The CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS is Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982. The initial and defining statement for this document states “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:”
This document begins with a title, an actual warranty to citizens like you and me and Zabeth and Paul Bayne, namely, the Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms. Then in numbered articles the Rights and Freedoms in Canada are articulated. For instance, article one says the following:
1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
In this noteworthy document Article 11 speaks about the rights of even those in Canada who have been charged with an offence. Even a person so charged has essential rights. Nine precise rights are specified for them. The fourth of these rights follows here.
11. Any person charged with an offence has the right …
(d) to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal;
I make that point to contrast the treatment of a charged individual with treatment directed to Paul and Zabeth Bayne. The former, the person charged with an offence, is to be presumed innocent that is until proven otherwise. Paul and Zabeth Bayne are not charged with an offence. However, their family, their normal life, their plans and hopes and dreams for their family have been interrupted to a degree that one might conclude that they are not only charged but guilty of an offence and that they are living out their punishment each day, and have been for twenty-eight months without a ruling of guilty against them. To call this an ‘Interruption’ understates the callousness not of social workers but of a system that requires the presumption of risk if not guilt of parents in order to protect children. That is the driver here. Having said that, I am unclear that there is an alternative approach. Someone more experienced in family law, family court, child protection and social services might have deduced by now some recommendations that could inject more mercy into the process for parents and family while still protecting children.
Now this case contested before the court is the Ministry of Children pitted against Paul and Zabeth Bayne. While they have not been charged with harming their children, they are effectively on trial for harm to their children, or if doing the semantic dance, then they are on trial to establish that they are a risk to harm their children - a great enough danger in fact that they should lose their rights to their children forever. They are such a risk as parents that these children who want to be with their parents should be cut off from all visitation, should be placed in a foster or adoptive home and should not see their birth mom or birth dad again – or at least until they are of the age of majority and as adult adoptees desire to find Paul and Zabeth.
So, the efforts of the Ministry of Children, its lawyer, and its witnesses in this case, project a portrayal of this couple that ranks them with the worst parents in B.C., without any redeeming qualities, not even one customary page of a few favourable comments could be made about them in the Risk Assessment of the MCFD. This should be viewed with amazement if not disbelief, given the facts that 600 people signed an online petition in support of returning the three children to the Baynes, and almost twenty thousand people have glanced at this blog site since October 2009, including social workers, MCFD, BC provincial offices in Victoria, many with regularity, and an auditorium of people dug into their purses to make donations to help the Baynes fund this defence. Does the Ministry know something sinister about the Baynes that none of their friends and family know. Perhaps, but so far that has not been evident in court as I can see. That's my take on it but of course Judge Crabtree will make the ruling. It can never be 'just' in this democratic society to remove one’s children for all time based on this portfolio of tracing paper thin circumstantial data. Rights and Freedoms should kick in right about now.
1. Link to a great teaching vehicle to look inside the Charter.
2. an effective site for teaching children the importance of rights of the individual.
Custody of one's own children and parent's rights, if any, in child protection hearings are not enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The heading before Section 11 states that this section only applies in proceedings in criminal and penal matters.
ReplyDeleteChild protection applications launched by MCFD are civil and supposedly non-penal in nature. Therefore all these constitutional protection does NOT apply.
CFCSA is carefully structured to circumvent due process and constitutional rights. It is oppressive, counter productive and barbaric. Few Canadians are aware (or even worse don't care) of this egregious and pious law until their loved ones fall prey in the "child protection" industry, which is largely dictated and perverted by special interests whose primary interest is aggrandizement under the pretext of "child protection".