Former Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian wrote:
“I am disheartened by the complete lack of action to ensure transparency and accountability by these organizations that received significant public funding. As part of the modernization of the Acts, I call on the government to finally address this glaring omission and ensure that Children’s Aid Societies are added to the list of institutions covered.”
The only oversight for the province’s children’s aid agencies comes from Ontario’s Ministry of Children and Youth Services.
"As the law stands now clients of the Ontario Children's Aid Society under Wynne's liberals are routinely denied a timely (often heavily censored) file disclosure before the court begins making decisions and the clients can not request files/disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act nor can censored information reviewed by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario or the federal counterpart."
In her 2004 annual report, which was released on June 22, 2005, the Commissioner called for amendments that would bring virtually all organizations that are primarily funded by government dollars under FOI for the purposes of transparency and accountability: This would include the various children’s aid agencies in the Province of Ontario. Many parents and families complain about how difficult it is, if not impossible, to obtain information from children’s aid agencies. Many citizens complain that CAS agencies appear to operate under a veil of secrecy. Unlicensed and untrained CAS workers are making decisions which are literally destroying families, yet there is little or no accountability for their actions short of a lawsuit long after the damage has been done.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/beef-up-information-laws-ontario-privacy-czar-says/article1120573/
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/commissioner-cavoukian-calls-on-government-to-preserve-freedom-and-liberty-514463911.html
A landlord in BC evicting a tenant in Ontario feels her right to make anonymous reports to the children's aid society from BC allegedly based on reports from a property manager were violated when her name was disclosed to the family. As child welfare law does not prohibit the recording of child welfare social workers, it does not prohibit the children's aid societies from releasing the names of persons making reports. Attempts to prevent recording and refusal to release the names of accusers are corporate policies, not law.
The rules on reporting concerns about children in Ontario say something about the person with the concerns must report their concerns themselves, yes?
https://youtu.be/xi3GSzkJlAg
HOW DID THE CAS IN ONTARIO AVOID TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR RAMPANT RACISM?
OACAS BLAMED THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS...
A Professional Cover Story...
(CAS funded) Research indicates that many professionals overreport families based on stereotypes around racial identities. Both Indigenous and Africa-Canadian children and youth are overrepresented in child welfare due to systemic racism.
But don't worry, it's now even easier for those prejudicial, biased racist teachers and other registered professionals to share your information with the children aid society.
A document called “Yes, You Can. Dispelling the Myths About Sharing Information with Children’s Aid Societies” was jointly released by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the Ontario Provincial Advocate. The document, targeted at the racist professionals who work with children, is a critical reminder that a call to Children’s Aid is not a privacy violation when you claim it concerns the safety of a child. In fact, professionals who work with children have a special responsibility, as stated in the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, to protect the safety and well-being of children.
http://www.oacas.org/childrens-aid-child-protection/duty-to-report/
Marketization of law making is a process that enables the elites to operate as market oriented firms by changing the legal environment in which they operate in.
When the people who have power in our society can have an influence in law making, the laws that get created will not maintain the appearance of equality and the elites in society can lobby and eventually criminalize (demonize) the poor.
The laws will start to benefit the big corporations (elites). This is well illustrated in Stan Cohen’s concept of the moral panic. A moral panic refers to the reaction of a group within society (elite) to the activities of a non elite group. The targeted group is seen as a threat to society also referred to as the folk devil.
Here we can see here how child welfare law is not applied equally to everyone. In this particular instance the child welfare law is benefiting the people with means.
Motherisk hair test evidence tossed out of Colorado court 2 decades before questions raised in Canada.
For more than two decades, Motherisk performed flawed hair-strand tests on thousands of vulnerable families across Canada, influencing decisions in child protection cases that separated parents from their children and sometimes children from their siblings. (CBC)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/motherisk-colorado-court-case-1.4364862
A Motherisk expert testified for the defence in a Colorado murder case. The judge mocked the lab’s processes. But the case remained virtually unknown in Ontario until now.
http://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/part-2/
Silenced, discredited, stripped of powers of moral appeal, and deprived of the interpersonal conditions necessary for maintaining self-respect and labeled "disgruntled" many people suffer from serious but subtle forms of oppression involving neither physical violence nor the use of law.
The GONE theory holds that Greed, Opportunity, Need and the Expectation of not being caught are what lay the groundwork for fraud. Greed and/or need provides the motive.
Judge rejects proposed class-action over Motherisk drug-testing scandal.
By RACHEL MENDLESON Investigative Reporter. Thu., Nov. 2, 2017.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/02/judge-rejects-proposed-class-action-over-motherisk-drug-testing-scandal.html
Parents lose second bid to launch class-action suit against Motherisk over flawed hair tests.
By RACHEL MENDLESON Investigative Reporter. Tues., Nov. 27, 2018.
Despite the “knee-jerk denials” of Motherisk experts and the Hospital for Sick Children, it wouldn’t be hard to prove in court that the lab’s drug and alcohol hair tests were broadly unreliable. However, establishing this fact wouldn't advance individual cases enough to make a national class-action lawsuit the right approach for thousands of families seeking compensation.
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/11/27/parents-lose-second-bid-to-launch-class-action-suit-against-motherisk-over-flawed-hair-tests.html
IN ONTARIO CANADA JUSTICE ISN'T BLIND ... IT'S AN ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT.
Comack states; “While the pivotal point in the rule of law is ‘equality of all before the law’, the provision of formal equality in the legal sphere does not extend to the economic sphere. Thus, the law maintains only the appearance of equality because, it never calls into question the unequal and exploitative relationship between capital and labour.” This statement implies that the law is in place to be neutral. Therefore, the law would apply equally to everyone, including both the working and elite class. It can be said that in today’s society we have the marketization of law making.
Corporatism:
Fascism's theory of economic corporatism involved management of sectors of the economy by government or privately-controlled organizations (corporations). Each trade union or employer corporation would theoretically represent its professional concerns, especially by negotiation of labor contracts and the like.
One of the 14 characteristics of fascism is -
Corporate Power is Protected.
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
The people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights and procedural protections can be ignored in certain cases because of special need.
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION.
Under suspicion: Concerns about child welfare.
The OHRC is also very concerned that the overrepresentation of Black and Indigenous children in the child welfare system is a possible indicator of systemic racism. We conducted a public interest inquiry to examine this issue. We requested that CASs across the province provide us with data on race and other information. In the preliminary analysis of the data, we found that for many CASs across the province, African Canadian and Indigenous children are overrepresented in care, compared to their census populations.
http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/under-suspicion-concerns-about-child-welfare
In January 2017, the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS) launched a revamped set of curriculum for Ontario’s child protection workers. The Child Welfare Pathway to Authorization Series is designed to be more responsive and better reflect the realities of child welfare work in Ontario using an anti-oppressive framework other than the Constitution, Charter of Rights and Fundamental Justice. New training will cover topics such as equity, human rights, and anti-racism.
Racial (financial) profiling is an insidious and particularly damaging type of racial discrimination that relates to notions of safety and security. Racial profiling violates people’s rights under the Ontario Human Rights Code (Code). People from many different communities experience racial profiling. However, it is often directed at First Nations, Métis, Inuit and other Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Arabs, West Asians and Black people, and is often influenced by the negative stereotypes that people in these communities face. (see confirmation bias)
A short Motherisk video:
https://www.facebook.com/FamiliesUnitedOntario/videos/712354072307693/
In 2015, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) began a year-long consultation to learn more about the nature of racial profiling in Ontario. Our aim was to gather information to help us guide organizations, individuals and communities on how to identify, address and prevent racial profiling. We connected with people and organizations representing diverse perspectives. We conducted an online survey, analyzed cases (called applications) at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario that alleged racial profiling, held a policy dialogue consultation, and reviewed academic research. We conducted focus groups with Indigenous peoples and received written submissions. Overall, almost 1,650 individuals and organizations told us about their experiences or understanding of racial profiling in Ontario.
We heard concerns about racial/financial profiling in the child welfare sector, particularly affecting Black and Indigenous families. We heard that systemic racism was perceived to be embedded in this system, and that racial profiling that may take place in this sector targets mothers for over-scrutiny most often.
We heard concerns that racialized and Indigenous parents are disproportionately subjected to surveillance and scrutiny, which contributes to families being reported to children’s aid societies (CASs). We also heard that once a referral to child welfare authorities takes place, families are more likely to have prolonged child welfare involvement, and be more at risk of having their children apprehended. Consultation participants suggested these experiences arise in part from referrers’ and child welfare authorities’ incorrect assumptions about risk based on race and related grounds, and intersections between these grounds and poverty.
Black, Indigenous and racialized children are overrepresented in the child welfare system
There is evidence that Indigenous, Black and other racialized children are overrepresented in the child welfare system when compared to their proportion in the general population. For example, in 2015, the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto reported that African Canadians represented 40.8% of children in care, yet they made up only 8.5% of Toronto’s population. Statistics Canada data from 2011 shows that even though Aboriginal children make up only 3.4% of children in Ontario, they represent 25.5% of children in foster care. Research from 2003 indicates that Latino children are overrepresented in cases selected for investigation by Canadian child protection services, as are Asian children when allegations of physical abuse are involved.
Consultation participants described the historical and structural inequalities that give rise to racialized and Indigenous parents having greater involvement with child welfare authorities. Some survey respondents highlighted the “Sixties Scoop” – the mass apprehension and removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities by Canadian child welfare authorities dating back to the 1960s.
There are likely many factors leading to these disproportionate representations and, on their own, they do not conclusively point to discrimination. However, overrepresentation of certain racial groups in the child welfare system may be one indicator of systemic discrimination, including systemic racial profiling.
Systemic racial profiling refers to patterns of behaviour, policies or practices that are part of an organization’s or sector’s structure, which create a position of relative disadvantage for racialized and Indigenous peoples. These policies, practices or behaviors may appear neutral, but may result in situations where racialized or Indigenous peoples tend to be singled out for greater scrutiny or negative treatment.
Although many different issues could lead to involvement by child welfare authorities, biased referrals and biased decision-making among these services may play a role.
Concerns about risk assessment standards and tools
Consultation participants raised concerns about bias in the tools and standards used to assess risk to children. Although they seem neutral, we heard that risk assessment standards and tools may lean towards more positive outcomes for White people. (see confirmation bias)
Social work researchers argue that risk assessment tools in Ontario are biased and perpetuate racism because they do not account for structural inequalities, such as racial discrimination, that may affect a child’s well-being. Parents may be blamed for these external factors, even though they are largely out of their control. We heard that relying on these tools, coupled with worker bias – which may be conscious or unconscious – may contribute to assumptions about racialized children and families being “inherently wrong or deficient.” This can lead to incorrect assumptions about the level of risk children are exposed to.
(see confirmation bias)
We also heard concerns about risk assessment standards that relate to poverty – for example, the number of children allowed per bedroom. Poverty in racialized and Indigenous families may be seen as a sign of neglect, providing a basis for a child welfare agency to become involved. We heard that these standards can affect what is seen as acceptable in a home and contribute to CAS decisions to intervene. (see confirmation bias)
It is unclear to what extent child welfare risk assessment standards and tools reflect real risk to children in all cases, or arise from White, Western, Christian middle-class norms. When standards and tools are not based on objective factors, but on the cultural norms of the dominant group, they may contribute to racial profiling. (see confirmation bias)
Concerns about biased decision-making
Concerns were also raised both about the perceived bias of authorities or individuals that refer to CASs, and perceived bias in decision-making practices when child welfare workers and authorities become involved with families. Participants said that child welfare workers, many of whom are White, may be more likely to construe family situations or the actions of Indigenous or racialized people as “risky.” (see confirmation bias)
The Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres (OFIFC) identified that Indigenous families experience “intense scrutiny of [their] ways of life” (for more information, see the full OHRC report, Under suspicion: Research and consultation report on racial profiling in Ontario). We repeatedly heard that non-Indigenous child
Welfare workers often do not understand the nature or structure of Indigenous families and cultural differences in how families live. For example, they only see that children are not being raised by their parents or are living in what they think are over-crowded conditions. In another example, Indigenous youth told us that they are sometimes put into care because they miss a lot of school due to practicing their traditions and taking part in ceremonies.
Social work researchers talked about some of the factors that may contribute to the over-scrutiny of Black parents, and the tendency to view Black parents as risks to their children and in need of intervention by CASs. For example, researchers note that child welfare authorities commonly view Black parents as “aggressive” and “crazy” when they are externalizing resistance, grief, fear or shame. They also note that Black children are perceived as needing “rescuing” from their parents. As well, we heard how Black families may be reported to CAS because their children eat non-Western foods that are specific to their culture.
Ways to address concerns about racial profiling in child welfare
Preventing and addressing racial profiling is a shared responsibility. Government, child welfare organizations and other responsible organizations must take concrete action and decisive steps to prevent, identify and respond to racial profiling. (see confirmation bias)
The OHRC has made many recommendations over several years to address racial profiling. These recommendations are included in our report, Under suspicion. Where applicable, they should be used to identify how racial profiling may be taking place in the child welfare system. They also identify specific approaches organizations should use to prevent and address racial profiling.
Overall, consultation participants agreed with the following broad strategies to prevent and address racial profiling:
Anti-bias training
Developing policies, procedures and guidelines
Effective accountability monitoring and accountability
mechanisms, including:
complaint procedures
disciplinary measures
collecting, analyzing and reporting on data
Holistic organizational change strategy
Leadership
Communication (external and internal)
Engagement with affected stakeholders.
The OHRC is also very concerned that the overrepresentation of Black and Indigenous children in the child welfare system is a possible indicator of systemic racism. We conducted a public interest inquiry to examine this issue. We requested that CASs across the province provide us with data on race and other information. In the preliminary analysis of the data, we found that for many CASs across the province, African Canadian and Indigenous children are overrepresented in care, compared to their census populations.
Next steps
The OHRC will:
Release the results of our public interest inquiry
Develop specific policy guidance to help individuals, community groups and organizations understand how racial profiling can be identified, prevented and addressed in the child welfare sector
Continue to call for the collection of race-based data and data on other Code grounds to better understand if racial disparities exist in this sector
Continue to work with community stakeholders to enhance public education on racial profiling.
For more information
To find out more about racial/ financial profiling in the child welfare and other sectors, the full Under suspicion report is available online at www.ohrc.on.ca.
To file a human rights claim (called an application), contact the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario at:
If you need legal help, contact the Human Rights Legal Support Centre at:
Toll Free: 1-866-625-5179
TTY Toll Free: 1-866-612-8627
Website: www.hrlsc.on.ca
http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/under-suspicion-concerns-about-child-welfare
2013: Nancy Simone, a president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local representing 275 workers at the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, argued child protection workers already have levels of oversight that include unregistered unqualified workplace supervisors, family court judges, coroners’ inquests and annual case audits by the ministry and the union representing child protection workers is firmly opposed to ethical oversight from a professional college, and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, which regulates and funds child protection, is so far staying out of the fight.. Nancy Simone says, “Our work is already regulated to death.”
How do you feel about child protection social workers taking off their lanyards and putting on their union pins to fight against professional regulation?
Regulation of child protection workers by Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers: CUPE responds.
Please send or adapt any of the following letters to the Executive Director of your CAS.
http://cupe2190.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SSWCC_CAS-letters-re-college-regulation_Nov.-2016.pdf
Silenced, discredited, stripped of powers of moral appeal, and deprived of the interpersonal conditions necessary for maintaining self-respect and labeled "disgruntled" many people suffer from serious but subtle forms of oppression involving neither physical violence nor the use of law.
Civilized Oppression and Moral Relations: Victims, Fallibility, and the Moral Community.
In Civilized Oppression J.Harvey forcefully argues for the crucial role of morally distorted relationships in such oppression. While uncovering a set of underlying moral principles that account for the immorality of civilized oppression, Harvey's analyses provide frameworks for identifying morally problematic situations and relationships, criteria for evaluating them, and guidelines for appropriate responses. This book will be essential for both graduates and undergraduates in ethics, social theory, theory of justice, and feminist and race studies.
This book discusses how civilized oppression (the oppression that involves neither violence nor the law) can be overcome by re-examining our participation in it. Moral community, solidarity and education are offered as vibrant strategies to overcome the hurt and marginalization that stem from civilized oppression.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=idBqAAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
