LITTLE MÉTIS MISS S.S.

She is in Ontario now. She is with a family consisting of a new mom and dad and two biological siblings older than herself. She is three years old. This is brand new to her, an experience that is two weeks old. On one hand it seems good and right that she would be united with two true sisters. Clearly that is what was in the minds of the Director and caseworkers of the Ministry of Children and Families of British Columbia well over one year ago when they began this protracted process, litigation really. It involved orders filed, hearings, appeals, court appearances.

There is another story, another perspective and that's the one I will take some time to unpack. I will begin the info download today. I have written earlier, so let me rehearse the essential account. Since S.S. was two days old, she lived with foster parents. Neither the girl nor her foster parents may be named because of a publication ban. She is referred to in public documents as S.S. Her biological parents were pleased to see her in the care of these foster parents. Her mom and dad are Métis and of the fostering couple, foster mom is also Métis. Foster mom and dad loved S.S. and theirs is the only home she has known. They are her family. That may sound naïve. However, a Métis arrangement was conducted whereby the foster parents were regarded in the Métis community as the true parents of S.S.

It must be understood that the girl's new parents are non-aboriginal.

Foster mom and dad learned one year ago that the MCFD intended to move the child to the Ontario family. Yes, at three years of age. In late September after the foster parents had exhausted all legal channels, S.S. was removed from them, kept in another foster setting as legalities dragged on and then as October approached, she was put on an airplane and flown with her new family to their home in Ontario.

You can read more of S.S.'s story on a Facebook page ‘Bring Home Baby S’. 

and at either of two websites bringsshome.ca or bringsshome.com. 

SHE IS GONE

SHE IS GONE

I have written about her earlier. The story has been in the news for months. It was not difficult for me to decide which course of action was most appropriate to the child. The bottom line is, she is gone.

She is no longer in B.C. She may soon be out of the news entirely. At three years of age, she is having to learn to live with the shock, the anguish of loss, the fear, the mistrust, the daily changes. She is gone, gone from foster parents who loved her so much that they applied to adopt her, and MCFD flew her to Ontario to be adopted into a Caucasian family in which the girl's two siblings live. She did not know them and had never seen them. 

Little attempt has been made here to understand a culture, the Métis culture, because that is the girl's birth heritage. Does it matter? Of course it does. It does in every other avenue of Canadian life and law and societal correctness. Yet in her case, with her life, that culture has been minimized and we have another instance of bureaucratic initiative misjudging what is truly in the best benefit of the child. Isn't our history full enough with the bad burden of young lives plucked from families and shipped off to a residential schools or to out of province non-aboriginal families and even over the border into the United States? Did we have to repeat this again with this little girl? No we did not.

I will talk about her a lot over the next weeks but first I want you to see her, well, you can't really, because there is a ban on such publication, but what is permitted, I can offer here. Furthermore, I am providing links to new websites that tell her story very well from the viewpoint of the loving foster family who miss her.

In subsequent pieces you will be shocked again, perhaps outraged by what our government has done.