THE COSTS OF THE BAYNE CASE / 583

The following article is written by Ray Ferris, retired social worker and author of 'The Art of Child Protection' and decided critic of the way the Ministry of Children and Family Development handled the case of Paul and Zabeth Bayne and their children for the past four years. Here he tells us what the estimated costs have been.

How can one even begin to measure the costs of the Bayne case? Do we count the number of hot, salty tears shed by the anguished parents, or those shed by the terrified children when they were dragged from that birthday party? Do we count how many aching heartbeats there were over the years? Do we count the emotional damage to the children caused by spending vital years in constant turmoil and uncertainty? Can we put a price on the horror felt by the many of the supporters at each fresh cruelty and indignity? Doug Christie was one person who paid a high price. It was not just the time he gave, when he could have been doing paid work, because that to him is a minor matter. No, it was the emotional toll it took when he could see the injustice unfolding and the suffering of the family. He was getting to the point where he couldn’t take it any more. All these costs will resonate with the readers of the Ron Unruh blog, but I doubt whether they will cause the least little bit of bother to the likes of director McNeill, his sidekick, John Fitzsimmons, or Loren Humeny, the social worker who tried to ban breast milk for a newborn infant. Was Judge Thomas Crabtree even able to get his head out of process and precedent for long enough to take a serious look at the human cost? He turned a blind eye to the guidelines of the act and anything else that did not fit into his concept of cold blooded justice.

None of these costs appear to resonate with the top brass of the ministry and the politicians. Hopefully they do disturb child advocate Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, but there is not a whole lot she can do about it at the moment. Not a good time for her to rock the boat anyway. What will ring a bell with politicians and top bureaucrats is the cost in dollars. The attorney general and the finance department should worry about it. I will bet that they do not even know how to go about estimating the costs, because their computers are not programmed to spit out such data. Even if they could estimate it, I can guarantee they would make sure it never got out. Well let me have a stab at estimating the cost and I am sure that my figures are far lower than reality.

I have taken the following into consideration and I am sure that readers can add other things.  
1. The cost of foster care for Bethany for almost four years.  
2. The cost of access visits for her for almost four years. Access is estimated in hours, with the time of access and one hour before and after for transportation. Contractor would get at least $20.00 per hour and maybe more.  
3. Cost of access visits by all three children for over three years. Three years at two hours twice a week for 8 hours billable time. Cost for 8 months at three hours three times a week for fifteen hours billable time.  
4. Cost of foster home payments for Bethany at almost four years and for the boys at three years. Payment to foster home at $6,000 per month and cost of nanny and housekeeper.
5. Cost of court case. There were 22 days of hearings proper, plus three days of summary. In addition there were several hearings over access and other matters. All these create billable days for crown counsel. These totalled up to at least thirty days. Some would cost the straight standard $2,500 court day rate. Others would also mean billing for preparation time, conservatively estimated at an extra day for each hearing. I estimate that counsel for the director probably got paid at least $150,000.  
6. Can anyone tell me what it costs to run a courtroom for a day? The judge has to be paid and the sheriff and the clerk and who else? Surely that would add at least another $50,000.  
7. Here is another significant hidden cost. At most hearings numerous ministry personnel were present. They stayed all day and sat on their hands. In addition there were travel expenses involved. Travel from Hope and Surrey. Not only that, these staff were not doing their regular jobs for about a month. Add a few thousand for that too. I have not counted in the many thousands spent by the Baynes before they went broke, or the thousands raised by the Alliance for court costs. Nor the cost of Ministry medical witnesses.

Breakdown.
   Supervision         $35,000
   Foster payments $216,000
   Nanny and
   Housekeeper.     $100,000.
   Court counsel.    $150,000
   Court sundry      $50,000
   Staff time lost     $10,000
Total                    $561,000

This is probably a very low estimate and the actual figure is probably closer to $750,000, or even a million. I ask your readers and the social workers and the child advocate, what has been accomplished through all this? How have the best interests of the children been served? I ask the director if he will be prepared to spend even half that amount on helping the Bayne family get back on its feet? Of course he will not and everybody knows it.