DARK SIDE OF MÉTIS PARTNERSHIP WITH LIBERAL GOVERNMENT

DARK SIDE OF MÉTIS PARTNERSHIP WITH LIBERAL GOVERNMENT

Métis Commission for Children and Families

Métis organizations and agencies that receive six-figure amounts of Liberal government funding are the Métis Commisssion for Children and Families of BC,  the Island Métis Children and Family Services Society and the Métis Nation of British Columbia. Each of these has a network of service provider agency arms for the Métis people across this province. That's the bright side, the wisdom side of the relationship these aboriginal organizations have with the B.C. government and specifically with the Ministry of Children and Families. MCFD can rely upon these agencies to assist Métis people with services that money can provide.

There is also a dark side, the foolish side of this relationship and we have seen it expressed in the case of three-year-old SS who lost her family, her foster mom and dad and four foster siblings and her Métis connections within the past two months. Instead of 'foster' I might have written the word 'real.' This family is the only family she has known since she was born. Her Métis birth parents wanted her to be with this foster family. How did the dark side of the aforementioned Métis organizations manifest itself? In my opinion, in an unmistakable demonstration of who butters their bread, these organizations supported the Ministry of Children and Families' plan to remove SS from her Métis family. Not so the BC Métis Federation to which her foster family belongs and who have been opposed to moving the child to Ontario.

You see this was ostensibly a 'best interests of the child' question, yet it can also be interpreted in this instance to be a 'best interests of us' decision when it comes to spouting one thing in principle but in practice doing something contradictory. Observe the Métis Commission for Children and Families of BC self expression, "Acting as the legislatively designated community, the Commission is fostering the development of Métis culturally inclusive and specific programs and services through the various agencies across the province. We desire to better serve the Métis community in all facets of program and service delivery and to protect and serve the legacy of Métis people by addressing systemic issues.  We are all working for and towards the safety of our children, as well as the resurgence and perpetuation of Métis Culture through inclusive and culturally relevant programs and services. We are all brothers and sisters in the extended community of Métis people."

(Above quotation at this website page)

I highlighted key phrases for you the reader to evaluate whether in supporting the MCFD plan for SS, the Commission protected and served the legacy of Métis people, or helped to perpetuate Métis culture? You cannot successfully argue to me that the best interests of this child were served by removing her from intelligent professional foster parents who wanted to adopt her and were already her Aboriginal Custom Adoptive parents, from a Métis family and culture and community, contravening legislation that prohibits her adoption out of province or to a non-Métis family, and then covering bureaucratic butt by changing the move from adoption to a fostering relationship in Ontario.

If you will consider helping LM and RB as they go forward, look at these links,

Facebook page ‘Bring Home Baby S’, and the two websites that tell her story, bringsshome.ca or bringsshome.com. 

MCFD OPINION ABOUT ABORIGINAL ADOPTION? MERE WORDS, WRITTEN BUT IGNORED

I am going to tell you how MCFD disregards its own policies to the injury of a three-year-old child. I will inform you that MCFD has successfully exempted itself from following the law.

Right here on the B.C. government's own website is the page that speaks about adoption of aboriginal children. The lead paragraph states, "Aboriginal children in care need homes with Aboriginal families whenever possible – to help them stay connected with their extended family and community."

That social interest feature is precisely what took place three years ago when LM and RB were asked to take SS into their home when she was a newly born three day old baby girl of Métis biological parentage. LM is Métis and she and RB, her husband, are members of the BC Métis Federation. 

Then the B.C. Website speaks about an Aboriginal Custom Adoption with these value features, such as custom adoption "makes it possible for Aboriginal families, organizations and communities to use a culturally appropriate way of planning for Aboriginal children." Not only that, but the government explanation also states such a Custom Adoption "respects the customs and traditions of the First Nations and/or Aboriginal community of the child," and "ensures Aboriginal children maintain their cultural, linguistic and spiritual identity." Of course, and that too is precisely what LM and RB did when SS's biological parents asked them to be the child's adoptive parents (Custom adoption). Done.

To persons who are now deemed adoptive parents by virtue of the Custom Aboriginal Adoption provision, the government advises them to get a lawyer to help them with an application to have their Custom adoption recognized by the Supreme Court. Taking that advice LM and RB made application for a formally recognized adoption. All is well one would think. The government should be pleased with the progress of this case that is clearly in the best interest of the child.  Not so.  Because the government had a different plan for SS.

MCFD social workers, several months into the fostering program expressed a plan to adopt the child out of province to a non-Métis, non-aboriginal couple in Ontario. Well, guess what! That is not supposed to happen. But it did. It happened to SS's two older sisters years earlier in Ontario.  The Ontario Children's Aid Society placed the two Métis girls in a non- Métis home. The birth parents eventually moved to B.C. where SS was born three years ago.  The Children's Aid in Ontario and the MCFD of BC struck an arrangement, colluded, to have the little girl known as SS join the two sisters in Ontario.  It is unlawful to send an aboriginal child outside the province of B.C. Has anyone spoken publicly about that? Have any news sources picked up on that? Well certainly the BC Métis Federation spoke against this injustice. Yet what about the other Métis organizations and agencies including the Métis Commission for Children and Families of BC, the Island Métis Children and Family Services Society and the Métis Nation British Columbia? What did each of these three do? They supported the MCFD plan. Why? There is a story there. Can you smell it? I will get to that in a day or two. And why don't judges flag injustice that is as flagrant as this?

BY ALL MEANS look up the little girl's Facebook page ‘Bring Home Baby S’, and the two websites that tell her story, bringsshome.ca or bringsshome.com. 

SS IS MÉTIS. WHY WASN'T THAT RESPECTED?

You know the girl's story don't you? News networks across the country carried it for several months as the foster parents fought the MCFD in court for good reason. The case is saturated with cultural issues because S.S. is Métis. So is her foster mother Métis.

The term "Métis" derives originally from the French adjective metis that referred to something that was half of one thing and half of another, and then subsequently, referred to someone whose father and mother were of different races, or mixed-race. The Métis are a specific indigenous people group initially developed as the mixed-race descendants of unions between First Nations people and early European settlers.  Over time in Canada, many mixed-race people married within their own group, maintaining contact with their indigenous culture. A distinct and unique culture was developed. Métis are recognized by the Federal government as a segment of the aboriginal community of Canada.

As far as the birth parents and the foster parents were concerned, according to Métis customs, L.M and her husband RB had adopted S.S. That arrangement occurred soon after the child's birth. S.S. has lived with her mom and dad (foster parents) since she was three days old. This is her family. As I described yesterday, she was adopted by virtue of an Aboriginal Custom Adoption, a provision made possible by B.C. legislation. MCFD knows that.

This Métis heritage is a significant factor in this case.

That underscores the offense that the Métis and specifically the foster parents of S.S. feel, that no consultation occurred that demonstrated respect for either Métis culture and practice or wishes or for the Children and Family for that matter. Despite the objections of the BC Métis Federation that continues to protest the relocation of the Métis foster child to a non-Métis family in Ontario, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) removed her from the Métis foster parents, who have cared for this little girl for the past 3 years, and who had applied for formal adoption of the child already legally adopted by Aboriginal Custom adoption.

BY ALL MEANS look up the little girl's Facebook page ‘Bring Home Baby S’, and the two websites that tell her story, bringsshome.ca or bringsshome.com.