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| Bob Plecas |
Friday, July 31, 2015
WILL THE GOVERNMENT ACT ON INDEPENDENT RECOMMENDATIONS?
Thursday, July 30, 2015
HON. STEPHANIE CADIEUX and THE POISONED PORTFOLIO
*BY guest writer RAY FERRIS
Being the minister for children and families has always been a poisoned portfolio, which has despoiled the budding careers of various politicians. Ministers have virtually no powers, yet they have to take all the heat for a chronically incompetent senior administration of career bureaucrats. The periodic child welfare scandals that erupt cause frantic wriggling and writhing, but no effective change.
How naive Judge Hughes was when he said that they needed to halt the turnover of Ministers and Deputy Ministers to provide stability and leadership.
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| Hon. Stephanie Cadieux |
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| Judge Hughes |
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
THE MCFD REVIEW BUBBLE MAY BURST AGAIN
This month the child welfare ministry in B.C. has been censured
for sickening misconduct in a decades old litany of disturbing stories. This
time it was for defiance and deceptive of the courts and supplying four
children into the hands of their abusive father. The public and the media are
outraged, well perhaps only annoyed. I'm not convinced too many people take
this Ministry's chronic dysfunction seriously. Yet Premier Clark sounded
sincerely disconcerted by Judge Walker's pronouncement of culpability against
the Ministry. Both the Minister of Children, Hon.
Stephanie Cadieux and Premier Clark pledged to conduct a review. Well of
course. But I suspect that it is merely a bubble that will burst.Tuesday, July 28, 2015
BOB PLECAS WILL DO AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW - SO WHAT?
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| Bob Plecas |
So Bob Plecas has been asked to do an independent review. So what does this really mean.
First let us look at the Walker judgement. The judge found many failures on the part of several different staff members. To sum it up there was ill-will, lying and deception, stupidity, professional ignorance, denial, and abusive persistence in the face of the facts. This is just for starters. There was a pervasive failure in carrying out the mandate and a wilful pursuit of dominance and control. Good protection staff show intelligence, integrity, compassion, courage and good judgement. Did we see any of this? That’s right---don’t make me laugh.
Monday, July 27, 2015
TRUE CONCERN ABOUT CHILD WELFARE A LONG TIME COMING & HERE COMES PLECAS’ INTERVIEW
I began writing about Paul and Zabeth
Bayne's effort to recover their children in 2009, when their case was already
two years old. They were suspected of having harmed their youngest of three
children. Shaken Baby Syndrome was the Ministry's concern at the time. I was in
daily contact with the Baynes, commiserating and gathering information. In
order to be reasonably objective as a blogger advocate, I educated myself about
the history, the policies, the failures, and the reviews of child welfare in
B.C. It became apparent to me that the
Ministry's burdensome responsibilities were not consistently managed
judiciously, compassionately, economically or in timely fashion. I became
quickly aware that there were many parents and families helplessly mired in
bureaucratic gorilla tape, and that the Ministry was decidedly adversarial with
parents in many of these cases.
Friday, July 24, 2015
INDEPENDENT REVIEW INTO THE MINISTRY OF CHILDREN
This blog and numerous other ones have been advocating for years for an objective but robust review of the Ministry of Children and Family Development with regard to case management, treatment of parents, investigation of complaints and concerns, response to children's best interests. Too many cases in the past are brought to light through private online sites or public journalistic articles and becomes sound bites that lose ground to next week's news.
This time, a Supreme Court Justice's ruling has made such a spectacle of the Ministry's malfeasance in the case of a woman whose concerns about her husband's abuse of their children, was ignored by social workers, that Stephanie Cadieux, Minister of MCFD has been unable to assure the public that an objective outside review will do the job. Premier Christy Clark has needed to step forward to cover with promises of an independent review. The Ministry and the government do not Mary-Ellen Turpel Lafond, the Representative for Children and Youth, to do this, claiming she already has a position about this case and the Ministry. So, understandably, in partnership with the Child Welfare League of Canada (CWLC), the Ministry of Children and Family Development has asked Bob Plecas, a highly respected former deputy minister, to lead an independent review into matters arising from Judge Walker’s recent B.C. Supreme Court ruling.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
PAUL WALKER JUDGEMENT & Hon. Stephanie Cadieux’s Promise
* by Ray Ferris, Guest Author
Two
things immediately strike me as being of interest following the scathing Paul
Walker judgement. First it looks as if they intend to hang the social workers
out to dry and blame it all on them. Do they imagine we don’t know that the
social workers act under strict direction and many people higher up the ladder
were involved in this case. One cannot spend the millions that the protection
trial cost and the many more that the misfeasance trial cost without
authorization from a very high level. Nor did the social workers have the
authority to abruptly fold the case on day 66.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
JUDGE WALKER'S DECISION AGAINST THE MINISTRY OF CHILDREN MAKES THE NEWS.
Justice Paul Walker labelled
the failure as 'egregious,’ negligent and a breach of duty ... Tuesday,
Justice Paul Walker issued a
biting decision against MCFD in an horrendous case that the Sun revealed two
years ago.
NDP demands answers from the government about its Child Ministry's
failure to protect children from an abusive father, refusing to believe their
mother's allegation against him.
Justice Paul Walker delivered
a scathing ruling in favour of a mother who sued the province for refusing to
investigate her kids' reports ...
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Walker ruled the
father sexually abused his children and he says the province acted recklessly.
Supreme Court Justice Paul Walker rules in
favour of a mother who sued the province for refusing to investigate her
children's reports.
Justice Walker's scathing ruling in
favour of a mother who sued the province after the Children's Ministry failed
to believe her allegations that the father was abusing the children.
5 days ago - B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Walker has
delivered a scathing ruling in favour of a mother who sued the province for
refusing to investigate her kids' reports ...
Justice Paul Walker said in a
written decision released Tuesday that the ministry showed “reckless disregard”
when it falsely accused a mother of being mentally.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
JUSTICE WALKER'S RULING WORD FOR WORD
Honourable
Mr. Justice Walker rendered a scathing decision against the Director
of the Ministry of Children and Family and the agents of the Ministry. After
approximately 130 pages of factual summary, Justice Paul Walker wrote the following judgement dated, July 14, 2015.
It is by far the most wounding judgement ever directed
against the often negligent and criticized Ministry. The ruling will cost the
Ministry a fortune that taxpayers are funding because this was a lawsuit
brought by a mother who was wronged and whose children were sexually molested
by their father and the Ministry failed to investigate thoroughly and sided
with the father against the mother. The Ministry got it all wrong all of the
time. And sadly, this is the allegation that so many parents have been making
over many years. Now Stephanie Cadieux, Minister of Children and Family
promises a review, but she must understand that she must conduct this rather
than to leave it to MCFD to do a self-assessment. Read Justice Walker's entire ruling.
You will shudder. Here is his conclusion.
XXII.
CONCLUSION
[1071] The Province is liable for
misfeasance, breach of the standard of care, and breach of fiduciary duty on
the part of the Director and her agents.
[1072] The misfeasance of
Mr. Strickland set in motion a series of events, including the
Apprehension, which caused various social workers and Ministry employees
involved in the file to view J.P. as manipulative and malicious. . The Director
failed to assess and investigate reports of sexual abuse as required by the CFCSA
and the standard of care. The Director had no reasonable basis to apprehend the
children. The Apprehension was wrongful.
[1073] The Director unreasonably and
with a closed mind rejected at the outset the veracity of the sexual abuse
allegations and took the view they were fabricated by J.P. before the VPD
completed its investigation and before the children were interviewed. The
Director did not consider whether the children were at risk of harm as a result
of the children’s sexual abuse disclosures and other evidence. The Director
concluded that the children needed protection from J.P. and not B.G. without
conducting any assessment and investigation of her own.
[1074] As J.P. continued to complain
about the sexual abuse of her children and to protest the Director’s conduct,
social workers’ antipathy towards her increased, and as it did, the Director’s
focus turned away from the best interests of the children to J.P. As early as
February 2010, the Director encouraged B.G. to apply for custody in order to
return the children to him, regardless of information adverse to B.G. and even
though she acknowledged the possibility that B.G. had sexually abused his
children. In that latter respect, the Director acted in breach of her fiduciary
duty to the children while they were in her care.
[1075] The children remained in foster
care while the Director provided her ongoing support of B.G., until March 29,
2012 (when the Director withdrew her protection concerns about J.P.). The
children could not be immediately returned to their mother’s care because of
the need for appropriate reintegration having been kept in foster care for so
long.
[1076] The Director rebuffed J.P.’s
efforts to ameliorate the Director’s protection concerns and always, and
unreasonably, assumed the worst of J.P.’s motives and conduct. In addition to
Mr. Strickland’s misfeasance, for which the Director is responsible,
social workers, for whom the Director is also responsible, engaged in a
wholesale disregard of their statutory mandate and the requisite standard of
care expected of them to protect the children from harm.
[1077] Social workers who became
involved in the case for the Director sought to further the plan to support
B.G. in a manner that overlooked the children’s best interests. The Director’s
antipathy towards J.P. diverted her attention from the children’s needs for
medical intervention in spite of Mr. Colby’s opinion evidence and reports
of the children’s highly disturbing sexualized and aggressive behaviours
provided by supervised access workers. That antipathy, coupled with the plan to
support B.G., led social workers to rebuff J.P. personally as well as the
information she tried to provide in support of her case and to provide services
for the children. Based on the evidence available to the Director by mid to
late December 2009, it should have been apparent to the Director that the risk
of harm to the children from B.G. was very high.
[1078] The Director was put on notice
that B.G. had sexually abused the children and would do it again, and she
cannot say now that she did not know it was possible or could occur while he
was given unsupervised access to his children.
[1079] The Director’s decision to
provide B.G. with unsupervised access led to P.G. being sexually abused by her
father. Her decision also placed the children in close, regular, and unsupervised
proximity with the person who had abused them
[1080] In the course of pursuing custody
of the children in favour of B.G., the Director decided that she did not have
to abide by orders and directions of this Court about B.G.’s supervised access
to the children. No credence can be given to the Director’s current advice to
this Court, communicated through counsel, that she will abide by orders of this
Court. Her advice is inconsistent with the position she recently took before
another judge of this Court.
[1081] The Director provided false and
misleading information (in the Form “A”) to the Provincial Court to support the
Apprehension and failed to correct or amend even though its social workers
(depending on whom and at what point in time), knew or ought to have known it
contained false and misleading information. She also relied on the Form “A” and
other incorrect affidavit evidence when supporting B.G.’s custody application
in this Court, when pursuing her application for an extension of the temporary
custody order in the First Trial, and seeking the restraining order against
J.P. in the Provincial Court. The Director improperly interfered with
Mr. Colby’s investigation because she did not agree with an order made by
this Court.
[1082] The Director delayed in
delivering documents requested by another branch of government in order to
process the plaintiffs’ claims for compensation. Her conduct was either
deliberate or the result of gross neglect but in either case the conduct was
callously indifferent to the children’s needs.
[1083] In all, I found that the Ministry
employees who gave evidence, who were involved with the plaintiffs, lost sight
of their duties, professionalism, and their objectivity.
[1084] Even today, many of the social
workers involved in the case doggedly stick to their adverse view of J.P.,
despite the Director’s decision to withdraw her protection concerns, the lack
of any expert opinion evidence that J.P. suffers from a mental illness and the
findings from the First Trial that the children were sexually and physically
abused by their father. Many Ministry employees are unable to comprehend, let
alone accept, any reason for the Director to have reversed her position, as she
did, during the First Trial.
[1085] Some Ministry witnesses were
openly hostile towards J.P. when giving their testimony. Many of them refuse to
accept the findings of fact made during the First Trial despite the claim made
by some of them that what they wanted all along was to have an independent
third party examine all of the evidence and determine if sexual abuse had
occurred.
[1086] Immunity afforded by the CFCSA
to good faith discretionary decisions is not afforded to the Director and
social workers in this case.
[1087] The Director is also required to
pay for special costs of the First Trial in an amount that will be determined
from further submissions.
[1088] In conclusion, I wish to add that
J.P. assumed and carried out the Director’s statutory mandate to protect her
children. If it were not for the Herculean efforts of J.P., the children would
now, through the fault of the Director, be in the custody of their father who
sexually and physically abused them.
Monday, July 20, 2015
THE MINISTRY OF CHILDREN GOT BLASTED BY JUSTICE WALKER
A Woman known to us only as J.P. is the
biological mother of four children whom we know as BT.G., K.G.,
BN.G., and P.G. has won a landmark lawsuit against the defendants, British
Columbia (Ministry of Children and Family). The defendants are named as The
Director of Child, Family and Community Services and Her Majesty the Queen in
Right of the Province of British Columbia. Throughout the two-year long court
case, the unacceptable treatment of J.P and the substandard supervision of
these children's welfare were unconcealed. A condemning judgement was
anticipated. This was an evidence-based judgement by Justice Paul Walker who
discerningly assessed that grounding their case management on evidence is
precisely what the Ministry personnel failed to do.
Justice
Paul Walker's Full Script Ruling from July 14, 2015, is found at this link.
J.P told the Ministry that her husband B.G.
was molesting her children. Workers did not believe her. Exclusive of due
diligence her husband was deemed more credible than she. The children remained
unprotected to him and defenseless.
Furthermore, Justice Walker heard the court
case two years ago in which J.P was the plaintiff and B.G. was the defendant,
and then he ruled against B.G. and in favour of the children's mother.
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