FLASHBACK - ZABETH & PAUL BAYNE

This is a flashback to well over a decade ago when I officiated the wedding ceremony for Zabeth and Paul. Today they have four vibrant, growing, intelligent and lovely children. They could never have imagined as they knelt before me (their choice), that within a few years they would experience yet endure the gravest assault upon their family, their hearts and their reputations. In 2007, accused (but unproven) of hurting their youngest of three children then, all three children were removed from them. For four years they maintained their innocence and fought passionately through hearings and court cases. Then as a crowning insult, their newborn fourth child was removed shortly after birth in 2011. With the help of the late Doug Christie (barrister extraordinaire) and Ray Ferris (former MCFD supervisor turned critic) and through their own faith and determination and the moral support of hundreds of advocates, they received their children back in 2011, and in the five years since then, their thriving family provides the continuing evidence of a wrong diagnosis, incorrect assumptions of guilt, the risk of unfettered power among blasé bureaucrats, social workers and litigators; as well as the evidence of the diligent, honest, upright and loving parents and people that Paul and Zabeth are. They are a continuing inspiration to many troubled people. I will never forget them, Zabeth in particular with whom I maintained an almost daily contact through the years of their ordeal. Thank you God, for setting them free.

WAIT A MINUTE! / Part 398 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Some of you will be upset with me for trying this.

I am asking you to try on something hypothetical. Let's just suppose for a moment that either Paul or Zabeth did actually harm their baby girl in September 2007. If a non accident injury caused the medical issues that put her life at risk three years ago, one of these parents lost control. That's what one would conclude. These parents already had two sons. Affectionate and thoughtful nurture of these boys typified the Baynes' parental pattern. The arrival of a daughter was an astounding blessing to them. When she was merely weeks old, this hypothesis would propose that mommy or daddy lost it. It could hardly be deliberate cruelty. It couldn't be abuse of that nature. That would be unmistakeably a crime, a felony. Then what else could it be if not an accident or a crime? It would have to be the unfortunate outcome of a fit of impatience or annoyance or anger. A parent would have had to hit the child's head, or knock the child's head to the floor, some appallingly awful action. And if this had been done, one parent did it and the other would somehow learn or know that truth. Both would be complicit in this injury to a child because one perpetrated it and one concealed it. These two people would have to be without consciences or with flawed ethics.

That is not the Zabeth and Paul that their family and their friends know. It is not the parental couple that Judge Thomas Crabtree watched for twenty-two days in court.

Before their release and the dropped charges, when Zabeth and Paul were arrested, the events were so shocking to her that she had a physical, emotional meltdown and had to be hospitalized. That is not a manifestation of cover-up but violent astonishment and overwhelming fear at these out of control circumstances.

Permit me to carry the conjecture further. If one parent injured the child and the other knew about it, could they both be so steel-hearted that they would endure the sustained removal of all three of their children? If in those early weeks, Zabeth knew that Paul had injured their youngest child and if she herself assessed him as a risk, and if she were told that her three children would be returned to her if Paul did not have access to them, do you think that she would have chosen to be with Paul rather than her children? Or turn that equation around the other way, with Zabeth the guilty one and Paul the innocent parent. Is it reasonable to think that these two people would say “our love for one another is of greater importance to each of us than our children are, so we will hang in together and hope for the best in trying to regain custody?”

I will attempt one other scenario. Let's speculate that both Paul and Zabeth are innocent of having inflicted any harm to their third child, a helpless, infant daughter. This proposal includes an accidental injury that caused the initial injury that escalated with passing days. Let's further include a tumble of one sybling upon the infant at a time that approximates the start of the baby's physical distress. Let's suppose that Paul and Zabeth were absolutely desperate to have medical professionals ascertain what was wrong with this baby in her deteriorating condition back in 2007. Each failed visit to a hospital made them more frantic. This proposition portrays the parents as distraught and sick at heart when they learned both the severity of their child's injuries and the accusation against them of willfully hurting her. Then let's see them in this script immediately and always asserting their innocence, insistently, unwaveringly maintaining this innocence, through every attempt by the social worker team and legal counsel to make one of them cave. I can tell you now that Zabeth's maternal instincts are so powerful that she has weathered the chasm of suffering that have been these past three years and at last endured insidious, slanderous statements from a Ministry lawyer determined to end her motherhood. These parents have been so focused upon regaining their family, there is nothing that is more important to them as may be with some parents, not drugs, not alcohol, not personal vacation, travel, career opportunities, acquisitions, nothing! Nothing has sidetracked them. Not the Hope B.C. MCFD callousness and intimidation. Nothing! Oh, wait a minute. That's right, this latter storyline is the only one that is credible. Only this scenario explains what we have witnessed for three years. Only this one explains why Judge Crabtree has refused to act like other judicial lightweights who might cow-tow to the MCFD allegations. Instead he has increased visitation times for the parents and given them at home visitation. That's because this last version is not an hypothesis but the truth.

The Cost of Dying

Death is a growth industry. I was invited last year to a golf tournament for pastors sponsored by one of North America’s largest funeral service provider. I was invited to give a prayer before the sumptuous dinner at Coyote Creek banquet facilities. Every duffer regardless of handicap received a great prize. Let’s face it, pastors as I have been officiate hundreds of funerals over a career and we often are asked for recommendations to a funeral home. Funeral services are provided at a price which many people consider excessively high.

My thanks to a Nov 8, 2007 Vancouver Sun article for some of the data used here. I loved a line in that piece which expressed that with the self absorbed baby boomers due to turn 70 in 2016, expect to hear that death is the new 90. I arrive at 70 a fraction earlier in 2012 but I will be among the peloton skidding to the grave with our brakes fully engaged. Through the years much has been written about our costly way of dying. This has inspired the founding of membership driven memorial societies which for a nominal fee permits pre-arrangement of low cost funerals with select contracted companies. My mom and dad had memberships in such a society in Ontario. The Memorial Society of B.C., around since the 1950’s has 207,000 members at a cost of $20 lifetime membership, plus a $35 records fee when life ends. Many independent funeral homes have contracted to work with the Society that has incorporated an ethics code to which the contracting funeral service providers agree so grieving families are not pressured but helped. Costs of services and products like caskets and urns are priced respectfully rather than competitively. All Memorial Society of British Columbia designated funeral providers are owned and operated by Canadian families. None are franchises or owned by publicly traded companies. MSBC covers 95% of BC's population!

Personal Alternative Funeral Services is another option to a number of communities. Founded in 1992 and owned by Lawrence G. Little, a man with a distinguished 35-year career in the British Columbia funeral industry. I have worked with the Aldergrove Home and have always found families were satisfied with the services. The website allows you to connect with a provider in the following communities: Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, BC ; Kamloops and the Thompson Nicola District, BC ; Okanagan, BC; Trail and the West Kootenays, BC ; Calgary, Airdrie and Southern Alberta ; Red Deer, and Central Alberta ; Seattle and Western Washington, USA.

The Society’s website or toll free number may be helpful
and toll-free number is 1-888-816-5902