Legal Aid Ontario should in authorizing disbursements to parents’ counsel related to expert evidence, consider the complexity of child protection cases and the miscarriages of justice that could result from failing to vigorously challenge expert evidence; expand its Big Case Management program to child protection cases; and expand its Complex Case Rate policy to child protection counsel.
The Ministry of the Attorney General should ensure that the total funding available to Legal Aid Ontario is sufficient to enable the Recommendations in this Report to be implemented.
Specialty legal clinic for child protection
Legal Aid Ontario should establish an independent specialty legal clinic focused on child protection that could accept “hard to serve” clients, provide research and mentoring for private practitioners, engage in advocacy, and bring test case litigation to protect and enhance the rights of parents in child protection proceedings.
:::
Lake 88.1 “In Focus”interview with LAO’s Andreas Von Cramon and Nathalie Champagne: Date: April 8, 2014.
Description: Transcript of April 8th, 2014 “In Focus” interview by Bob Perreault from Lake 88.1 FM in Perth and Andreas Von Cramon, Supervisory Duty Counsel Criminal/Family Law and Nathalie Champagne, District Area Director, Ottawa Region.
Anderas von Cramon Supervisory Duty Counsel Family, Criminal Law in Brockville, Lanark, Leeds and Grenville and is married to the CAS in house lawyer for FCSLLG, Karynn Von Cramon.
FCSLLG Manager of Legal Services Karynn Von Cramon
$112,779.01 ($158.34 per hour)
https://www.ontario.ca/page/public-sector-salary-disclosure-2017-organizations-no-salaries-disclose
Anderas von Cramon operates a free family law clinic for families dealing with the CAS out of the courthouse to provide advice to people and to help them to prepare for family law cases, or to try to resolve their family cases outside the court. (sign consent forms and service agreement)
Parents go in praying for competent representation and good advice and instead get someone willing to bill legal aid to guide the parents through the process of having all their rights, dignity and children stipped away from them. According to legal aid right now family lawyers willing to accept legal aid bill an average of $40 000 dollars per case for not filing documents or filing them after the court has already granted the society a supervision order.. Or the society requests the judge order the parents to sign consent or service agreements after the parents have refused to sign anything and the judges oblige the society by ordering the parents to just cooperate.
Anderas von Cramon also gives basic help drafting documents. Basic means what? It means no help swearing in and filing documents or serving the document before the deadline - which means he does less than nothing.
I'm willing to bet if we could check, nobody Anderas von Cramon has ever "helped" has ever had anything filed before or after the deadlines have passed unless it was to submit to FCSLLG..
https://www.legalaid.on.ca/en/news/newsarchive/downloads/2014-04-08_In%20Focus%20interview.pdf?t=1495843200036
Just by failing to file the required paperwork by the deadline before a first appearance in family court on a child protection matter will potentially earn a legal aid lawyer a minimum of $40 000 according to legal aid Ontario.
:::
Disclosure
The Family Rules Committee should amend the Family Law Rules to require children’s aid societies to provide automatic, ongoing, thorough and timely disclosure to parents.
Education for judges on gatekeeping role in child protection
The National Judicial Institute, the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, and the Ontario Court of Justice should enhance their efforts to provide education programs and resources on expert evidence in child protection proceedings. Education should emphasize the skills judges need in order to perform their gatekeeper function in the unique context of child protection.
:::
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
:::
Ontario Association Of "Alleged" Child Protection Lawyers.
The OACPL as an organization seeks to: provide an organized body of Recognized (by who?) Child Protection Lawyers that advocate politically and socially on Child Welfare Matters in Ontario.
The most important things to remember about this bunch of "lawyers" is, #1: were it left up to them the children's aid societies would still be using a fraudulent drug test to justify apprehending and needlessly interfering in tens of thousands of children's lives every year using what the society calls a "lower standard" for reasonable grounds..
#2: we wouldn't know about the "rights violations" going on behind the closed doors and sealed records of the family courts mentioned in the Motherisk report or in other simpler words - impoverished parents right to a fair hearing before a judge had been violated for decades and the family court judges had no problem allowing it to happen anymore than the lawyers billing legal aid to represent the parents did.
And if it were not for the former Privacy Commissioner we wouldn't know parents were being denied their court disclosures receiving a copy of the worker's sworn affidavit and a date to appear in the family court or forfeit their children...
What rights were violated?
The right to a" fair" hearing in front of an impartial judge...
https://oacpl.org/
:::
Forensic Evidence, Motherisk and Miscarriages of Justice.
Speakers: Philip M. Epstein, Brian H. Greenspan, Dr. Dirk Huyer, the Honourable Susan Lang, James Lockyer, Rachel Mendleson, Dr. Michael Pollanen
About the event: This continuing professional development event was webcast on June 06, 2016 from the Law Society of Upper Canada in Toronto. Materials covered include:
- An outline of the role flawed forensic pathology and other forensic evidence has played in miscarriages of justice in Canada
- An overview of the Broomfield case, the Motherisk Hair Analysis Independent Review and the mandate of the Motherisk Commission
- How lawyers should and should not use experts to prevent miscarriages of justice in their cases
- A demonstration by some of Toronto’s best lawyers of how to qualify, examine in chief and cross examine experts
https://vimeo.com/172786436?fbclid=IwAR0TsLWZIQ91-ldIvIwIpK-PZEeByL_9odG1ea1avsg0kaRD2zlAMTUsP4Y
:::
Legal Aid Lawyer in Child Protection Proceeding - Compilation video.
https://www.facebook.com/FamiliesUnitedOntario/videos/845025535836491/
:::
Some lawyers condemn Doug Ford government cuts to legal-aid funding.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-lawyers-condemn-doug-ford-government-cuts-to-legal-aid-funding/
:::
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 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. The lawyers themselves.
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. (SEE FORD: SEE WYNNE AND ALL THE REST OF THEM!)
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
:::
Legal Aid funding cut nearly 30% in Ontario budget.
Legal Aid Ontario got hit with a major cut in Thursday's budget as the provincial government pulled $133 million and said the organization could no longer use provincial funds for refugee and immigration cases.
The organization's CEO, David Field, said the cut is a significant blow.
"It's a 29 per cent reduction in the amount that they're going to be providing to us and you're right, they are the largest component of our budget," he said Thursday evening
In budget documents, the government said it expects to save $164 million by streamlining the delivery of legal aid by the 2020-21 fiscal year. The government insists that if the organization reforms, it can actually help more people with less funding.
Field said they are going to have to take a hard look at their finances, consider ways to streamline and offer more services online.
"We have to look at the entire organization and how we can adapt to the new fiscal reality that we're facing," he said.
The province sets the income threshold for when a person is eligible for legal aid. It increased that figure this month to make people with slightly higher incomes eligible. Now a single person making less than $17,731 per year qualifies, up from $16,728.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ontario-legal-aid-funding-cut-1.5095058
:::
Legal Aid Ontario cuts jobs after Doug Ford slashes budget
By Fatima Syed in News, Politics | April 29th 2019
Legal Aid Ontario is cutting full-time jobs and imposing a hiring freeze after the Doug Ford government delivered the biggest budget cut in the agency's history.
In an email sent to staff Monday morning and shared with National Observer, Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) CEO David Field laid out a series of cost-saving measures including:
Cutting of full-time jobs by eliminating vacant positions, attrition and voluntary exits, as well as "other arrangements" not clear by the email
Implementing a hiring freeze, as well as a salary freeze for management
Delaying the implementation of IT initiatives
All of this is anticipated to save the organization approximately $16.6 million, Field wrote.
The changes come after the Ford government slashed the agency's budget by 30 per cent, meaning it had $133 million fewer to spend compared to its last budget of $456 million. The government said April 11 it was “streamlining the delivery of legal aid to promote long-term sustainability," and, in doing so, saving $164 million on legal aid spending each year starting in 2021.
In a statement to National Observer, Attorney General Caroline Mulroney said "The prior government spent more and more money on legal aid without achieving the results that legal aid’s clients or taxpayers should expect. With renewed accountability at legal aid, every dollar saved on lawyers is a dollar we can invest in public healthcare and education, the services that matter most to people.”
Legal Aid’s projected revenue for 2019-20 is $433 million, which includes $323 million in government funding, $98 million from interest on lawyers’ mixed-use trust accounts, and $12 million from client revenues.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/29/news/legal-aid-ontario-cuts-jobs-after-doug-ford-slashes-budget
:::
Inside the flawed world of medical publishing that allowed a lie in a paper coauthored by Dr. Gideon Koren to pollute the scientific record.
By Rachel MendlesonInvestigative Reporter Michele Henry Staff Reporter Andrew Bailey Data Analysis Fri., Dec. 21, 2018
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/12/21/inside-the-flawed-world-of-medical-publishing-that-allowed-a-lie-in-a-paper-coauthored-by-dr-gideon-koren-to-pollute-the-scientific-record.html
Sick Kids orders ‘systematic’ review of Dr. Gideon Koren’s published works.
By Rachel MendlesonInvestigative Reporter Michele Henry Staff Reporter Andrew Bailey Data Analysis Sun., Dec. 16, 2018.
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/12/16/sick-kids-orders-systematic-review-of-dr-gideon-korens-published-works.html
:::
Expert reports
The Family Rules Committee should amend the Family Law Rules to
require that, where a party wishes to introduce medical or scientific test results in a proceeding, the results be accompanied by a report from an expert explaining the meaning of the test results and the underlying science behind the testing; and require the content of expert reports to include the requirements in Rule 52.2 of the Federal Courts Rules, and in addition, require these reports to include the known or possible impacts of gender, socioeconomic status, culture, race, and other factors in the testing or assessment of results, as well as an explanation of what steps, if any, the expert took to address these impacts.
:::
Motherisk review should be expanded: Innocence Project.
https://www.osgoode.yorku.ca/osgoode_news/motherrisk-review-expanded-innocence-project/
By Rachel MendlesonNews reporter Tues., Feb. 10, 2015.
https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/02/10/motherisk-review-should-be-expanded-innocence-project.html
:::
Ensuring the reliability of expert evidence
CASs offered Motherisk test results as expert evidence in the legal proceedings to determine whether children were in need of protection and if so, who should care for them. Child protection law has "special rules of evidence" that recognize the need to protect children and to make decisions about their care as quickly as possible based on little or no factual evidence at all of abuse or neglect.
However, the relaxed approach to admitting the test results in the cases we reviewed pushed these less rigorous standards of evidence beyond what could reasonably be considered necessary or fair.
I have recommended a number of amendments to the legislation and rules governing the use of expert evidence in child protection, as well as changes to strengthen the representation of parents. I have also recommended enhanced education for judges on their important role as gatekeepers for expert evidence in the child protection context.
:::
:::
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.
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
:::
Five things to know about Motherisk hair testing..
1. The tests were preliminary
The tests performed by Motherisk relied on the unconfirmed results of its enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay (ELISA) tests.
ELISA is often used as a screening tool before more in-depth tests are undertaken. It can be used in toxicology as a rapid presumptive screen for certain classes of drugs. It’s useful if you need to screen a large number of samples when the presumption that only a small percentage will test positive. But it’s not definitive and the results can be erroneously interpreted.
The Motherisk Lab did not follow-up its presumed positive ELISA results with follow-on in-depth tests. Therefore, the results simply could not be relied upon to provide the absolute certainty needed.
As Craig Chatterton, a forensic toxicologist and a proponent of hair sample testing, correctly explains in the CBC report on Motherisk, a preliminary test like ELISA can be spot on - but, tragically for the families implicated, it can be 100% incorrect, too.
Susan Lang’s report went on to say "No forensic toxicology laboratory in the world uses ELISA testing the way MTDL [Motherisk] did."
2. Motherisk had no written standard operating procedures
Having standard, professional operating procedures in place is one of the central pillars of any testing environment, not just hair sample testing.
In this regard, Motherisk failed egregiously. The Lang report found no evidence of any written standard operating procedures at Motherisk. This raises serious doubts about the reliability and, crucially, the standardisation of its testing procedures.
Both forensic and clinical laboratories should have standard operating procedures in place for each of the tests they perform. Motherisk had no clear, documented procedures which means the processes could have varied substantially in each individual case, calling into question, rightly, the integrity of the lab’s results.
3. No transparency
Motherisk’s next misstep was the lack of formal process and documentation meant that it was almost impossible for any third party to robustly assess its results.
When the entire process isn’t adequately captured, it becomes easy for the lab to skirt over anomalies and simplify conclusions.
At Cansford Labs, for instance, we share the evidence in full. This is an absolutely vital component when the test will be involved in a highly sensitive matter like child custody.
The fact that Motherisk offered no insight into how its results were arrived at beggars belief.
4. Inadequate training and oversight
The inadequacy and transparency issues within Motherisk seeped all the way into the employees at the lab.
From reading the Lang report, Motherisk scientists were operating without any forensic training or oversight. The ELISA tests were inadequate, but even if they weren’t, the individuals interpreting the results weren’t properly trained.
Nobody at Motherisk, including, rather incredibly, Dr. Koren himself, had the proper training.
The lack of training manifested in all manner of amateurish mistakes. Staff routinely failed to wash hair samples before analysis, for example. One mother tested positive for alcohol because her alcohol-laced hairspray had not been washed off the sample. With the right training and process, these issues could easily have been avoided.
5. A compromised chain of custody
In the CBC report into Motherisk, one mother recalls how her second test was conducted after she disputed the first test’s results: “With my second test, the hair was done in the social worker’s office with the scissors out of her desk, tape off her desk and cardboard from the trash.”
Her sample tested positive for crystal meth, but laughably when she next saw her “hair sample”, the hair that allegedly belonged to her was longer and a different colour.
It should go without saying, but any robust testing process requires professionalism throughout. It’s not just about testing the sample, but also about how the sample is collected and treated.
The chain of custody is of paramount importance. Trusted professionals need to be present at every stage of the process, guided by the lab that will do the testing, and the procedures need to be the same for every single case.
Motherisk was an aberration:
When things go as wrong as they did at Motherisk, it’s important not to stick our heads in the sand. Especially when it involves vulnerable individuals.
But Motherisk wasn't just an aberration IT WAS AN ABERRATION that SPECIFICALLY targeted impoverished families.
The science of hair sample testing remains a powerful tool when the analysis is done correctly, appropriately, with quality control and assurances and interpreted by qualified experts.
Indeed, it’s only right that for vulnerable individuals, that nothing but the best will do. A fact that Motherisk seemingly forgot.
https://blog.cansfordlabs.co.uk/the-drug-and-alcohol-testing-blog/5-reasons-why-the-motherisk-scandal-shouldnt-happen-again
http://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/part-2/
:::
The Motherisk hair testing was imposed on vulnerable parents with little regard for due process or their rights to privacy and bodily integrity.
CASs and the courts often drew negative inferences about parents who did not go for testing or disputed the results.
CASs and the courts often used hair test results as a proxy for assessing parenting.
The use of testing generally reflected a narrow approach to substance use, focussed on abstinence.
Test results were often admitted into evidence without the usual checks and balances of the legal system and given excessive weight by CASs and the court.
https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/about/pubs/motherisk/
:::
Motherisk hair test evidence tossed out of Colorado court 2 decades before questions raised in Canada.
A Motherisk expert testified for the defense in a Colorado murder case. The judge mocked the lab’s processes. But the case remained virtually unknown in Ontario until now.
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
The more things change the more they stay the same...
NOTHING PERVERSE ABOUT THAT...
2013: Children’s Aid Society funding model with “perverse incentives” set to change this year
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/15/childrens_aid_society_funding_model_with_perverse_incentives_set_to_change_this_year.html
:::
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.
:::
Cornwall sex abuse victims given large settlements
Published Thursday, June 10, 2010 12:20PM EDT ctvottawa.ca
Some victims of the Cornwall sex abuse scandal are receiving large financial settlements after decades of allegations that a cover-up of a pedophile ring existed in the eastern Ontario city, CTV Ottawa has learned.
The sex abuse scandal was uncovered in the early 1990s. A public inquiry ended in December 2009 after four years. The inquiry found the Catholic Church, police, the Ontario government and the legal system all failed to protect children from sexual predators.
Now, Ontario's attorney general has confirmed to CTV that several financial settlements have been reached with victims, and more lawsuits are outstanding.
Although confidentiality agreements could mean taxpayers will never learn the true cost of the settlements, a former MPP predicts the payouts will total tens of millions of dollars.
"I would look at somewhere between $70-100 million," said Garry Guzzo, a former Conservative MPP who blew the whistle on the scandal and pushed for a public inquiry.
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/cornwall-sex-abuse-victims-given-large-settlements-1.521190
:::
Three CAS cases settled.
When it was filed in 2013, the civil suits totalled $14 million ($2.8 million per plaintiff).
Each plaintiff initially claimed $350,000 for pain and suffering, in addition to $1 million each for loss of future earnings and another $1 million for punitive damages. They sought $100,000 in future care costs, plus $100,000 for special damages and $250,000 for aggravated damages.
Two outstanding plaintiffs will be addressed shortly, Bonn said.
“We continue to work on those,” he said. “We intend to mediate those.”
The suit directed at the CAS also targets four former foster parents, two are now serving prison terms for sexual abuse of children placed in their care. A third convicted predator’s case is now before the Ontario Court of Appeal.
“Like most of these issues, they’re difficult all the way through and deal with unpleasant issues, but the fact that we’ve been able to reach some form of agreement means that each side is able to live with it at some level,” Bonn said Tuesday.
Bonn filed the claims on behalf of the five female plaintiffs, now in their late teens and early 20s.
“With litigation done, it would bring an end to this piece of their involvement with the CAS,” Bonn said.
All complainants listed claim the Prince Edward County CAS (PECCAS) is liable for the abuse each of them suffered while in the care of PECCAS.
The County society is now part of the newly-amalgamated Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society, which also spans the societies of Hastings and Northumberland counties.
Mark Kartusch, the society’s executive director, was also tight-lipped about the settlement.
“I can’t disclose any of the details,” he said Tuesday. “However, we do hope this helps these youths move forward.”
Kartusch wouldn’t go as far as viewing the settlements as a form of closure for the plaintiffs.
“How does one ever have closure?” he said. “We believe in these young people and their future and want to support them in that.”
Before the 2013 merger, PECCAS was subjected to an extensive government probe which revealed a bevy of damning findings.
The investigation led by the Ministry of Child and Youth Services in Dec. 2011 – following a rash of child sex abuse charges against County foster parents – showed the agency was rife with significant internal conflicts recklessly placing vulnerable children in homes not properly screened and some cases not screened at all for months.
Kartusch said the agency has found better footing since the findings triggered amalgamation.
“I think we’re moving forward but will not forget the past,” he said.
Some concerns linger.
“I’m concerned that this may cause people to lose confidence in fostering or foster families,” he said, adding few bad apples aren’t representative of the whole bunch.
The 2013 statement of claims alleged “PECCAS is responsible, in fact and in law, for its own negligence and breaches of its statutory and fiduciary duties as well as for the negligence and breaches of duty committed by its servants, agents and employees,” states the claim, a copy of which was obtained by The Intelligencer in April 2013.
One statement of claim states, “PECCAS caused (the plaintiffs) permanent and extensive injuries and losses” ranging from alcohol and substance abuse to inability to trust, impairment of mental health, nightmares of abuse, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.
“They (plaintiffs) have incurred medical expenses and will continue to require therapy and medical attention,” the 2013 statement of claim adds.
Two of the former foster parents initially targeted in the claim were Walter Joseph Holm, 46, and his wife, Janet Holm, 49.
They pleaded guilty to several charges, including possession of child pornography, sexual assault and invitation to sexual touching and were sentenced in November 2011 to four- and three-year prison terms respectively.
Three of the five plaintiffs, now ages 21, 23, and 19, are linked to the Holms. It’s not known if they were the three of five now concluded.
Justice Geoff Griffin blasted the Holms for turning their home into a “sexual cult” while fostering 25 teenagers over the course of nine years.
:::
SEE: Top teacher watchdog who wrote porn resigns
The former head of the discipline committee of the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) is facing professional misconduct charges for his role in co-authoring a sexually explicit novel for teens.
Jacques Tremblay resigned his position as chair of the OCT’s disciplinary committee, a position that involves overseeing sexual assault cases, in 2011 after his part in writing a soft porn novel titled “The Sexteens and the Fake Goddess” was exposed in a Toronto Star investigation.
The book “is a lurid tale of striptease, breast fondling, bum grabbing, orgasms, drugs and blackmail,” reported the Star’s Kevin Donovan in the exposé.
The cover of the book depicts the backs of a boy and a girl naked from the waist up looking at a silhouette of the CN Tower.
The other authors of the book are identified as Tremblay’s wife, Marie-Ange Gagnon, and Frederic Tremblay.
Following Jacques Tremblay’s resignation the OCT launched an investigation into the situation, although the teachers’ watchdog had earlier maintained that Tremblay’s writing did “not have an impact on his ability to act in the public interest.”
Tremblay himself had argued that his book was “entirely separate” from his work at the College and service to the public, saying the book was meant to “empower teenagers, to encourage them to be strong and resist or avoid peer pressure.”
However, in an article on his website Tremblay says the purpose of his novel is to help teens “find their inner voice” which will affect their “future sex life” because “having higher self-esteem below the belt leads to better sex.”
He also warns teens that having negative attitudes about sex could have a “direct impact on orgasm.”
https://mychristiandaily.com/teen-sex-novel-lands-former-ontario-teachers-disciplinary-head-in-hot-water/
2011: Soft-porn writing teacher resigns from watchdog.
Ontario’s top teacher watchdog has quit.
Jacques Tremblay, who the Star reported was a writer of soft porn replete with questionable administrator-teacher-student conduct, resigned Tuesday. He was the chairperson for five years of the Ontario College of Teachers’ disciplinary panel, which sits in judgment on hundreds of teachers accused of misconduct.
In the novel, main character Leila Montana is introduced as a “young teen” just starting high school. She is also joining a group called the Sexteens’ Select Society.
s she awaits initiation into this mysterious alliance, the book describes her appearance as follows: “Her half-open shirt divulges the roundness of her gorgeous bosom. Leila’s particularly short skirt exposes her barely fleshy buttocks.”
There are several other detailed references throughout the book about the bodies of Leila and other girls.
Taking an oath to the mysterious society, Leila promises to “develop my teenage life at my own rhythm inspired by the aphrodisiac cult, which is based on the power of love and the emancipation of my sexuality.”
On the day after the initiation, “Leila wakes up and feels a new energy swelling within her. . . . Despite her efforts, however, Leila can’t remember what really happened. She is peaceful and undisturbed by this lapse of memory. Meanwhile, Leila feels a very light, but quite pleasant, tingling on her upper right buttock.”
(Nothing at all creepy about this is there and everything about this little scenario is perfectly normal, right?)
:::
Date rape drugs facts: It’s Not Just Roofies Anymore.
Date rape drugs are drugs used to assist in a sexual assault, which is any type of sexual activity a person does not agree to.
These drugs can affect you very quickly and cause victims to become weak, confused, and even pass out. You may not remember what happened while you were drugged.
The most common date rape drugs -- also called "club drugs" -- are flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), also called roofies; gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also called liquid ecstasy; and ketamine, also called Special K.
These drugs may come as pills, liquids, or powders.
Alcohol may also be considered a date rape drug because it affects judgment and behavior and can be used to help commit sexual assault.
The club drug "ecstasy" (MDMA) has also been used to commit sexual assault.
Protect yourself by not accepting drinks from others, not sharing drinks, watching your drink, and by avoiding creepy societies and having a non-drinking friend with you to make sure nothing happens.
If you suspect you have been exposed to a date rape drug or have been sexually assaulted, call 911 and get to an emergency room immediately.
Date rape drugs can also cause seizures and even death.
Adverse Effects of Club Drugs
Uncertainties about the sources, chemicals, and possible contaminants used to manufacture many club drugs make it extremely difficult to determine toxicity and associated medical consequences. Nonetheless, we do know that:
Coma and seizures can occur following use of GHB.
Combined use with other drugs such as alcohol can result in nausea and breathing difficulties. GHB and two of its precursors, gamma butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4 butanediol (BD), have been involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes, and deaths.
Rohypnol may be lethal when mixed with alcohol and/or other CNS depressants.
Ketamine, in high doses, can cause impaired motor function, high blood pressure, and potentially fatal respiratory problems.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/chairman-of-teachers-discipline-committee-resigns-over-blue-teen-novel
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2011/10/05/top_teacher_watchdog_who_wrote_porn_resigns.html
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/2221198-soft-porn-writing-teacher-resigns-from-watchdog/
::::
The three plaintiffs further implied that PECCAS was “vicariously liable for the actions” of the Holms.
https://www.intelligencer.ca/2014/10/21/three-cas-cases-settled/wcm/3fd07287-3f2a-1755-7386-1c8c2353c943
:::
Woman charged with sex assault of minors worked at male Highland Shores Children's Aid Society group-home at time of alleged offences.
February 1, 2019 7:16 pm By Alexandra Mazur Online Reporter Global News.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4916584/woman-charged-with-sex-assault-of-minors-worked-at-male-cas-group-home-at-time-of-alleged-offences/
Woman charged with sexual exploitation worked at Children’s Aid at time of alleged offences.
Belleville police say two male victims came forward claiming incidents of sexual assault with the accused, 48-year-old Sandra Forcier.
https://globalnews.ca/video/4917374/woman-charged-with-sexual-exploitation-worked-at-childrens-aid-at-time-of-alleged-offences
Youth worker charged with historical sex assault.
Police in Belleville, Ont., have charged a 48-year-old woman with five counts of sexual assault dating back to 2012-2013, when she was employed as a youth worker.
The woman is charged with two counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual exploitation of a youth under 18 and one count of sexual interference.
The woman was employed by the Highland Shores Children's Aid Society (CAS) when the alleged assaults took place. Police said a lengthy investigation resulted in two victims being identified.
Highland Shores CAS executive director Tami Callahan said the accused was a supervisor at a residence for youth run by the society before leaving in December 2013.
Callahan said Belleville police have not been in touch with the CAS, and she didn't know whether the complainants were in the society's care at the time of the alleged assaults.
The accused also worked at Belleville and Quinte West Community Health Centre as a counsellor. The centre's executive director, Sheila Braidek, said the accused has been on leave for an extended period of time.
The centre would not provide any further information, citing privacy concerns.
The woman is due back in court in February after being released from custody with numerous conditions.
Anyone with more information should contact Belleville police at 613-966-0882 ext. 2328
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/youth-worker-sex-assault-belleville-1.5001086
:::
Children’s Aid executive facing 20 charges in child abuse case. By Alexandra Mazur and Mike Postovit Global News. 2018.
OPP has charged William Sweet, a resident of Picton, Ont., after allegations of wrongdoing during his work as the executive director of the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society between 2002 and 2010.
After investigating cases of children placed with foster parents who themselves were convicted of child abuse, this led the OPP to look into Sweet’s involvement as executive director of the child care organization.
The 67-year-old Picton resident was charged with 10 counts each of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and failure to provide the necessities of life. The accused appeared at the Ontario Court of Justice in Picton on May 2.
Sgt. Carolle Dionne, provincial media relations coordinator, says that although Sweet never fostered any children of his own, he is being charged because as she said, “he ought to have known better” than to place children with the foster parents who have since been convicted in child abuse cases.
For a period of eight years, nine foster children were placed with six foster parents who have since been convicted of sexual abuse against those children.
According to Dionne, Sweet’s investigation encompassed a review of those previous abuse investigations and convictions between 2013 and 2016. Police then conducted additional interviews, executed search warrants and seized evidence to put before the court for Sweet’s charges.
OPP officers are not commenting on specific details of the allegations as the matter is now before the courts.
Children’s Aid Society moves on
Mark Kartusch is the current executive director of the Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society. In 2012, after the Ministry of Children and Youth Services reviewed the Prince Edward County Children Services, Sweet left his post, and his branch dissolved. What came from that was an amalgamation of several children’s aid offices, an organization which Kartusch now heads.
He says that Sweet’s charges are bringing up bad memories, but that he hopes people will have faith in the workers.
“We didn’t have a lot of people coming forward to become foster parents,” said Kartusch, although he said that things have changed in the last few years.
He also emphasized that events like those that happened to the children placed out of the Prince Edward County children’s aid are highly unusual.
“Kids are safe in foster homes,” Kartusch emphasized.
He finished by saying that although there are employees from the now defunct Prince Edward Country chapter working within the Highland Shores organization, they were not involved in any criminal activity.
“The charges are isolated with Bill,” said Kartusch about Sweet.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4182170/childrens-aid-executive-charged/
:::
A 14-year-old girl is a ‘sexually mature young woman,’ not a child, children’s aid society lawyer argues in sex abuse suit.
Kenora-Rainy River Districts Child and Family Services tells the Star it disagrees with what its lawyer argued in an ongoing sexual abuse court case, but refused to say whether it plans to rectify the statement in court.
NEWS 01:49 PM by Jacques Gallant Toronto Star
A 14- or 15-year-old girl is not a child, but rather a "sexually mature young woman," according to a lawyer for a Northern Ontario children's aid society.
The statement by Toronto lawyer Gary McCallum is contained in a July 2018 affidavit in an ongoing civil court case, in which a woman is suing Kenora-Rainy River Districts Child and Family Services, claiming she was sexually abused as a child by her foster father in the 1980s while under the care of the agency's predecessor organization.
It was again referenced in a January 2019 ruling from the lengthy case, which is playing out in a Toronto court.
The statement has been described to the Star by other lawyers and a professor of social work as "offensive," "shocking," and "appalling" — doubly so because it was made by the lawyer for the very agency charged with protecting the most vulnerable children.
"This is outrageous," said Melissa Redmond, assistant professor of social work at Carleton University. "You represent the organization that is responsible for protecting children in this community, protecting children from exactly the sorts of horrific circumstances that this child found herself in."
Redmond, whose research interests include child protection policy, said she can't understand why there have not been consequences for the statement. "I don't understand how this is in the public record and (Kenora CFS) have not been seen to distance themselves as quickly as possible and to talk about how they value the children in the community and the children they have served in the past."
820 Lakeview Drive Kenora Ontario P9N 3P7 Canada Phone: 807-467-5437 Fax: 807-467-5539
Ontario's Child and Family Services Act, which governs children's aid societies, is also clear. "'Child' means a person under the age of eighteen years," it reads.
Kenora CFS refused to say when it became aware its lawyer had made the statement, but told the Star this week it disagrees with McCallum and called his position "inaccurate."
The agency also refused to say whether it plans to rectify the statement in court.
McCallum declined to comment to the Star, saying in an email that "I will not be making any statements on matters that are currently being litigated and I will not be making any statements inconsistent with those of my client."
The statement is part of a voluminous court record that stretches back years. It appears in a July 2018 affidavit in which McCallum states he is responding to the affidavit of the plaintiff's lawyer, Simona Jellinek, which McCallum said is "rife with errors, imprecisions, and misrepresentations." (Jellinek declined to comment to the Star.)
"She states that the alleged assaults took place while the plaintiff was 'in childhood,'" McCallum states before noting that the plaintiff's year of birth indicates she would have been about 14 or 15 in the early 1980s.
"A fourteen or fifteen (sic) girl is a sexually mature young woman, not a 'child,' as the term is conventionally understood," McCallum states.
The statement is again referenced in a January 2019 decision by Superior Court Justice Jessica Kimmel, who ruled that the plaintiff's action could proceed. In her decision, Kimmel makes no comment on the statement itself, other than to say it was identified as a "live" issue by McCallum surrounding the allegation of sexual assault.
As other lawyers have pointed out, McCallum's position — which has now been in the public record for about eight months since the affidavit was sworn in July 2018 — is effectively the agency's position, as he is acting for it in court.
"He's speaking on behalf of a children's aid society, so it's deeply concerning that there's a children's aid society out there that takes the view that youngsters of 14 or 15 are sexually mature," said lawyer Loretta Merritt, whose practice is almost exclusively focused on representing plaintiffs in civil cases involving sexual abuse.
"If that's their view, the view of an organization charged with responsibility for caring for vulnerable children, then that's deeply concerning to me."
Kenora CFS executive director Bill Leonard told the Star in an email exchange this week that he can't really comment as the court case is ongoing.
"Mr. McCallum's statement is before the court and as you point out, it has been before the court for some time," he said. "But to be clear my agency does, and always has, considered 14 and 15 year old young persons to be children as defined by legislation and as such are deserving of our full protection from any form of abuse."
It's "disappointing" if Kenora CFS didn't know at the time that their lawyer had made such a statement in court, said Allen Wynperle, president-elect of the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association, which represents lawyers acting for plaintiffs.
"I would have hoped that they would be aware of the comments that their lawyer is making, and certainly if they weren't, that's a problem and a concern," he said. "But certainly now that they are made aware of it, what are they going to do about it?"
Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter covering legal affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @JacquesGallant
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9237081-a-14-year-old-girl-is-a-sexually-mature-young-woman-not-a-child-children-s-aid-society-lawyer-argues-in-sex-abuse-suit/
:::
Although it's generally unsubstantiated, we probably hear or read about fraudulent activity, on average, at least weekly. The headlines confirm that fraud - lying, cheating and stealing for financial gain - does occur in NPOs and, in some instances, may have a significant impact on their continued viability, thanks not only to the monetary losses but also to the reduction in public support that generally results from any allegations of impropriety.
Unfortunately, while fraud is clearly having a significant impact on both our organizations and our society, it is practically impossible to gauge its true economic impact. So many incidents go unreported, undetected or fall into the grey zone of unethical behavior that the numbers fail to tell the whole story.
Dr. Steve Albrecht—The Fraud Scale
There are top 3 factors from personal characteristic list:
• Living beyond their means
• Overwhelming desire for gain
• High personal debt
Based on that, Dr. Steve Albrecht conclude that fraud most likely to occur when:
• Situational Pressure is High
• Personal Integrity is Low
• Perceived Opportunity is High
Cassey’s theory―fraud triangle, aiming at emphasizing the basic elements determining fraud:
Opportunity is the ability to commit fraud. The perpetrator believes that he/she can conceive and commit acts of fraud without being detected. It should be noticed that opportunities must be perceived as real by the perpetrator, meaning that opportunity is not implicitly real. The perpetrator’s conviction is based on identified weaknesses in the internal control, poor management oversight, inadequate external oversight and monitoring (performed by external auditors, supervision entities, and governmental units), the management failure to implement adequate fraud mitigation and monitor processes, lack of a formalized policy on conflicts of interest, lack of prosecution of perpetrators, weak ethical culture etc.
The pressure, the second element in the fraud triangle, has financial and non-financial nature. Pressure takes different forms as for example: high financial needs, need to report better results due to the pressure to meet (unrealistic sometimes) targets (especially in austere times), frustrations related to work environment, professional aspiration and the desire to reach it sooner, the competitive professional environment and sometimes just the person’s desire to prove he/she can defeat the system, the inadequate incentive systems etc. Professionals in fraud forensic concluded that pressure is generally non observable.
Rationalization is considered by many specialists to be a crucial component in most frauds. In many cases, persons that had proved in time ethical and professional integrity are the initiators of frauds or fraudulent financial reporting. As the fraudster profile shows, the most frequent cases involve senior management as for example CEOs and CFOs, individuals highly respected and recognized for their professionalism. Cressey noticed that a morally acceptable rationalization is necessary before the crime takes place. By rationalization the fraudster is preserving his self-image as a trustworthy person.
What are the typical indications of fraud?
Fraudsters are hard to spot. They generally look and act like any other typical employee, often turning out to have been seen as dedicated hardworking individuals who have received high praise from their supervisors and colleagues.
According to one school of thought, only 20% of the population walks the moral high ground and is always [a big word] honest. Another 20%, the inherently dishonest, are always on the lookout for ways to beat the system, and the remaining 60% fall somewhere in between these two extremes. White-collar criminals generally tend to emerge from the last group and are driven to step over the line by the right combination of motive and opportunity.
Watch for these 'red flag' indicators:
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. The fraud may be further driven by:
Financial problems or heavy debt load.
Delusions of grandeur.
An inflated ego.
A craving for success.
These factors are frequently characterized as the typical 'red flags' that may indicate the potential for fraud. If in addition, your organization has lax or non-existent internal controls, fails to segregate duties and has a willingness to put its trust in the wrong hands, you have the explosive combination that spells opportunity.
Rationalization: They're not really hurting anyone.
Fraudsters do not expect to be caught, since they generally do not view themselves as criminals. They often rationalize their behaviour by reassuring themselves that because they have every intention of doing good, they are not really harming anyone. Not the child, not the parents and not the taxpayers. In some instances they convince themselves that they deserve, and are in fact justified in taking, whatever children they can get their hands on. An unrealized promotion, a salary level below current market rates or expectations, or feelings of being unappreciated may create a fertile environment for this sort of reasoning.
Unfortunately, fraud can take place just as easily in an NPO as in a for-profit enterprise. Indeed, some would say that it can occur more easily in NPOs for some of the following reasons:
Atmosphere of trust. The mandate of NPOs is generally based on providing services to those in need.
In the case of Ontario's children aid societies who receives services is decided in criminal style investigations that have replaced the requirement for reasonable grounds with simple suspicion and replaced the need for warrants to conduct searches with tricking or intimidating parents into signing consent forms and service agreements with threats of removing the child and years of family court proceedings.
Management, employees, and the volunteers involved in the operations of an NPO have a strong belief in the services their organization provides and are often compassionate, caring individuals. This atmosphere, positive as it is, may result in the placement of a higher level of trust in colleagues, suppliers, and other individuals with whom the organization does business, than will typically occur in a for-profit enterprise.
Generally background checks, if any, done before enlisting the help of anyone willing to volunteer their time are inadequate.
Financial restraints.
NPOs are often funded through public donations, and in some instances by government subsidies, which in recent years have been heavily cut back. As a result child poaching is increasing, and funding restrictions often make it more difficult to hire the most appropriate staff.
Lack of business/financial experience.
Everywhere except the children's aid society in Ontario funding restrictions often result in management and employee salaries being less than market rates, making it difficult for NPOs to attract and retain individuals with a strong financial background. In many cases, the external auditors are relied upon to ensure that the year-end financial statements are accurate, but unfortunately, an audit is based on sample testing and is not designed to detect fraud.
Volunteer boards.
The board of directors of an NPO generally consists of volunteers that want to donate a portion of their personal time to a worthwhile organization. The directors often have full-time jobs, families and other personal commitments and are therefore only able to donate a certain amount of time to the NPO's activities. Further, while they may bring a significant amount of valuable experience to the organization, they often have limited financial backgrounds. This results in reliance on the executive director, controller or accounting supervisor to make the board aware of any financial concerns.
Stuart Douglas is the national partner and Kim Mills is a Toronto-based senior manager of Deloitte & Touche's Investigative and Forensic Accounting Group in Canada. The Investigative and Forensic Accounting Group focuses on economic damages, financial investigations and forensic accounting matters in the civil, criminal and corporate areas. For more information call either of them at 416-601-6150.
Fraud Pentagon Theory
There are five elements of the Fraud Pentagon;
Arrogance
Arrogance or lack of conscience is an attitude of superiority and entitlement or greed on the part of a person who believes that internal controls simply do not personally apply.
Competence
Competence is an employee’s ability to override internal controls, develop a sophisticated concealment strategy, and to control the social situation to his or her advantage by selling it to others.
Opportunity
Weak controls provide the opportunity for a person to commit fraud.
Rationalization
There is a motive to commit and conceal a fraud
Pressure
Not an ex post facto means of justifying a theft or fraud that has already occurred.
:::
Parents rights were ripped out by the roots...
Lives were ruined. Parents’ lives, and quite possibly children’s lives. Siblings and grandparents and other family members’ lives, too. Irreversibly ruined. And in many cases, it seems this was allowed to happen primarily because people were poor.
“In many of the cases we reviewed, when a Motherisk hair test came back positive, CAS (Children’s Aid Society) workers focused solely on the apparent substance use instead of considering any actual effect on parenting,” Beaman writes. Use was considered proof of addiction, and addiction was considered proof of “an inability to parent.” That, sometimes in the absence of any other meaningful evidence at all, led to children being taken away from their parents.
Removal from the home — permanent removal — is not supposed to be a move taken lightly. The report goes over the legal principles, laying out that it should be a last resort. It is the “capital punishment” of child protection, according to one citation, absolutely devastating to parents, and for children it is “often the beginning of a life sentence.”
Yet in the cases reviewed here, it is imposed, often apparently cavalierly and without even a trial, for reasons that amount to a punishment for being poor.
Rich parents who are alcoholics, after all, are not having their children taken from them after a single relapse. Few rich parents, in fact, are having their children taken from them at all.
“The underlying issue in many child protection cases before the court is poverty,” the report says. Much of the time, Beaman writes she heard what families most needed was help with groceries or babysitting, counselling or mental health treatment, help providing safe shelter.
What these parents and children needed, in other words, was help.
Helping struggling families takes billions of dollars in resources families need, like 5160 unregistered workers and large costly office buildings obviously of which OACAS admits in their own report over 1500 of them are not qualified by College standards. And as we see all too clearly, they are the systematic ruination of thousands of people’s lives.
What they got instead was the irrevocable breakup of their families. The loss for life of any contact at all with those in the world they loved most, and those who loved them most. They got harm, permanent harm.
It is hard to think of anything worse than that.
By EDWARD KEENAN Star Columnist Fri., March 2, 2018.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/03/02/motherrisk-reforms-show-struggling-families-dont-need-to-be-split-up-they-need-our-help.html NOTHING PERVERSE ABOUT THAT...
The basic principle behind cell organization is simple: By dividing the greater organization into many multi-person groups and compartmentalizing and concealing information inside each cell as needed, the greater organization is more likely to survive unchanged if one of its components is compromised and as such, they are remarkably difficult to penetrate and hold accountable in the same way the mafia families or terrorist organizations and Ontario's children's aid societies are.
DEFINITION of 'Protected Cell Company (PCC)
A corporate structure in which a single legal entity is comprised of a core and several cells that have separate assets and liabilities. The protected cell company, or PCC, has a similar design to a hub and spoke, with the central core organization linked to individual cells. Each cell is independent of each other and of the company’s core, but the entire unit is still a single legal entity.
BREAKING DOWN 'Protected Cell Company (PCC)
A protected cell company operates with two distinct groups: a single core company and an unlimited number of cells. It is governed by a single board of directors, which is responsible for the management of the PCC as a whole. Each cell is managed by a committee or similar group, with authority to the committee being granted by the PCC board of directors. A PCC files a single annual return to regulators, though business and operational plans of each cell may still require individual review and approval by regulators.
Cells within the PCC are formed under the authority of the board of directors, who are typically able to create new cells as business needs arise. The articles of incorporation provide the guidelines that the directors must follow.
The ministry is not contemplating amalgamation, said MacCharles, and is instead choosing to focus on a shared services approach.
The current hierarchical corporate structures that dominate our economies have been in place for over 200 years and were notably supported and defined by Max Weber during the 1800s. Even though Weber was considered a champion of bureaucracy, he understood and articulated the dangers of bureaucratic organisations as stifling, impersonal, formal, protectionist and a threat to individual freedom, equality and cultural vitality.
CAS actions are shrouded in secrecy, and media investigations are chilled by CAS (a multi-billion dollar private corporation) lawyers, who claim to be protecting the privacy rights of all involved.
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.
Although it's generally unsubstantiated, we probably hear or read about fraudulent activity, on average, at least weekly. The headlines confirm that fraud - lying, cheating and stealing for financial gain - does occur in NPOs and, in some instances, may have a significant impact on their continued viability, thanks not only to the monetary losses but also to the reduction in public support that generally results from any allegations of impropriety.
Unfortunately, while fraud is clearly having a significant impact on both our organizations and our society, it is practically impossible to gauge its true economic impact. So many incidents go unreported, undetected or fall into the grey zone of unethical behavior that the numbers fail to tell the whole story.
Dr. Steve Albrecht—The Fraud Scale
There are top 3 factors from personal characteristic list:
• Living beyond their means
• Overwhelming desire for gain
• High personal debt
Based on that, Dr. Steve Albrecht conclude that fraud most likely to occur when:
• Situational Pressure is High
• Personal Integrity is Low
• Perceived Opportunity is High
Cassey’s theory―fraud triangle, aiming at emphasizing the basic elements determining fraud:
Opportunity is the ability to commit fraud. The perpetrator believes that he/she can conceive and commit acts of fraud without being detected. It should be noticed that opportunities must be perceived as real by the perpetrator, meaning that opportunity is not implicitly real. The perpetrator’s conviction is based on identified weaknesses in the internal control, poor management oversight, inadequate external oversight and monitoring (performed by external auditors, supervision entities, and governmental units), the management failure to implement adequate fraud mitigation and monitor processes, lack of a formalized policy on conflicts of interest, lack of prosecution of perpetrators, weak ethical culture etc.
The pressure, the second element in the fraud triangle, has financial and non-financial nature. Pressure takes different forms as for example: high financial needs, need to report better results due to the pressure to meet (unrealistic sometimes) targets (especially in austere times), frustrations related to work environment, professional aspiration and the desire to reach it sooner, the competitive professional environment and sometimes just the person’s desire to prove he/she can defeat the system, the inadequate incentive systems etc. Professionals in fraud forensic concluded that pressure is generally non observable.
Rationalization is considered by many specialists to be a crucial component in most frauds. In many cases, persons that had proved in time ethical and professional integrity are the initiators of frauds or fraudulent financial reporting. As the fraudster profile shows, the most frequent cases involve senior management as for example CEOs and CFOs, individuals highly respected and recognized for their professionalism. Cressey noticed that a morally acceptable rationalization is necessary before the crime takes place. By rationalization the fraudster is preserving his self-image as a trustworthy person.
What are the typical indications of fraud?
Fraudsters are hard to spot. They generally look and act like any other typical employee, often turning out to have been seen as dedicated hardworking individuals who have received high praise from their supervisors and colleagues.
According to one school of thought, only 20% of the population walks the moral high ground and is always [a big word] honest. Another 20%, the inherently dishonest, are always on the lookout for ways to beat the system, and the remaining 60% fall somewhere in between these two extremes. White-collar criminals generally tend to emerge from the last group and are driven to step over the line by the right combination of motive and opportunity.
Watch for these 'red flag' indicators:
Financial problems or heavy debt load.
Delusions of grandeur.
An inflated ego.
A craving for success.
These factors are frequently characterized as the typical 'red flags' that may indicate the potential for fraud. If in addition, your organization has lax or non-existent internal controls, fails to segregate duties and has a willingness to put its trust in the wrong hands, you have the explosive combination that spells opportunity.
Rationalization: They're not really hurting anyone.
Fraudsters do not expect to be caught, since they generally do not view themselves as criminals. They often rationalize their behaviour by reassuring themselves that because they have every intention of doing good, they are not really harming anyone. Not the child, not the parents and not the taxpayers. In some instances they convince themselves that they deserve, and are in fact justified in taking, whatever children they can get their hands on. An unrealized promotion, a salary level below current market rates or expectations, or feelings of being unappreciated may create a fertile environment for this sort of reasoning.
Unfortunately, fraud can take place just as easily in an NPO as in a for-profit enterprise. Indeed, some would say that it can occur more easily in NPOs for some of the following reasons:
Atmosphere of trust. The mandate of NPOs is generally based on providing services to those in need.
In the case of Ontario's children aid societies who receives services is decided in criminal style investigations that have replaced the requirement for reasonable grounds with simple suspicion and replaced the need for warrants to conduct searches with tricking or intimidating parents into signing consent forms and service agreements with threats of removing the child and years of family court proceedings.
Management, employees, and the volunteers involved in the operations of an NPO have a strong belief in the services their organization provides and are often compassionate, caring individuals. This atmosphere, positive as it is, may result in the placement of a higher level of trust in colleagues, suppliers, and other individuals with whom the organization does business, than will typically occur in a for-profit enterprise.
Generally background checks, if any, done before enlisting the help of anyone willing to volunteer their time are inadequate.
Financial restraints.
NPOs are often funded through public donations, and in some instances by government subsidies, which in recent years have been heavily cut back. As a result child poaching is increasing, and funding restrictions often make it more difficult to hire the most appropriate staff.
Lack of business/financial experience.
Everywhere except the children's aid society in Ontario funding restrictions often result in management and employee salaries being less than market rates, making it difficult for NPOs to attract and retain individuals with a strong financial background. In many cases, the external auditors are relied upon to ensure that the year-end financial statements are accurate, but unfortunately, an audit is based on sample testing and is not designed to detect fraud.
Volunteer boards.
The board of directors of an NPO generally consists of volunteers that want to donate a portion of their personal time to a worthwhile organization. The directors often have full-time jobs, families and other personal commitments and are therefore only able to donate a certain amount of time to the NPO's activities. Further, while they may bring a significant amount of valuable experience to the organization, they often have limited financial backgrounds. This results in reliance on the executive director, controller or accounting supervisor to make the board aware of any financial concerns.
Stuart Douglas is the national partner and Kim Mills is a Toronto-based senior manager of Deloitte & Touche's Investigative and Forensic Accounting Group in Canada. The Investigative and Forensic Accounting Group focuses on economic damages, financial investigations and forensic accounting matters in the civil, criminal and corporate areas. For more information call either of them at 416-601-6150.
Fraud Pentagon Theory
There are five elements of the Fraud Pentagon;
Arrogance
Arrogance or lack of conscience is an attitude of superiority and entitlement or greed on the part of a person who believes that internal controls simply do not personally apply.
Competence
Competence is an employee’s ability to override internal controls, develop a sophisticated concealment strategy, and to control the social situation to his or her advantage by selling it to others.
Opportunity
Weak controls provide the opportunity for a person to commit fraud.
Rationalization
There is a motive to commit and conceal a fraud
Pressure
Not an ex post facto means of justifying a theft or fraud that has already occurred.
:::
:::
“Harmful Impacts” is the title of the commission report written by the Honourable Judith C. Beaman after two years of study. After reading it, “harmful” seems almost to be putting it lightly. Out of the over 16 000 tests the commission only examined 56 cases of the flawed Motherisk tests, administered by the Motherisk lab between 2005 and 2015 and were determined to have a “substantial impact” on the decisions of child protection agencies to keep files open or led to children being permanently removed from their families and keep files open.
Wrongfully Separating kids from parents a 'textbook strategy' of domestic abuse, experts say — and causes irreversible, lifelong damage.
“Being separated from parents or having inconsistent living conditions for long periods of time can create changes in thoughts and behavior patterns, and an increase in challenging behavior and stress-related physical symptoms,” such as sleep difficulty, nightmares, flashbacks, crying, and yelling says Amy van Schagen - California State University.
The Science Is Unequivocal: Separating Families Is Harmful to Children
In news stories and opinion pieces, psychological scientists are sharing evidence-based insight from decades of research demonstrating the harmful effects of separating parents and children.
In an op-ed in USA Today, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (University of Delaware), Mary Dozier (University of Delaware), and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Temple University) write:
“Years of research are clear: Children need their parents to feel secure in the world, to explore and learn, and to grow strong emotionally.”
In a Washington Post op-ed, James Coan (University of Virginia) says:
“As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, I study how the brain transforms social connection into better mental and physical health. My research suggests that maintaining close ties to trusted loved ones is a vital buffer against the external stressors we all face. But not being an expert on how this affects children, I recently invited five internationally recognized developmental scientists to chat with me about the matter on a science podcast I host. As we discussed the border policy’s effect on the children ensnared by it, even I was surprised to learn just how damaging it is likely to be.”
Mia Smith-Bynum (University of Maryland) is quoted in The Cut:
“The science leads to the conclusion that the deprivation of caregiving produces a form of extreme suffering in children. Being separated from a parent isn’t just a trauma — it breaks the relationship that helps children cope with other traumas.
Forceful separation is particularly damaging, explains clinical psychologist Mia Smith-Bynum, a professor of family science at the University of Maryland, when parents feel there’s nothing in their power that can be done to get their child back.
For all the dislocation, strangeness and pain of being separated forcibly from parents, many children can and do recover, said Mary Dozier, a professor of child development at the University of Delaware. “Not all of them — some kids never recover,” Dr. Dozier said. “But I’ve been amazed at how well kids can do after institutionalization if they’re able to have responsive and nurturing care afterward.”
The effects of that harm may evolve over time, says Antonio Puente, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington who specializes in cultural neuropsychology. What may begin as acute emotional distress could reemerge later in life as PTSD, behavioral issues and other signs of lasting neuropsychological damage, he says.
“A parent is really in many ways an extension of the child’s biology as that child is developing,” Tottenham said. “That adult who’s routinely been there provides this enormous stress-buffering effect on a child’s brain at a time when we haven’t yet developed that for ourselves. They’re really one organism, in a way.” When the reliable buffering and guidance of a parent is suddenly withdrawn, the riot of learning that molds and shapes the brain can be short-circuited, she said.
In a story from the BBC, Jack Shonkoff (Harvard University) discusses evidence related to long-term impacts:
Jack P Shonkoff, director of the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, says it is incorrect to assume that some of the youngest children removed from their parents’ care will be too young to remember and therefore relatively unharmed. “When that stress system stays activated for a significant period of time, it can have a wear and tear effect biologically.
:::
Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes.
2014.. Almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 percent — are on drugs, such as Ritalin, tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, according to a yearly survey conducted for the provincial government and the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). At ages 16 and 17, fully 57 per cent are on these medications.
In group homes, the figure is even higher — an average of 64 percent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
“Why are these kids on medication? Because people are desperate to make them functional,” Baird says, and “there’s so little else to offer.
Yet if the parents take medication to help make them more "functional" it's a reason for to keep a file open or apprehend a child, not render assistance or relief.
The figures are found in “Looking After Children in Ontario,” a provincially mandated survey known as OnLAC. It collects data on the 7,000 children who have spent at least one year in care. After requests by the Star, the 2014 numbers were made public for the first time.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/12/use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_widespread_in_foster_group_homes.html
What’s worse is that the number of children prescribed dangerous drugs is on the rise. Doctors seem to prescribe medication without being concerned with the side-effects.
Worldwide, 17 million children, some as young as five years old, are given a variety of different prescription drugs, including psychiatric drugs that are dangerous enough that regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia, and the US have issued warnings on the side effects that include suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior.
According to Fight For Kids, an organization that “educates parents worldwide on the facts about today’s widespread practice of labeling children mentally ill and drugging them with heavy, mind-altering, psychiatric drugs,” says over 10 million children in the US are prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for alleged educational and behavioral problems.
In fact, according to Foundation for a Drug-Free World, every day, 2,500 youth (12 to 17) will abuse a prescription pain reliever for the first time (4). Even more frightening, prescription medications like depressants, opioids and antidepressants cause more overdose deaths (45 percent) than illicit drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and amphetamines (39 percent) combined. Worldwide, prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death.
The Star obtained the reports in a freedom of information request and compiled them according to the type of serious event that occurred — something the ministry does not do.
They note everything from medication errors to emotional meltdowns to deaths.
Restraints were used in more than one-third of 1,200 serious occurrence reports filed in 2013 by group homes and residential treatment centres in the city, according to a Star analysis.
At one treatment facility, 43 of the 119 serious occurrence reports filed to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services include a youth being physically restrained and injected by a registered nurse with a drug, presumably a sedative.
How is a society that's against spanking isn't against tying children to their beds and drugging them?
The language used by some group homes evokes an institutional setting rather than a nurturing environment. When children go missing, they are “AWOL.” In one instance in which a child acted out in front of peers, he was described as a “negative contagion.” Often, the reasons for behaviour are not noted. Children are in a “poor space” and are counselled not to make “poor choices.”
Blame is always placed on the child.
Their stories are briefly told in 1,200 Toronto reports describing “serious occurrences” filed to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services in 2013. Most involve children and youth in publicly funded, privately operated group homes.
https://dailyhealthpost.com/common-prescription-drugs/
:::
Teen says child welfare experience left him with nightmares
:::
Teen says child welfare experience left him with nightmares
NEWS Feb 16, 2011.
MUSKOKA – Gordie Merton has nightmares.
When talking to Merton, 19, in his family’s comfortable and bright basement apartment in Gravenhurst, he seems well adjusted.
During the day he will watch televised parliamentary debates and energetically offer informed comment on each bill that comes to the floor. Then he goes to work at a nearby pizza place.
But ask him about the four years he spent as a Crown ward within the children’s aid society system, being jostled between foster care and group homes, and his expression changes.
And when talking in his soft voice about his final placement at a privately owned psychiatric treatment centre in southern Ontario, he will say, “That was worse than hell. I would have rather been in hell than that place.”
At age 12, Merton, who was diagnosed at a young age as developmentally delayed with attachment disorder and attention deficit disorder, had been in the care of his paternal grandmother.
When his mother tried to regain custody of her son, the court ruled that, because of a complex mental disorder, Merton would become a Crown ward, and he was placed under the guardianship of the government.
He started living in foster homes across northern Ontario, and Merton alleges he was mistreated to varying degrees in each of them. In one instance, he said he had a miniature statue of Buddha taken away because his foster parents practised Christianity. In another instance, he said his remarks about being sexually abused by a fellow student were seemingly disregarded both by his foster parents and by his children’s aid worker.
“I didn’t know who to go to, so I would act out in anger, so then they would listen to me. Unfortunately, they would listen to me too late,” he said.
In the Family, Youth and Child Services of Muskoka offices there are stacks of boxes containing hundreds of documents regarding Merton’s case. Interim executive director Marty Rutledge said the documents include incident reports, serious occurrence reports, case worker notes and medical and psychiatric records pertaining to Merton’s case.
“Gordie’s behaviour was not controllable in the community,” said Rutledge, stating Merton had a history of auditory and visual hallucinations and had threatened to hurt or kill himself on multiple occasions. “We had him placed in all levels of care — foster care, group care and institutional care.”
The psychiatric care centre Merton was sent to features individual rooms, psychiatrists on site and staff available 24 hours per day, among other services, said Rutledge.
“If you get (there), you’re a kid who has really got some serious difficulties that haven’t been able to be managed anywhere else,” said Rutledge.
By age 15 Merton was moved to the centre. While there, he alleges, he was restrained, over-medicated and physically abused.
Although he lodged several complaints, nothing seemed to improve, he said. Merton recounted a time when a staff member demanded he refold the clothes on a shelf in his room. As the teenager did so, the staff member would push the clothes off and make him start over.
Frustrated, Merton said he eventually tossed the clothes back in the staff member’s face. When he did, he alleges, the staff member hit him in the face, knocking him to the floor. The third time it happened, Merton took a swing at the staff member, he said. They were the only two people in the room.
Merton was home by his 16th birthday.
“When they walked out of the house and didn’t come back, that was the happiest day of my life. I cried. It was a huge weight gone,” Merton said.
However, he said he has constant nightmares and things such as music can trigger negative feelings and thoughts related to his time in care.
Rutledge said the psychiatric institution lodged a formal complaint with the Ministry of Social and Community Services, which existed at the time, about Merton’s discharge “to say that we (Family, Youth and Child Services of Muskoka) were acting irresponsibly, that Gordie was a high-needs kid with high-level psychiatric needs and that he was being discharged from (the centre) against medical advice.”
Merton said he wants to use his experiences to help others. He attends rallies in Ottawa and Queen’s Park and said he is drafting a bill to submit to the legislature that would create transparency within children’s aid societies.
“If I fight now, maybe in the future this will never happen again,” he said. “I want them to realize what they’ve done and admit it.”
He said he would like to see a full disclosure of the complaints made by children in care.
For those who are not satisfied with the service received from a children’s aid agency, there are options. They can lodge a client concern or complaint with the agency, contact the Child and Family Services Review Board at 1-800-728-8823 or contact the Residential Placement Advisory Committee at 705-476-9790 or 1-877-535-2299.
Read the full here:
https://www.muskokaregion.com/news-story/3627327-teen-says-child-welfare-experience-left-him-with-nightmares/
They can also contact a lawyer, their area member of provincial parliament or the Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth by visiting
www.provincialadvocate.on.ca.
Between 2008 and 2012 the PDRC choose to review the deaths of 215 children in care. In 92 of those cases the cause of death could not be determined while the majority of the remaining deaths were listed as homicides, suicide and accidental. The PRDC reported during that same time period only 15 children with pre-existing medical conditions in care had died of unpreventable natural causes.
158 CANADIANS SOLDIERS DIED IN AFGHANISTAN BETWEEN 2002 AND 2011.
Canada in Afghanistan - Fallen Canadian Armed Forces Members.
One hundred and fifty-eight (158) Canadian Armed Forces members lost their lives in service while participating in our country’s military efforts in Afghanistan. You can click on the names to explore their entries in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/canadian-armed-forces/afghanistan-remembered/fallen?filterYr=2009
:::
Parents rights were ripped out by the roots...
Lives were ruined. Parents’ lives, and quite possibly children’s lives. Siblings and grandparents and other family members’ lives, too. Irreversibly ruined. And in many cases, it seems this was allowed to happen primarily because people were poor.
“In many of the cases we reviewed, when a Motherisk hair test came back positive, CAS (Children’s Aid Society) workers focused solely on the apparent substance use instead of considering any actual effect on parenting,” Beaman writes. Use was considered proof of addiction, and addiction was considered proof of “an inability to parent.” That, sometimes in the absence of any other meaningful evidence at all, led to children being taken away from their parents.
Removal from the home — permanent removal — is not supposed to be a move taken lightly. The report goes over the legal principles, laying out that it should be a last resort. It is the “capital punishment” of child protection, according to one citation, absolutely devastating to parents, and for children it is “often the beginning of a life sentence.”
Yet in the cases reviewed here, it is imposed, often apparently cavalierly and without even a trial, for reasons that amount to a punishment for being poor.
Rich parents who are alcoholics, after all, are not having their children taken from them after a single relapse. Few rich parents, in fact, are having their children taken from them at all.
“The underlying issue in many child protection cases before the court is poverty,” the report says. Much of the time, Beaman writes she heard what families most needed was help with groceries or babysitting, counselling or mental health treatment, help providing safe shelter.
What these parents and children needed, in other words, was help.
Helping struggling families takes billions of dollars in resources families need, like 5160 unregistered workers and large costly office buildings obviously of which OACAS admits in their own report over 1500 of them are not qualified by College standards. And as we see all too clearly, they are the systematic ruination of thousands of people’s lives.
What they got instead was the irrevocable breakup of their families. The loss for life of any contact at all with those in the world they loved most, and those who loved them most. They got harm, permanent harm.
It is hard to think of anything worse than that.
By EDWARD KEENAN Star Columnist Fri., March 2, 2018.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/03/02/motherrisk-reforms-show-struggling-families-dont-need-to-be-split-up-they-need-our-help.html
