Wednesday, August 4, 2010

DOES MCFD SPY ON PEOPLE? / Part 269 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

This anonymous comment was written this morning in response to a challenge issued to another commenter named CW with regard to a comment under the Part 211 entry of June 7, 2010 1:58 PM. It is assumed that CW is a social worker presently employed somewhere in the MCFD system. It revisits the subject of MCFD Launched Surveillance of Parents.

Anonymous wrote this:
CW, I have given you almost two months to seek confirmation from your superior whether MCFD mounts surveillance on parents under scrutiny. You refused and alleged that you can only speak for the Fraser Valley Region (see your posting on June 16, 2010 in Part 222), hence setting up a stage for your sweet double talk once I prove my case.

I have accepted your unilaterally imposed rules of engagement like not relying on PAPA’s surveillance page and information or video from outside British Columbia. Since you refused to provide the confirmation I seek, I will not provide the evidence to prove my case. You are quite right that I have evidence, but I am not itchy. Rest assured that evidence against such intrusive and other hideous activities will be made public in a platform that your Ministry will find much harder to deal with at a time of my choice.

You tactfully raised the following issues that render MCFD mounted surveillance on oppressed parents seemingly impossible:
1. after hours support services may be the province-wide Children's Helpline (your comment sent on June 7, 2010 1:58 PM in June 6, 2010 Part 211);
2. there is no budget in conducting surveillance (same as above);
3. Mr. Ray Ferris stated clearly that MCFD does not use "spies" (your comment sent on June 7, 2010 10:52 PM in June 6, 2010 Part 211)

For the benefit of scrutinized families and the advance of knowledge on MCFD activities, I affirm that MCFD does mount surveillance. They do not put up surveillance in every case and only do this if there is incriminating evidence to gain. For instance, surveillance is often mounted when there is a supervision order prohibiting unauthorized contact of one parent with children who must leave his/her family home to exchange for return of children under the custody of the other parent. If there is no surveillance mounted as CW alleged, then MCFD is not doing its to protect children by not policing the supervision order. Be at ease, damage control. In fact, they often send their undercover agents to stalk parents and stake out residence in the aforesaid scenario.

Although I am not going to provide tangible evidence, I will respond to the above allegations that CW had shrewdly alleged to mislead people:
1. After hours support service constituted 45.7% of total child removal costs, which amounts to $6,917,931 in 2007/08 (data source: Freedom of Information application). Is it likely that a 24-hour phone line cost almost $7 millions per year to run? No. After hour “service” mainly comprises of MCFD agents who remove children and respond to “child protection” calls after hours. I have seen them on fishing expedition outside family homes hunting for reasons to re-remove children even after midnight.
2. It is true that there is no account in MCFD’s budget to support surveillance activity. If you read their budget carefully, there is no account for their legal expenses as well. MCFD lawyers do not provide pro bono services. Likewise, no surveillance budget does not mean that they don’t mount surveillance. MCFD’s legal expenses are in the Attorney General’s budget. As for surveillance, I would direct readers to read the Consolidated Revenue Fund Extracts (Unaudited).
Starting from page 141 of this 402-page document, there are many individuals and number companies received over $25,000 from MCFD for unspecified reasons. Like foster parents, some of these surveillance agents may not be government employees and are third parties hired by CP SW. One of the duties of SW is to authorize expenditures for support services (read MCFD SW job description page 1 of job store # 174 posted in June 2010). Be mindful that payment recipients receiving less than $25,000 in a fiscal year are not listed in this document. God knows which and how many of these recipients provide surveillance service.
3. I do not recognize that Mr. Ray Ferris, an ex-service provider, is authoritative. Nor do I believe that his solutions will solve problems created by state-sponsored child removal. Although I appreciate his effort to unveil the corruption by writing extensively on “child protection” issues, he has told me nothing new so far. Mr. Ferris can speak critically now because he had retired. If he did this while he was still employed, he would have been fired. CW is banking on the trust that many bloggers have on Mr. Ferris. His disbelief on the surveillance issue does not mean that it does not exist.

In today’s blog,* Mr. Ferris suggested that abuse will continue if social work professors, B.C. Association of Social Workers and MLA don’t speak up. MCFD’s SW need not to register with the British Columbia College of Social Workers (Mr. Ferris erred on the name of the College). What does this has to do with the College? I guarantee that this sort of abuse will continue if government still retains the power to remove children from parents. (*A Ferris post appeared briefly today. Recovery later).

These allegations even fool oppressed parents who have not experienced MCFD mounted surveillance. This ministry can compel teens to do penile sex tests and kept it well hidden for decades. What else they are not capable of doing?

PS: Regarding your remark “teachers are not MCFD watchdogs”. Indeed, every person in the province is obliged by law to be MCFD watchdog and the entire province is their hunting ground. Listing teachers only as MCFD watchdog understates the witch hunt network."

24 comments:

  1. Continuing with Gove and the CF&CS.
    Judge Gove had a theory of the month.(Don't we all?) The solution to disconnect and poor communication between different services was to put them all under one roof. He also had the opinion that the senior administration of the social service ministry was far too pre-occupied with the financial services and neglected the child welfare work. So he proposed peeling off the child welfare ministry and making it into a separate ministry. In addition to this, he would take all the related services that had anything to do with children and put them into one big ministry.What was going to be done was that most of the child welfare bureaucrats were to be taken from the ministry and put into a new one. These were the same people who were confused about their mandate and had proved themselves to be inept at running anything. The same problem managers and supervisors would turn up with new titles, higher salaries and new areas of incompetence. It should have been completely predictable that the massive administrative fix for the non-administrative problems created the worst and most prolonged chaos in the history of child welfare in this province.
    The ministry for children and famiies MCF,became popularly re-dubbed the ministry of chaos and frustration. Inside the ministry, reorganisation frustrated the staff as much as the clients. People with no experience in the field were putin charge of others who knew the work. New controlling managers constantly interfered with the work of experienced and competent supervisors. Individuals could often no longer make decisions, but everything had to be handled by a team, which slowed everything down and created demands for more staff. Turf wars abounded.
    While the Gove Inquiry was still underway, the ministry bureaucrats were working on their own solution. The legal fix!! They came up with a bill for a new act, which they proudly touted. This was a ponderous new act, which clearly demonstrated the lack of any practical experience in any of its authors. In many respects it resembled the act which Vic Belknap had unsuccessfully supported in 1981. It made the fundamental error of trying to legislate practice. Right, we have no basic knowledge of the knowledge and skills required by child welfare workers and we have no idea how to train people, or to ensure that a congruent training programme can be guaranteed, so we have an instant solution. We will put everything in the act.
    As I have said so often (but does anybody listen) any piece of social legislation can be used as a tool or as a weapon. The choice is up to the people with the statutory authority. If you have a culture which promotes help and support and tries to be constructive, the law is a tool. If you have an organisational culture which is incompetent and anxiety ridden, the organisational culture becomes secretive, controlling, defensive and adversarial. Then the law clearly becomes repeatedly used in a hostile manner and is used as a weapon. The first thing that struck me when I read the bill was that it provided a formidable array of weapons for the wrong type of staff.
    Sure, a deputy minister was assigned to the job of taking the bill around and trying to get community input and support. YOu may be sure that they listened carefully, but only heard what they wanted to hear. I made an appointment and went to see the deputy. I pointed out some serious contradictions and problem areas, which were bound to arise. The result? Why was I the only negative voice when everyone else was so enthusiastic? The only one? In the Gove hearings held in Victoria, an uneducated woman from a parents self help group could not have put it better. She urged the judge to oppose the new legislation and said "Please don't let them pass this new act Your honour. There's far too many weasel words in it for my likin'". I could not have put it better.
    Continued

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  2. Look at it this way - we are dealing with an organization, or whatever you want to call it, that has, for over 20 years, APPARENTLY IN SECRET, attached apparatus to the penises of young boys, then forced those young boys to watch pictures of naked children, WHILE listening to narratives of rape.

    This is the kind of mentality we are dealing with. These are people who have no ethics whatsoever. Even without any proof whatsoever it is easy to presume that they would be the kind of organization that would engage in surveillance. They abuse children - what else can you call their "research" where they subject children to narratives of rape?!

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  3. If MCFD was an individual, and they were in court being judged on their character, and their credibility, they would fail, so miserably.

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  4. I note Worksafe BC has an official policy on surveillance, and it is part of the law they operate under to investigate abuses of insurance claims.

    It would make logical sense for MCFD operatives who have an interest the safety of children to know if a parent who has been told to leave their home and is under a restraining order. Obviously there would be a temptation for that parent to re-enter the home when no one is looking and visit the children and spouse.

    When my children were removed, I was aware MCFD would want me to try to contact my children at their school so they could take advantage and escalate the severity of the removal, but I did not give them that excuse.

    I applied to ourt watch my children's activities. It as granted by the judge, but on her own, she imposed a distance no-contact restriction of 50 feet. Essentially, my request was turned into a restraining order.

    Keep in mind, this was at my children's public fields, where coaches, other children, the foster parents were present, and I really did not need to ask for permission to be there.

    The foster parents in this case watched me closely. Over a year later, on the day of court, emails from the foster parents informing me of the various violations were entered as evidence, ostensibly proof that I violated a court order.

    MCFD creates barriers after removal and hopes parents will violate them to help bolster the very weakly substantiated removal. It is highly beneficial for MCFD to be able to record wrongdoing by parents who are "not yet" in jail.

    Parents, if they manage to catch these people in the act, they can charge them with harassment. If it is ever discovered these people worked for MCFD and they did this on a regular basis, it would be another embarassment just like the penile testing debacle and hiring sexual deviants to do the testng.

    A freedom of information request on court records and police records for MCFD restraining order violations might reveal the frequency of parents caught violating such restraining orders.

    An investigator catching a parent violating such a restraining order would have to call the police or MCFD after hours to alert authorities, and would probably stay anonymous.

    I've heard from several parents and one foster parent who claim to have been watched and followed. There is no proof of course, but also no reason for me to disbelieve the information. Such proof would have to be counter surveillance, video evidence, tracing any payments, frequency, multiple sightings from different parents.

    It would be a reasonable precaution for parents reading this who do have a restraining order to have a notepad to write down license plate numbers, a camera with a good zoom to catch images of possible "investigators." Put any examples of illegal surveillance on youtube and fight back!

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    1. Oh My God!! Here's my hat its off the you, I so relate to everything you have covered. My reading your story validates experiences I have endurred of the latter stage of my existence. I used to be employed at the service field and provided survelience for ministry whild under contact. unknowingly and quite intrigued by the adventure. now on the other end of the four part systemic upside and downside of the picture. more and more I'm convinced of their scrupulous convictions capable of mass destructions war tactics taking down fellow human beings for pure nominal persuasion. I was in a state of mass shock because of my disbelief , professional dismemberment of ethics performed by so called culivated, socially director of family and life exector capacity invested interest in Not the children and families best interest per se not family, not cohesiveness, not preservation of such family units or their obvious cultural connection to the immediate primary group, loved ones, most significant relationships to be terminated, rather interest in its simplest form. An account for the professional status for the purposes of division, Ministry assholes erected for sole purpose of deconstruction of family units, not ever having the confidential information pertaining to that particular family or family member. which supports the secret from the very people developed this whole government scandal. Colonial corrhersion obsession with money, power and greed out of this world control freakish trip. With no signs of letting up. Mcfd and their soldiers are moving at a rate of mass casualties in their path. hence the need for the other side to the coin. the enforcement regime. aka rcmp and associate officials and non-official unofficially contracted people from low economic level to the ridiculously rich people unknowingly fall into the entrapment of systemic capacity. Stagmizing the whole of innocent people and their born rights, rob them of their inherent rights so personal as their children. Families documented as suffering isolation and supported that peice of recorded material again I need remind readers that the basis of this began with the information an allegation, malisiously conjurred up to hurt the person. Retaliation mostly. from a pissed off family member w ho didn't know any better irresponsibly acted out in a moment of weakness, unknowingly fell into the Government Web of impurity, evil, currupt minded, illegal bodies. all woven together in a tight network of do gooders blinded by the system. Families who have demonstrated good family systems with notable parenting traditions that promoted protection of loves one Typically an offspring a sacred gift given to us to have for safe keeping til they reach the age of majority. groups who have spent entire lifetimes establishing, social workers freed them from contest in-action of their subjects. I have to share also that with my unique position they deem necceassry to support their weakest cases in court. financially motivated for all involved except for the subjects at the center of the abuse. Why I say unique is because I've been exploited where I was contracted by a ligit family services agency and then dbl as a spy for mcfd. I thought it was cool at the time. Policing secretly in a neighboring community watching an unsuspecting family, like sitting ducks. I did it, I feel like a dope now. I was paid a good sum of money, unknowingly caused harm probably, that protected information. high profile, I've been on all levels of the spectrum. service provider, political platform charged by supporters with good heads on their shoulders, now service rendered service received, targets of spy work, an observer, and subject. subjected to the enormous structures deemed Gods and Goddesses of parenting righteousness deputized by her majesty amnesty with the power so dangerously evoked onto vulnerable families. Trust me I'm one of the good guys I know what I'm talking about.

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  5. I know of one parent who had someone, they don't know who, watching them a few days after a false allegation was made. This person was in a very unlikely, hard to reach, remote place, somewhere no one has been since, or prior to that time, and they were looking - from their vantage point - into the parent's window. Coincidence?

    If I was a parent who was worried about MCFD - and all parents should be concerned about MCFD - I would always assume that they were doing everything legal and illegal to do whatever it took to get and keep children. This is - as the penile testing scandal proves - a criminal organization, engaged in criminal acts. They just haven't been charged. Yet.

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  6. Ron, I must say I am surprised & disappointed with you.

    You have just done, exactly what yourself and others who comment on this blog state is the cause for their disdain/distrust of MCFD.

    You have condemned a person based on completely unfounded accusations by an anonymous accuser.

    I will no longer be "contributing" to the conversations held on this blog, as a result.

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  7. Well CW, today has not been my day for numerous reasons.
    As I read and write at 10:33 PM, your response is the hopefully the final episode in a sorry day.

    I hope that you have decided to read your own comment here and read my reply even if for the final time and before you kick into your silent treatment. You must know, but perhaps you need me to say, that the opinions expressed were Anon's and not mine. Did you see the entire post pretty much in quotation marks – which meant the piece was by Anon. I thought that you might take his/her challenge on and provide a suitable response for us all. Frankly I am sick and tired of the blatant and categorical censure and slander of all social workers by some contributors. It makes me second guess my willingness to accommodate comments at all. What I desire is sincere, meaningful, evidentiary comment. This writer today wrote some points which you had said and replied with points as well. You say I got it wrong. Oh well. Like I said – not my best day. You do know that this comment would have been included among the many comments today to a post I originally wrote but that was removed earlier in the morning to be re-edited..

    At no point have I condemned you nor in fact did I perceive condemnation in the post. A rebuttal certainly. An Attack possibly. I will be sorry to miss you comments.

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  8. It seems like a simple question, does surveillance exist as an activity with MCFD, regardless of whether it is condoned or not?

    Possible answers are "yes," "no," "I don't know," "I've asked 10 people and they all say...," "I've asked my supervisor of x years experience and the answer is "..."

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    1. I've have been hired as a watchdog I knowingly contributed to the the turmoil totally taken advantage of my niavity of the whole thing.

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  9. I'll be very surprised if CW stops posting here. But then again, I suppose he (or she) could always keep posting anonymously. Wherever and whenever you find criticism of child protection you will always find a CW. Always. If he or she goes, someone will surface to take his or her place. Guaranteed.

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  10. I really don't get the guilt tripping CW is doing to Ron - what on earth has Ron done? It seems rather odd to be attacking Ron because of some remarks that another poster made, and that Ron had to post because of the blog malfunctioning.

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  11. Yes it is sad now MCFD operates. They have no real case against me. I was not even doing a breach of my terms, but they hoped I would. They are playing a little game with the supervision order and are actually disappointed when the parents do nothing wrong.

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  12. The other thing that is strange is how much money MCFD has for these spy activities. I was also spied on. I was in a remote place and a man was parked in the van and watching us and taking notes. There was not enough wrong doing on my part to warrant it, and I am quite nervous as court approaches for me, since I know that thousands had been spent on my case by MCFD and they have a lot at stake to present me in a bad light. I am prepared for a huge fight.

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  13. I was in a group that studied my life for three years as I was a single mom on welfare and the group had a federal government grant (this was from about 1999 until 2009 that they had the grant) to see what is happening with child poverty.
    I had extensive MCFD involvement at the time and my history with MCFD was very positive. And I spoke positively about them on record. They really helped me through a group called family preservation.
    Then, after having a closed file for over two years, MCFD came back into my life last Fall. They were very different. All the good reports written about my family and the fact that I had been completely compliant and worked hard on every program offered was forgotten. I had nothing much against me, I had daycare intakes that were suddenly considered a sign of terrible risk. It was strange.
    I also noticed that the morale was not very good for the social workers. They have to adopt an us vs. them attitude and become adversarial as it has turned from a helping system to an adversarial system. So the parents now do not like them and it goes back and forth that way. All the helping they did on my file was re-considered to now be considered some terrible thing and as a reason to give me a supervision order. Why did they need that when I have a perfect history of compliance? Just, overuse of the courts.
    I suggest that MCFD could go back to helping people. I am sorry about what happened to Matthew Vaudreil, but it should not have been made the basis for the future direction. Just as social workers from MCFD want to be seen in a good light as they do have good intentions for the most part, as parents, we are not all like Mrs. Vaudreil. In fact, very, very few parents are like that. We also deserve to be seen in a good light.

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  14. Anon 7:48 AM --- your comment is very revealing.
    What I would like to know is whether your experience with MCFD has been in the Fraser Region.

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  15. Anon at 7:48 am writes...

    "I suggest that MCFD could go back to helping people."

    How did MCFD "help" you? Did they actually give you any of that funding they got for pretending to care, or was it just a means of making their funding look like it was helping single parents, but really only a means of getting info on single parents in order to harrass them at some future date?

    I would never consider government involvement in my life to be "help." Even it appeared like "help," there is always a price to pay. There's no free lunch with them. They always want their pound of flesh.

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  16. Confusion and bewilderment expressed by parents affected by MCFD appears to be a common denominator, going by postings of some affected parents and my personal experience.

    I don't buy Ray Ferris explanation that front line workers are at the mercy of their unqualified and confused supervisors. It only takes a year on the job to get a solid idea of what goes on in the Ministry, and you either go with the flow and keep your involvment numbers high or you quit. Social workers are such a scarce commodity, I suspect they are given much more free reign to do as they wish.

    I'm sure the extra "stress" days off is sold as a perk as opposed to the effects of the job.

    My experience is that MCFD offices are a very tight knit group and everyone covers each other's **s. Even in inter-province communications workers see each other as comrades in arms.

    Offices specifically instructed by the Deputy Minister to "work with" this or that parent, social workers still drag things on and show minimum compliance with such instructions. It seems saving face seems more important than anything else.

    I have little doubt there is some sort of pressure on front line social workers to keep the involvement numbers high and duration of involvment with families as long as possible in order to justify their jobs. Their superiors no doubt have larger concerns as they continually need to justify their budget numbers.

    I suspect the Ministry must be running out of "true" protection cases and are now encroaching on poor people generally and they are recycling families and are mining their past involvments.

    Until the scale of this is exposed, and the experiences of affected families who are posting their experiences are proven to be the rule rather than the exceptions, matters will continue unchanged.

    Just be like the Baynes, and fight tooth and nail.

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  17. My experience is in the Vancouver region. Although I am interested to learn how it goes in other regions. I also had a very bad experience in Victoria region. I noticed that in Vancouver there are no child removal lawyers listed in the phone book. But in the Victoria yellow pages, there are so many.
    As for the help I got before, I was assisted to get daycare top-up so I could continue my job. I was given as advocate to prevent me from being evicted. My kids were given free sports programs, we went to community kitchen, I got a card to get food. I was given help to do my taxes, I did get a lot of that kind of help from MCFD. The people who did that for me were very sincere. And it is still my impression that the front line MCFD employees are generally quite good. I did meet some very awful people though, and I did not see it coming as I had previously a good impression of MCFD. I do believe that their mandate has changed over the last three years. The CPS SW told me as much. She said that they had been letting me 'get away with things' (like getting daycare top-ups and other supports, I guess) and that now it was time to crack down and 'teach me a lesson'. Rather than being helped along, that MCFD is tired of helping people and it is time to get tough and 'teach people a lesson' (by taking their kids, I imagine). SO it is true that they were a gentler organization before.
    I have 13 years of studying MCFD as I started to be needing daycare support 13 years ago and later I needed other supports.
    I had no idea I had so many intakes. I guess that some people do not like me. Every call made on a parent is considered an intake even without ever being proven true or being brought to that parent's attention. Apparently after 10 calls against a parent it is a yellow light and their system is to no longer treat the parent nicely, after 15 calls it is pretty much an automatic apprehension no matter now minor the issue. Then the burden of proof is on the parent to fight for their reputation against pounds (I am not kidding, the paper work is immense) of malicious statements that would amount to mischief calls in any other legal setting) of files. I have been a parent for almost 20 years but is treated the same as if all the calls were about the same child. My length of parenting time and my stability in being at the same address for all those years has worked against me.
    I have not 'learned my lesson' as I was a good parent before and I am a good parent now. I asked for the services as I felt it would help me family. If I had not been poor at the time and even if I had been poor but I had known the consequences, I would never have gone near MCFD.
    Is that what they want?
    Is it not better to have parents ask for help rather than neglect or potentially mistreat their children because they can not cope? Why scare people and take them to court and 'punish' them as a mandate? Is that really in 'the best interests of the child'?

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  18. Another point I forgot to mention as to why I have had so much involvement with MCFD is because one of my children has mental health issues. Any issues like Autism, ADHD, medication related issues and special needs draws MCFD like a magnet. And there has been a drastic breakdown recently in how parents with children who have autism are being treated by MCFD due to radical re-structuring.

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  19. I also don't buy Ray Ferris explanation that front line workers are at the mercy of their unqualified and confused supervisors - do these people not know the harm that MCFD is doing? How could they not know? Why aren't they speaking out? I could never work for such an agency, knowing what they do. I would quit, get a job flipping burgers if I had to, and I'd spend the rest of my days trying to expose them. The fact that few if any social workers do this makes me think that they aren't really getting a bad rap when people lump them into one category.

    Here's my challenge to all you social workers who care:

    Speak out, show you care.

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  20. I ;know all too well of what they;re capable of I must appologize for my spelling errors in advance. I'm not a linguistics major but have studied the work habits of the ministry since I worked with them for them in my last employment. I was paid to spy on unsuspecting families. contracted by a community service agency.

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  21. Thanks Gemini us, your comments have been sincere I can see. You also do see that they come to a post and its comments written 7 yrs ago, and will likely be rarely read after this. Yet the concerns about MCFD operations continue year after year.

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