do (Git It) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ea5jKFGgUw

The London and Middlesex agency spends about $300,000 a year for the clinic staffed by a pediatrician and nurses. The ministry doesn’t provide funding for the clinic and recommends the agency use community resources.

A committee is studying outsourcing the clinic’s work, said Michelle Bacon, project manager at CAS.

“Its primary purpose is to meet the medical needs of kids in care. It is highly valued by staff and care providers. It cannot be replicated in the community.”

(I guess if you had something to hide having your own private hospital is the way to do it...) See: http://www.lfpress.com/2015/03/16/child-welfare-agency-found-to-have-wasted-money-on-office-renovations-consultants-and-bloated-management

Oddly enough out of the hundreds of "standards" the societies claim to follow, the societies have no standards for ethics, morals or accountability.

Then top it off with -> THE FRONTLINE WORKERS in Ontario represented by CUPE are firmly opposed to oversight from a professional college and the society refuses enforce the law by requiring their workers to be registered. Wynne refuses to enforce the social worker registration law because the children's aid society has reclassified themselves child protection workers. A distinction without a difference.

Scary Mary Ballantyne, the Executive Director of the Ontario Association of children's aid societies says she worries the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers doesn't know the difference between a systemic issue and ethical violations. Boy, isn't that just the pot calling the kettle black.

Here's a concept that's completely foreign to Ontario's children's aid society

SECTION 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a constitutional provision that protects an individual's autonomy and personal legal rights from actions of the government in Canada as represented by a government funded children's aid society, a government funded court and government funded legal aid lawyers.

This Charter provision provides both substantive and procedural rights. It has broad application beyond merely protecting due process in administrative proceedings and in the adjudicative context. Procedural law or adjective law comprises the rules by which a court hears and determines what happens in civil, lawsuit, criminal or administrative proceedings.

The degree of protection dictated by these standards and procedural rights vary in accordance with the precise context, involving a contextual analysis of the affected person's interests. In other words, the more a person's rights or interests are adversely affected, the more procedural or substantive protections must be afforded to that person in order to respect the principles of fundamental justice.

SEE: WHY DO OUR RIGHTS (PARENTS RIGHTS) NEED TO BE PROTECTED.

Daycare worker eyes appeal after being sued for contacting CAS

"MALICIOUS SUSPICIONS ARE THE SOCIETY'S REASONABLE GROUNDS"

In his ruling, Deputy Judge Lewis Richardson said Larabie’s call to the CAS was panicked, that the boy was in good health, nothing was found “to suggest that (the child) was in any danger” and there “were no reasonable grounds for the complaint.”

The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies said the ruling is concerning because it could potentially inhibit someone’s ability to phone in reports with or without reasonable grounds to do so. (see: 2013 Peel Memo Leak linked above)

Read more here: http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/26/daycare-worker-eyes-appeal-after-being-sued-for-contacting-cas

Barbara Kay: Children's aid societies gone rogue

Judge Harper concluded the children's aid society had acted in bad faith, that the damage to the children was permanent and pointed out the father was lucky to dig out from under the avalanche that had been thrust on him.

Judge Harper also noted that the situation had been made worse by actions of the police, some women's groups, the school, the church and other social trolls.

Read more here: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-childrens-aid-societies-gone-rogue

Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex v. C.B.D.: Interests of the Children Lead to Quashing of Appeal in Child Protection Context.

See: [29] "Within the meaning of the act."

(Is the society going outside the meaning of the act to meet their funding goals? All factual evidence says they are despite the society's claimed "good intentions.")

Quashing an appeal for lack of merit is an extreme remedy. But occasionally, when very little merit coincides with another social interest, an appeal can be quashed for a combination of reasons. Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex v. C.B.D., released October 9, 2014, is an example of this, as the Ontario Court of Appeal quashed the appeal of the Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex (the “Society”) from a decision refusing to impose a child protection order. The Court held that the appeal had very little merit, and the interests of the children mandated that the appeal be quashed.

By Mark A. Gelowitz on October 31st, 2014 Posted in Standards of Appellate Review

READ MORE HERE: http://www.conductofanappeal.com/childrens-aid-society-of-london-and-middlesex-v-c-b-d-interests-of-the-children-lead-to-quashing-of-appeal-in-child-protection-context/

These rules are designed to ensure a fair and consistent application of due process (in the U.S.) or fundamental justice (in other common law countries) to all cases that come before a court.

Canada's legal system is based on a heritage that includes the rule of law, freedom under the law, democratic principles and due process. Due process is the principle that the government must respect all of legal rights a person is entitled to under the law and I would assume receiving a full disclosure before any court starts rendering decisions is covered by due process and the right to defend yourself, a federal right that is routinely violated in the family courts under Wynne's Ontario liberals.

In Canadian and New Zealand law, fundamental justice is the fairness underlying the administration of justice and its operation. The principles of fundamental justice are specific legal principles that command "significant societal consensus" as "fundamental to the way in which the legal system ought fairly to operate", per R v Malmo-Levine. These principles may stipulate basic procedural rights afforded to anyone facing an adjudicative process or procedure that affects fundamental rights and freedoms, and certain substantive standards related to the rule of law that regulate the actions of the state (e.g., the rule against unclear or vague laws).

A legislative or administrative framework that respects the principles of fundamental justice, as such, must be fundamentally fair to the person affected, but does not necessarily have to strike the "right balance" between individual and societal interests in general.

The term is used in the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and also the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Fundamental justice, although closely associated with, is not to be confused with the concepts of due process, natural justice, and Wednesbury unreasonableness.