TERROR AND TINNITUS

What did you hear?

It's a chronic disturbing noise that we can no longer endure. Isis, Jihadists pound at our sensibilities.

1 in 5 people have the annoying condition of ringing noise in their ears associated with ageing, hearing loss, injury or circulatory disorder. I am one of the five. Tinnitus may be ringing, squealing, hissing, clicking, buzzing and roaring that impedes hearing and cheats one of the blessing of silence.

Journalists break news daily that is so unsettling, one can hardly carry on normal life; the Jordanian pilot is incinerated by ISIS; Jihadists conduct a campaign of killings, kidnappings, enslavement and rapes against Yazidis in Iraq. Gone is the blessing of peace.

There is very little that the medical community can do for sufferers of tinnitus. Is there anything that can be done about terrorists? ISIS atrocities have enraged the world. Most Muslims deem these acts to be reprehensible. What do pacifists recommend to be done about the Islamic State (ISIS)? Should the rest of the world retaliate with all the firepower it has? Many readers may think so. Do you think there is another solution?

INTERFERENCE AND A CHILD'S EMOTIONS

Interference

When a child experiences removal from parents and placement with foster givers, the resultant emotions may be anguish, terror and abandonment. These reactions will be intensified if actual abuse has occurred at home. The feelings are exacerbated when reunion is delayed. For these reasons, laws generally insist that such removal must be done cautiously and sparingly. Parents, children and families should be free of unwarranted government interference in child-rearing. With that in mind, the law customarily asserts that removal of a child is only justified by imminent danger to a child's life or health. Even in such an instance, a hearing and an order is required and a prompt post-removal hearing follow.

THE WAY IT WORKS / Part 341 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Natural parents have full rights over their child unless mitigated by an agreement or court order to the contrary. These rights, known as parental rights are also referred to as custody or guardianship.

Occasionally a parent is unable to cope with parental responsibility and voluntarily turns a child over to the government. By law, in all jurisdictions of Canada there are child protection, sometimes called child welfare services. On this blog we tend to highlight the cases in which the government has take initiative for a child protection order. The term 'apprehension' is applied to the government intervention by which a child is removed from the natural parent(s) care, and this is affected by the extraction of all or most of the parental rights from the natural parents, through a quick confirmation by the Court.

British Columbia's legislation is entitled Child, Family and Community Service Act. In Ontario, the related legislation is the Child and Family Services Act, and, in Alberta, the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act. The BC CFCSA is unique in that it personifies the role of the government in child protection cases by a reference to the Director who is a senior public servant who interestingly seldom becomes involved in individual cases and never appears in court. So 'Director' means the child protection office or social worker responsible for the file.

In BC a child apprehension is followed promptly by a presentation hearing where in court the social worker discloses the facts for the apprehension and also provides a plan and the court makes an interim ruling. Much angst and criticism from parents and lawyers results from the brusque and summary process of this presentation hearing. The threshold for custody by the the Director is startlingly but predictably very low because the system is designed for the parent's challenge to be deferred until a later date, the later protection hearing. It is profoundly crushing for parents to know that their child will remain with a stranger while false suspicion or anonymous allegations of abuse are investigated.

In some cases the Director and the court may consider a supervision order which returns the child to the parents subject to the Director’s terms and conditions. Sometimes, the Director will come to agreement with the parents as to what should happen next. Other times mediation or judge-presided conferencing is scheduled. Nevertheless, for parents who have unjustifiably lost the care of their child, compromise or negotiating becomes an extremely difficult proposition, specially if admission to abuse is pressured or required from a parent who is innocent.

The protection hearing is a more substantial hearing that results when the Court has endorsed the Director's opinion that the child needs protection. This can then proceed to the Continuing Care Order and once a child is engaged in the cycle of protection hearings, the child may remain in the custody of the Director until the age of majority. Well intentioned parents may not survive and some will acquiesce to litigation fatigue or impoverishment due to legal costs. That attrition is predictable for all but the extremely hardy or well supported because the government has limitless resources and a bottomless bank account.

It is apparent by now in the posts I have written and in the unsolicited comments subsumed under them, that the office of social worker in child protection proceedings is a very challenging and thankless job. Given the demand to respond to every report concerning a child, opportunities abound for error and misjudgment. We are told by the government that in the vast majority of cases, apprehension decisions are not made lightly and are submitted to thorough and careful analysis and ruling of an interested and unbiased judge. There are many who read this blog who do not agree and refuse to see anything inherently good within the present Ministry of Children and CFCSA. Personal pain and loss when wed to helplessness against what appears to be authorized brutality does not readily result in forgiveness.

Advocating for the return of Paul's and Zabeth's three children, in MCFD care since October 2007.

THE CHILDREN ARE THE AWARD / Part 183 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Here is a revelation.

The people on both sides of this Bayne Custodial Hearing are good people.

Each time a critical remark about a Ministry employee is read or heard from a journalist, from a television news bite or a blog like this one, not only the employee but those who are close to that person take offense. They become protective. They know the individual and they feel the criticism to be groundless. They are after all, good people doing their jobs. Honest jobs. Providing care and resources to children, parents and families.

I know how it is. “How dare they criticize us for discharging our responsibilities as well as we can?” That is the mantra of insulted people.

Each time a loved one or a friend of Paul and Zabeth listen to another allegation of liability laid against them, or an assessment statement that questions their integrity, truthfulness or parental capability, we are similarly offended. We want to protect them from further injury. We want them to have their lives back. We want them to be out from under the scrutiny and control of Ministry employees because Paul and Zabeth are good people whose lives were interrupted not merely by tragedy but by the good people with good intentions who operated with misinformation.

I hear how it is. “How can the Ministry be so cruel and unfeeling?” Oh there is much more that is said by the sympathizers. It is not merely a mantra but a war cry. More is at stake on this side. It is not merely professional reputation within a Ministry but a FAMILY Survival that is at stake.

Here we have it, the Bayne Campaign for Justice pitted against the Ministry of Children - Fraser Region. How could good people come to this contentious intersection when three little children become the award for winning a Court Ruling?

Good people should engage in discussion and resolution, but if one side demands the return of children, not wrongfully seized but certainly unjustifiably retained, and the other imposes the condition of a confession of guilt to shaking one of those children, the impasse is inevitable and irrevocable. A Court Judge will have to determine which set of good people warrant the award because they are associated more fundamentally with what is true. May God have mercy on us!

TODAY AT 1:30 PM IN CHILLIWACK COURT HOUSE JUDGE CRABTREE WILL RULE ON THE BAYNE APPLICATION FOR THE IMMEDIATE RETURN OF THEIR TWO BOYS.