The Supreme Court of Canada recently ruled that the child welfare system can take and keep children without a finding of abuse or unfitness. This is very dangerous thinking, because it essentially abrogates a parent's right to raise their own children. Only if there has been a finding of abuse, neglect or unfitness should a child welfare agency have the power to permanently remove children from a home. In this case there was no such finding, and evidence was lacking.

The story said that "the teenager, with her consent, was kept in state custody until she turned 18 in 1998," but I wonder what exactly that means. Does it mean she talked it over with her parents and wanted to be there? Or does it mean she was sequestered away, not allowed real contact with her parents, and fed negative information about them?

To learn more about this scary ruling, see the CanWest News Service article below. This is also a problem in the United States--to learn more, my co-authored column Choosing Foster Parents over Fathers (San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/11/07).

Top court sides with child welfare system over families
By Richard Foot
CanWest News Service, 7/27/07

The Supreme Court of Canada threw its support behind the country's child welfare system Friday, saying child protection agencies and their workers have no general legal responsibility to families whose children have been taken away by the state.

The Court issued a unanimous ruling Friday, upholding an appeal by the Syl Apps Secure Treatment Centre in Oakville, Ont. and one of its workers, who were being sued by a family that lost its 14-year-old daughter in 1995.

The girl was apprehended by the Children's Aid Society after writing a story in school that said her parents had physically and sexually abused her.

Although an investigation turned up no evidence of any abuse --- and no charges were ever laid --- the teenager, with her consent, was kept in state custody until she turned 18 in 1998.

The following year her family sued the Syl Apps Centre and one of its social workers, accusing them of negligence, for treating their daughter as if she was an abuse victim, and thereby denying any hope of a future relationship between the girl and her family.

The centre and the Ontario government said the lawsuit had no merit, but the Ontario Court of Appeal decided there were legal grounds for a claim.

The Supreme Court has now disagreed, saying there is no general basis in Canadian law under which a family can claim that a "duty of care" is owed to them by child welfare agencies or their employees.

Introducing such a duty of care to families, the court said, would conflict with the child welfare system's primary duty to the children in its care.

"Such a duty (to families) has never before been recognized," the Court said in its judgment Friday.

The overall emphasis of Ontario's Child and Family Services Act, it said, is the "protection and promotion of the child's best interests, not those of the family."

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Family Law, Children's Rights, Child Protective Services/Child Welfare System, Foster Care, False Accusations, Child Abuse. You can trackback from your own site.