WILL THE GOVERNMENT ACT ON INDEPENDENT RECOMMENDATIONS?

Bob Plecas

Recommendations are valueless when they are ignored. Bob Plecas' independent review will contain recommendations for improvements and change for the Ministry of Children and Family Services. I have zero confidence that the recommendations will bring change within the Ministry. Plecas' work will be thorough and predictably commendable but it will have been ineffectual unless the Premier Christy Clark, and the Minister Hon. Stephanie Cadieux and preferably the Deputy Minister Mark Sieben construe the Plecas recommendations as beneficial and indispensable and determine to affect them. They must make them happen.

Child Welfare Enterprise in B.C./ Part 320 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Child welfare is not important to the general population. Young families live and love life and generally get on quite well. Why would they pay attention to the trouble we discuss here? It is only when one ordinary family ends up in the child welfare system that these few individuals learn how difficult life can become. Child welfare is also tough I believe for those who must work within it. Be patient with me here. The work load is increasing for each worker. From among B.C. children approximately 1 to 1.5 percent are in the care of the government. There is some ammunition for a few of you. After years of leadership upheaval it may appear now that the Ministry has achieved a turn around but who really knows. After all, from 2004 to 2006 there were four different ministers and when the Hughes Report was launched the Minister's position was being transitioned from Stan Hagen to Tom Christensen. Four deputy or acting deputy ministers served during this same period.

Build a Better Future - Reform MCFD

While government care most certainly is a safer place for some children than leaving them in their homes that is most certainly not true of the majority of removals. I am not going to back these remarks with footnoted references. Avid students can look up details as well as I can. My reading however leaders me to these conclusions. When the government is the sole guardian of children, the children's health is substantially worse than the health of children not in care. Childhood health concerns are common among children whether in or out of care but the rates of health issues for those in care is 1.2 to 1.4 times greater than those of the general population children. More alarmingly, 65 percent of children in continuing care suffer from mental disorders and that is where this Ministry of Children want to keep three Bayne children. Who can't see the connection here? That percentage is four times greater than that of children and youth in the general population. There are higher rates of both intentional and unintentional injuries for children in care and higher death rates as well.

I harvested some of these observations from a UBC publication. While published in 2007, if you want a comprehensive resource, access the “People, Politics, and Child Welfare in British Columbia.” Scroll to the index to select data.

THIS STORY IS NEWSWORTHY / Part 301 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

The coverage by CBC of the Bayne Campaign for Justice already aired a couple of segments well over one year ago. You can be assured that when Judge Crabtree rules on this case within the next couple of months, it will be national news once again. Whichever way the ruling falls, it will be newsworthy. If, as I personally hope and as many observers believe, the ruling will restore the three small children to their biological parents, it is possible that their story will prompt not only journalistic investigation but also official investigation into Ministry of Children practice. It is now closing on three years that Paul and Zabeth Bayne's three children have been in the care of the B.C. Ministry of Children. No one alleges that Children's Hospital, medical professionals, MCFD and RCMP responded incorrectly when they were initially presented with concern that a child had been harmed by a parent or parents. There was cause for suspicion. RCMP dropped the case. MCFD has never changed its mind. For that matter neither has the doctor upon whose diagnosis the MCFD has rested its affidavit for Continuing Care of all three children.

The Ministry could have changed its mind however when numerous other medical experts disputed the original diagnosis and offered explanation for the child's injuries which are consistent with accident rather than inflicted injury, and consistent with existing conditions inherent with prematurity of birth. These opinions were not acquired by MCFD as a means of testing the accuracy of the original diagnosis. These were obtained by the Baynes who sought explanation themselves for the gravity of the injuries sustained by their child not through shaking by one of them but possibly by the accidental fall of a sibling on the child whose condition might already have been weakened by premature birth. Long ago the Baynes submitted these experts' reports to MCFD. The Ministry could have changed its mind by assessing risk based upon an unbiased but accurate appraisal of character, of history of parental performance, of attestations by hundreds of people who communicated with the Ministry on behalf of the Baynes. The Ministry could have changed its mind but instead regarded every effort by the Baynes to establish their innocence and to recover their children as further evidence of their guilt and liability.

Here are links to previous and now dated CBC stories.
1. Story: Most recently at start of hearing in January Surrey Couple Challenge Shaken Baby Allegation
2. VIDEO: Kathy Tomlinson reports: Ministry disregarded advice to return seized children (Runs 2:36)
3. Kathy Tomlinson in a 3 min 27 sec video piece entitled “Surrey parents fight for return of 3 seized children.”
4. Printed Copy - “Surrey parents fight for return of 3 seized children.” Last Updated: Thursday, March 5, 2009 | 9:40 PM PT
5. VIDEO: Surrey parents talk about their seized children (Runs 7:15)
6. April 2 2009 article - Birth parents plead for medical treatment for baby girl in foster care
7. April 3 2009 Ministry disregarded legal advice to return seized children

Zabeth and Paul Bayne – Part 44 – The Bayne Campaign for Justice

I WISH I UNDERSTOOD THE LACK OF CONCERN

I have been an organizational CEO. I know the stimulus of a high purpose. I thrived on the motivation of providing services that improve something for someone else. I know what it is like to have a roomy office and the electronics that empower me through connection and information. I know the satisfaction of having executive and administrative assistants outside my door efficiently completing tasks to which I assigned them or exercising initiatives as part of the team. I know the sense of pleasure that accompanies good performance reviews. I know the exhilaration of travel, of seeing new places and faces, of being recognized and called to speak to captive audiences. I know the autonomy of leaving the work day and ignoring all attempts to draw my attention away from personal relaxation.

So I know why the executive leaders of the Ministry of Children and Family Development in Victoria do not relate to the predicament of one British Columbia family. Responsibilities for MCFD are delegated down a lengthy chain of command. When the primary players at MCFD come to the office each day they focus on big picture policy matters and reports and speech writing and perhaps photo opps rather than individual family cases. That’s understandable. Those details belong to others down the command line.

However, when networks like CBC and Global TV air news hour segments that call a specific case into question with respect to MCFD conduct, evidence and decisions, then you would think that those occupying the high chairs in Victoria would think they should review the case files. Such a news story broke last spring with respect to Paul and Zabeth Bayne and their contest with MCFD. MCFD has had custody of their three children for two years. MCFD should have resolved this within three months. MCFD will say this long delay is entirely the Bayne’s fault. MCFD will say that the Baynes have failed to cooperate. That failure consists of not admitting to shaking their infant daughter which is something of which they were not guilty. RCMP after arresting and interrogating dropped all charges of wrongdoing against the Baynes.

In Spring 2009 then Minister of MCFD Tom Christensen as well as Premier Campbell were briefly interviewed and both said they would give it some attention. Perhaps they did.
Perhaps Christensen’s successor Mary Polak has read the file documents too. Perhaps the Deputy Minister Dutoit has as well. If that has not prompted an internal QUIZ SHOW then that is what I don’t understand. The MCFD position birthed and sustained by the Fraser Valley chapter of this frequently criticized Ministry should be causing the chief honchos in Victoria to sweat. This entire case against a loving family is founded on ethereal arguments based on suspicion and a need of evidence. I don’t understand that.

This MCFD wrong-headedness has injured this BC family in so many ways, caused children to question their parents’ love for them because of the separation; compelled them to hire solicitors whose fees have devoured their asset in a home; required a visitation schedule that has compromised the Baynes’ day jobs; caused them to focus all their energy into recovering a family they should never have lost.

It is time to fix this. I understand this. Strong leadership can do this.

Sign this Petition. 450 people have already signed. Do not make an ONLINE BAYNE CAMPAIGN DONATION at this petition site. Once you sign, exit the site. Your signature will still appear.