2017: Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media – Feature, Documentary.
Manufacturing Consent explores the political life and ideas of world-renowned linguist, intellectual and political activist Noam Chomsky. Through a collage of biography, archival material and various graphics and illustrations, Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick's 22-award-winning documentary highlights Chomsky's probing analysis of mass media and his critique of the forces at work behind the daily news.
https://youtu.be/EuwmWnphqII
The film presents and illustrates Chomsky and Herman's propaganda model thesis that corporate media, as profit-driven institutions, tend to serve and further the agendas and interests of dominant, elite groups in the society. A centerpiece of the film is a long examination of the history of The New York Times' coverage of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which Chomsky says exemplifies the media's unwillingness to criticize an ally of the elite.
Until the release of The Corporation (2003), made by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, it was the most successful feature documentary in Canadian history playing theatrically in over 300 cities around the world. It appeared in more than 50 international film festivals where it received 22 awards. It was broadcast on television in over 30 markets and translated into a dozen languages.
Chomsky's response to the film was mixed; in a published conversation with Achbar and several activists, he stated that "the positive impact of it has been astonishing to me" but people mistakenly get the impression that he is the leader of a movement that they should join. He also criticizes The New York Times review of the film, which mistakes his message for being a call for voter organizing rather than for engaging in media critique and political action.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent_(film)
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2017: The Corporation – Feature, Documentary.
Based on Joel Bakan’s bestseller The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, this 26-award-winning documentary explores a corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. One hundred and fifty years ago, a corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic, and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, a corporation is today’s dominant institution. Charting the rise of such an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals, the documentary also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force.
https://youtu.be/zpQYsk-8dWg
The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film written by University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary examines the modern-day corporation. Bakan wrote the book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, during the filming of the documentary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film)
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2003: Children's Aid in Ontario facing serious cash crunch.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/childrens-aid-in-ontario-facing-serious-cash-crunch/article1010103/
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2004: Child Welfare Reform: Protecting Children or Policing the Poor?
It was in the context of dramatic media coverage of tragic child welfare outcomes and a rapidly shrinking welfare state that Ontario's child welfare reform was introduced in 1997. The reform involves a series of changes to both law and policy that have transformed child welfare in this province within a very short time. The initiatives to support this new and much more focused direction, as we will show, have produced a high level of surveillance and intrusion into the lives of clients and suspected client of the system.
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=jlsp
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/jlsp/vol19/iss1/1/
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2016: Report shines light on poverty’s role on kids in CAS system.
The effect of provincial policies on struggling families was especially apparent in the late 1990s, when the Conservative government slashed welfare payments and social service funding while at the same time, it introduced in child protection the notion of maltreatment by “omission,” including not having enough food in the home and this after giving the society what amounted to an unlimited funding scheme. The number of children taken into care spiked as did their funding.
https://youtu.be/CG6PT3Hw568
“The ministry has been pretty clear with us that advocacy is not part of our mandate,” Goodman said speaking for the society. “It’s not like they’re asking for the (poverty) data. They’re not.” Goodman then when on to suggest the silence suited the government more than the silence suited the society's funding goals.
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/08/15/report-shines-light-on-povertys-role-on-kids-in-cas-system.html
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2019: There’s no rule on who can write assessments that ‘effectively decide’ if an Ontario parent loses their child. Experts say that must change.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/02/theres-no-rule-on-who-can-write-assessments-that-effectively-decide-if-an-ontario-parent-loses-their-child-experts-say-that-must-change.html
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9552213-ontario-psychologist-used-obsolete-tests-in-expert-opinion-calling-for-parents-to-lose-their-kids-judge-says/
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2019: Executive director Elaina Groves does say it's important for the public to know that child protection workers investigate differently than police.
Decisions are made on a "balance of probabilities" which often means there's not enough evidence for criminal charges let alone a conviction which is probably why child protection social workers in Ontario refused to comply with the social worker registration act claiming there are no practical benefits for them agreeing to register with a college of social work that also uses a "balance of probabilities" to determine the "facts.."
The College of Social Work takes reports about concerns from the public and applies their own standard for investigating complaints as does the society and the same "balance of probabilities" making a ruling.
Groves says some may think that sounds "subjective" but she says rulings on abuse are based on the "impressions" of the unqualified unregistered social worker, the opinions of questionable medical professionals, as well as other evidence like the fraudulent Motherisk Test.
Balance of Probabilities Definition: Burden of proof in civil trials.
The common distinction is made with the burden of truth in a criminal trial, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil trial, one party's case need only be more probable than the other.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/cas-daycare-operator-dowling-sudbury-child-abuse-1.4826325
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/home-daycare-lawsuit-cas-police-investigation-1.4537023
OACAS: The duty to report.
“Reasonable grounds” refers to the information that an average person, using normal and honest judgment, would need in order to decide to report. This standard has been recognized by courts in Ontario as establishing a lower threshold for reasonable grounds.
Can there really be two thresholds for reasonable grounds and still be reasonable?
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Regulation Of Child Protection Workers By Ontario College Of Social Workers And Social Service Workers: CUPE Responds.
In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth like child protection in Ontario is a rogue agency gone mad with power.
There are those who engage in denialist tactics because they are protecting some "overvalued idea" which is critical to their identity. Since legitimate dialogue is not a valid option for those who are interested in protecting bigoted or unreasonable ideas from facts, their only recourse is to use these types of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument and legitimate debate, when there is none.
DRAFT Letter 4 (the slippery slope) – Accountability: "Mandatory registration and regulation by the College is not in The Best Interest of Child Protection Workers and ultimately , not in the best interest of vulnerable children, youth and families."
A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid. It is also called a fallacy, an informal logical fallacy, and an informal fallacy. All logical fallacies are nonsequiturs—arguments in which a conclusion doesn't follow logically from what preceded it.
Here are some facts and figures I think point to significant problems for the child welfare sector and for CAS in particular:
• There are over 5,000 child protection workers in Ontario (5160)
• The College regulates about 17,000 social workers and social service workers
• In Ontario, only 7% of College-registered social workers are employed by a CAS
• Only 4% of members of the Ontario Association of Social Workers work for a CAS
• Between 30% and 50% of Ontario’s child welfare workers do NOT hold a BSW
• Only 63% of direct service staff in CASs have a BSW or MSW (in 2012, it was 57%)
• Only 78% of direct service supervisors have a BSW or MSW (in 2012, it was 75.5%)
• The 2013 OACAS Human Resources survey estimates that 70% of relevant CAS job classifications would qualify for registration with the College (so about 1500 CAS currently employed workers would be unable to register with the College)
• From 2002 to 2014, 41 child welfare employees who did not hold a BSW or MSW submitted equivalency applications to register as social workers; only 16 were successful and 25 were refused.
http://cupe2190.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SSWCC_CAS-letters-re-college-regulation_Nov.-2016.pdf
https://mydefence.ca/ontario-college-of-social-workers-and-social-services-defence-lawyer/
A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by child protection social workers and the ministry to fool people. Don't be fooled!
This post has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy child poaching funding predator logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.
Follow the link and rollover the icons to click for examples. If you see a child protection social worker committing a fallacy, link them to it ...
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-logical-fallacy-1691259
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/common-logical-fallacies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
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You can hear former MPP Frank Klees say in a video linked below the very reason the social worker act was introduced and became law in 1998 was to regulate the "children's aid societies" and they ignored that..
FORMER ONTARIO MPP FRANK KLEES EXPLAINS "A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE."
I'M NOT A SOCIAL WORKER, I'M A CHILD PROTECTION WORKER!
https://youtu.be/SA1YyWO0RTQ?list=PLsYhw09i3If44rMBDuZQ0ztayzSQU35Fy
Two decades later...
Without the deterrents professional regulation provides what prevents child protection social workers from being or becoming a danger to children and their families?
The union representing child protection social workers is firmly opposed to 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 it.
The report Towards Regulation notes that the “clearest path forward” would be for the provincial government to -again- legislate the necessity of professional regulation, which would be an appallingly heavy-handed move according to OACAS/Cupe.
http://joincupe2190.ca/files/2015/10/Professional-regulation-at-childrens-aid-societies.pdf
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Industry self-regulation is the process whereby members of an industry, trade or sector of the economy monitor their own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a third party entity or governmental regulator monitor and enforce those standards.[1]
Self-regulation may ease compliance and ownership of standards, but it can also give rise to conflicts of interest.
If any organization, such as a corporation or government bureaucracy, is asked to eliminate unethical behavior within their own group, it may be in their interest in the short run to eliminate the appearance of unethical behavior, rather than the behavior itself, by keeping any ethical breaches hidden, instead of exposing and correcting them.
An exception occurs when the ethical breach is already known by the public. In that case, it could be in the group's interest to end the ethical problem to which the public has knowledge, but keep remaining breaches hidden.
Another exception would occur in industry sectors with varied membership, such as international brands together with small and medium size companies where the brand owners would have an interest to protect the joint sector reputation by issuing together self-regulation so as to avoid smaller companies with less resources causing damage out of ignorance.
Similarly, the reliability of a professional group such as lawyers and journalists could make ethical rules work satisfactorily as a self-regulation if they were a pre-condition for adherence of new members.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/08/15/childrens-aid-societies-should-not-discriminate-against-poor-children-editorial.html
An organization can maintain control over the standards to which they are held by successfully self-regulating. If they can keep the public from becoming aware of their internal problems, this also serves in place of a public relations campaign to repair such damage.
SEE: “I Am Your Children’s Aid” campaign is a provincial campaign designed to educate/deceive Ontarians about the role of CASs in their community and ways they can get involved in protecting children and building stronger families. It is also to be used as a tool to recruit foster, adoptive parents and volunteers. This campaign brings to life stories of the young men and women.
http://www.torontocas.ca/sites/torontocas/files/communicate_2010spring.pdf
http://www.oacas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/1011annualreport.pdf
The cost of setting up an external enforcement mechanism is avoided. If the self-regulation can avoid reputational damage and related risks to all actors in the industry, this would be a powerful incentive for a pro-active self-regulation [without the necessity to assume it is to hide something].
Self-regulating attempts may well fail, due to the inherent conflict of interest in asking any organization to police itself.
If the public becomes aware of this failure, an external, independent organization is often given the duty of policing them, sometimes with highly punitive measures taken against the organization.
https://kmlaw.ca/cases/crown-ward-class-action/
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/08/23/in-a-rare-legal-case-toronto-teen-gets-green-light-to-sue-childrens-aid-for-negligence.html
https://www.intelligencer.ca/2014/10/21/three-cas-cases-settled/wcm/3fd07287-3f2a-1755-7386-1c8c2353c943
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/cornwall-sex-abuse-victims-given-large-settlements-1.521190
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/suit-settled-in-horrific-case-of-child-abuse/article4290587/
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-childrens-aid-societies-gone-rogue
https://lfpress.com/2014/04/14/cas-vows-to-defend-ruling-of-bad-faith/wcm/e7867b5c-7d22-73c4-0e36-450327791eeb
https://www.osler.com/en/blogs/appeal/october-2014/children-s-aid-society-of-london-and-middlesex-v
https://globalnews.ca/news/5360057/teen-sexual-cult-ontario-foster-home-childrens-aid-society/
https://nypost.com/2019/06/12/childrens-aid-society-in-canada-turned-a-blind-eye-to-sexual-abuse-report/
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/03/27/daycare-operator-sued-for-calling-the-cas.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/homeless-youth-foster-care-1.4240121
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/12/use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_widespread_in_foster_group_homes.html
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/nearly-half-of-children-in-crown-care-are-medicated/article687480/
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/05/13/a-system-should-not-raise-a-child-families-should.html
Between 2008/2012 natural causes was listed as the least likely way for a child in Ontario's care to die at 7% of the total deaths reviewed (15 children) while "undetermined cause" was listed as the leading cause of death of children in Ontario's child protection system at "43%" of the total deaths reviewed (92 children).
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/sites/default/files/content/mcscs/images/195633-19.jpg
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/DeathInvestigations/office_coroner/PublicationsandReports/PDRC/2013Report/PDRC_2013.html
2009: Why did 90 children in care die?
https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2009/02/23/why_did_90_children_die.html
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ontario-child-advocate-stands-by-report-on-90-deaths-1.378721
https://aptnnews.ca/2018/03/14/ontario-coroner-finds-potential-crime-review-foster-care-deaths/
https://blackburnnews.com/windsor/windsor-news/2017/09/01/layoffs-windsor-essex-childrens-aid-society/
https://lfpress.com/2015/03/16/child-welfare-agency-found-to-have-wasted-money-on-office-renovations-consultants-and-bloated-management/wcm/e32079bc-4395-7c5e-70ec-378d688f0b6a
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/11/10/cas-managers-charged-more-than-106000-in-unreasonable-expenses.html
https://windsorstar.com/news/childrens-aid-gets-4-3-million-cash-boost-from-province
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/23/province-orders-childrens-aid-societies-to-review-credentials-of-experts-used-in-child-welfare-cases.html
Discredited hair-testing program harmed vulnerable families across Ontario, report says.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/motherrisk-commission-1.4552160
https://blog.cansfordlabs.co.uk/5-reasons-why-the-motherisk-scandal-shouldnt-happen-again
http://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/motherisk-child-protection-1.4559905
The results can be disastrous, such as a child welfare society with no external, independent oversight, which may commit human rights violations against the public. Not all government funded private businesses will voluntarily meet best practice standards, leaving some or most families exposed.
Governments may prefer to allow an industry to regulate itself but maintain a watching brief over the effectiveness of self-regulation and be willing to introduce external regulation if necessary. For example, in the UK, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in 2015 investigated the role of large accountancy firms in relation to tax avoidance and argued that "Government needs to take a more active role in regulating the tax industry, as it evidently cannot be trusted to regulate itself".
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Unlicensed Daycare Operator successfully sued for making an unreasonable report to the CAS... 2013.
In his decision Superior Court judge Lewis Richardson ruled Tammy Larabie’s call to the CAS was “unreasonable” and there “was nothing to suggest that (the baby) was in any danger.”
It’s a ruling which children’s aid society advocates say ignores child care providers’ duty to report suspected child abuse or neglect to the CAS, and it could dissuade them from doing so for fear of a lawsuit.
In a court transcript obtained by the Star, Richardson found the parents “to be competent, caring and capable” who “properly looked after the interests of their son.”
“There was no basis whatsoever to report them to the Children’s Aid,” he said. “(Larabie) acted selfishly and to protect her own interest, not for the benefit of the child.”
“Reasonable grounds” refers to the information that an average person, using normal and honest judgment, would need in order to decide to report. This standard has been recognized by courts in Ontario as establishing a lower threshold for reporting suspicions. (Can there really be two standards for reasonable grounds and still be reasonable?)
http://www.oacas.org/childrens-aid-child-protection/duty-to-report/
“It’s hard enough to get people to report (to the CAS) and this will have a silencing effect,” said Mary Birdsell, executive director of Justice for Children and Youth. “The legislation is supposed to protect people from being sued if their report was reasonable.”
What needs to be realized is that when it comes to people’s lives the impact of CAS actions can be profound and wide-reaching and that’s far more important than the question of good intentions.
One has to wonder why Tammy was sued when it was the society who chose to act on her unreasonable suspicions...
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/03/27/daycare-operator-sued-for-calling-the-cas.html
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Poacher noun. a person who trespasses on private property, especially to take fish or game (or children) illegally.
Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights but can easily be adapted to explain what's wrong with Ontario's unregistered child protection social workers..
Child poaching funding predators...
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A report cites poverty as a key factor in families who come into contact with the child protection system.
The effect of provincial policies on struggling families was especially apparent in the late 1990s, when the conservative government slashed welfare payments and social service funding at the same time it introduced in child protection the notion of maltreatment by “omission,” including not having enough food in the home. The number of children taken into care spiked.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Reasonable grounds” refers to the information that an average person, using normal and honest judgment, would need in order to decide to report. This standard has been recognized by courts in Ontario as establishing a lower threshold for reporting suspicions. (Can there really be two standards for reasonable grounds and still be reasonable?)
http://www.oacas.org/childrens-aid-child-protection/duty-to-report/
Reasonable suspicion is a reasonable presumption that a crime or a violation of government child care standards has been, is being, or will be committed. It is a reasonable belief based on facts or circumstances and is informed by a police officer’s or workers training and experience.
Reasonable suspicion is seen as more than a guess or hunch but less than probable cause.
Probable cause is the logical belief, supported by facts and circumstances, that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed.
The difference between the two terms is that probable cause means there is concrete evidence of a crime, whereas reasonable suspicion is open to broader interpretation.
Reasonable suspicion indicates that it appears that a crime has been committed; the phrase often is used to justify investigation into suspicious behavior when a crime may have been committed.
WHAT IS LOWER THAN REASONABLE GROUNDS FOR SUSPICION?
Simple suspicion is a lower threshold than reasonable grounds to suspect and is synonymous with a “gut feeling” or “hunch”. In other words, simple suspicion means that you have a feeling that something is unusual or suspicious, but do not have any facts.
Reasonable grounds to suspect is the required threshold in child protection legislation and is a step above simple suspicion, meaning that there is a possibility of government child care standards are not being met.
This means that you do not have to prove the facts that led to your suspicion. However, you do have the obligation to assess the facts that led to your determination of reasonable grounds to suspect the occurrence in front of a judge. The decision as to whether or not to grant a warrant and decide if a violation government child welfare standards has actually occurred should determined by a fair and impartial judicial system under the same rules of evidence used by most every other court in Canada.
Reasonable grounds to believe is a higher threshold than reasonable grounds to suspect and is more than what is required to conduct a investigation without delay. Reasonable grounds to believe means that there is a probability, supported by verified facts. In other words, there is enough evidence to support a reasonable and trained person to believe, not just suspect a child or children are at risk.
For example, law enforcement must reach reasonable grounds to believe that criminal activity has occurred before they can obtain judicial authorizations, including a production order..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“We’re able to tell a story of maltreatment, but we have not done a very good job in telling a story about poverty,” Goodman said, referring to Ontario’s 47 privately run children’s aid societies.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/14/in_leaked_memo_peel_cas_staff_asked_to_keep_cases_open_to_retain_funding.html
Goodman suggests silence suited the provincial government more than it suited the society's funding goals, in particular the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, which regulates child protection and funds societies with $1.5 billion annually.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/15/province_in_talks_with_peel_childrens_aid_society_over_strategies_in_leaked_memo.html
On average, 15,625 Ontario children were in foster or group-home care in 2014-15. The latest figures indicate if your still willing to blindly take the society's word for it that only 2 percent of children are removed from their home due to sexual abuse and 13 percent for physical abuse. The rest are removed because of neglect, emotional maltreatment and exposure to violence between their parents or caregivers.
“The ministry has been pretty clear with us that advocacy is not part of our mandate,” Goodman said. “It’s not like they’re asking for the (poverty) data. They’re not.”
The poverty removal rates were extracted from the government-funded Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, compiled in 2013. A team of researchers examined a representative sample of 4,961 child protection investigations conducted by 17 children’s aid societies. The cases involved children up to 14.
Co-author Kofi Antwi-Boasiako, a PhD student at the University of Toronto’s faculty of social work, will be expanding the report into a full-fledged study.
http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/reports_en/en15/3.02en15.pdf
Goodman credited the report with revealing “the elephant in the room.” Children’s aid societies have long witnessed the grinding effect of poverty on families but have rarely spoken out about it or pressured policy makers.
https://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/6810640-report-shines-light-on-poverty-s-role-on-kids-in-cas-system/
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Youth homelessness linked to foster care system in new study
The study, to be released Wednesday, found nearly three out of every five homeless youth were part of the child welfare system at some point in their lives, a rate almost 200 times greater than that of the general population.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/homeless-youth-foster-care-1.4240121
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Gene Colman, a Toronto family lawyer who handles cases involving CAS, said his office has been puzzled by the substantial increase in people calling because of CAS intervention in their families.
“I thought, ‘What’s going on, why are we getting so many calls?’ I wonder if it’s related. I don’t know,” he said not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
C.A.S. ATTITUDE: WIN CHILD WELFARE CASES AT ALL COSTS $$$.
By Gene C. Colman of Gene C. Colman Family Law Centre posted in Child Welfare on Thursday, January 1, 2015.
It should not be a matter of "win" or "lose" when it comes to Ontario child welfare law yet it isn't actually about the actual condition of the child or the child's welfare. It's about accusations, Cosmo quiz style parental risk assessments and fake experts and every time the society decides your a risk they get paid.
Ontario's Child and Family Services Act tells us that the paramount purpose is to "promote the best interests, protection and well being of children." One might note the glaring lack of any reference to family. In fact, there is a paucity of references to family throughout the entire CFSA even though many judges recognize the importance of maintaining family whenever possible.
I had a recent experience with CAS counsel at court when representing a family unjustly caught up in the system. Our office had prepared a very persuasive and comprehensive response to the Society's Application. We attended at the mandated five day hearing that follows apprehensions from parental care. The CAS certainly had not expected such forcefulness; normally parents are so overwhelmed at this early stage that they are unable to mount an effective defence. Generally, the court will rubber stamp the CAS requests. We did not agree to just stand idly by at the first appearance and CAS counsel was surprised by our aggressive (yet fair) approach.
Our written material seemed to have persuaded the judge. He instructed the lawyers to prepare a consent endorsement along the lines that we were seeking (which of course included an immediate return of the children to parental care). As we were returning to the courtroom after preparing the consent, the experienced and respected CAS counsel turned to me and my clients and remarked: "This is the third time your lawyer has beaten me."
The CAS counsel's comment was made innocently enough and indeed was intended to be complimentary. But still I was shocked (but probably should not have been). Why was I so shocked?
https://www.complexfamilylaw.com/blog/2015/01/cas-attitude-win-child-welfare-cases-at-all-costs.shtml
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"[A]buse of process (is) the intentional use of legal process for an improper purpose incompatible with the lawful function of the process by one with an ulterior motive in doing so, and with resulting damages."
"In its broadest sense, abuse of process may be defined as misuse or perversion of regularly issued legal process for a purpose not justified by the nature of the process."
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Unfair or Indefensible - Costs Against C.A.S.?
On behalf of Gene C. Colman Family Law Centre posted in Child Welfare on Tuesday, January 7, 2014.
There is a presumption that a successful party is entitled to the costs of a motion, enforcement, case or appeal (Ontario Family Law Rules, R. 24(1)). There is, however, no such presumption for costs in a child protection case (Rule 24(2)). Does that mean that a successful parent can never obtain a costs order against a children's aid society? Let us delve a little further.
The lack of presumption for costs is perfectly understandable. The Courts have been hesitant to impose cost orders against children's aid societies as they are faced with the difficult statutory duty of protecting children from harm and the law tells us that they should not be punished (through costs orders) for errors of judgment. A further reason for courts rarely awarding costs against societies stems from the view that societies should not be discouraged from taking action because of the risk of an adverse costs order.
Rule 24(2) does not give children's aid societies the authority to behave with impunity though. The courts have (and will) order costs against children's aid societies in limited circumstances. For example the 2013 matter of Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto v. SSB awarded costs to the mother and Office of the Children's Lawyer for the procedural failings of the CCAST. This case affirms the courts' approach in awarding costs against children's aid societies in that a society will not be shielded from costs where its behaviour is "unfair or indefensible or where exceptional circumstances exist".
In SSB the CCAST sought disclosure of "clinical investigation notes" from the OCL. The OCL claimed that the requested documents were subject to solicitor-client privilege and therefore could not be disclosed as the disclosure would amount to a serious breach of trust between the OCL and the children. The prevailing concern was that the CCAST had sought to obtain the privileged documents on three separate occasions (only to withdraw their motion before a decision could be delivered) and had put the mother and OCL to considerable expense in defending the motions. The judge considered that the repeated attempts to obtain disclosure was tantamount to an abuse of process and verged on acting in bad faith. The judge, most helpfully, summarized the responsibility of the CCAST as follows [at paragraph 12]:
... Like any other litigant, the society must conduct itself according to the rules. It is given broad investigative scope, and cannot and should not be liable for costs for actions it takes in good faith in its duty to investigate cases. That, however, does not give a society licence to ignore the general rules of procedural fairness. When it does, it should be liable in costs.
The CCAST matter also made reference to the 2005 decision of Children's Aid Society of Niagara Region v. B. (C.), which provides guidance for the circumstances when children's aid societies should and should not be liable for costs. These can be summarized as follows [paragraphs 89-100]:
1. Bad Faith Not Required: To attract an adverse award of costs, a children's aid society need not have acted in bad faith;
2. Fairness: Costs may be awarded against a society, "where it conducts itself... in a way where it would be perceived by ordinary persons as having acted unfairly";
3. Indefensible Behaviour: Many cases hold that a children's aid society should only be visited with an adverse award of costs where it has taken a step or position that is "indefensible", ie. "admitting of no defence".
4. Exceptional Circumstances: There is a line of decisions holding that costs should not be awarded against a society "unless exceptional circumstances exist";
5. Error in Judgment not sufficient to attract costs: A society should not be punished for a mere error of judgement (an error of judgement can truly arise only where one has considered all courses of action reasonably available at the time);
6. Society Not to Be Dissuaded by Costs: A society should not be dissuaded from its statutory mandate by costs considerations;
7. Society to Re-assess Its Position: A children's aid society must be even-handed and act in good faith. To this end a society must be prepared to re-assess its position as an investigation unfolds and more information becomes known;
8. Accountability: "Children's aid societies must be accountable" for the manner in which it investigates a case and in the way it chooses to litigate that case (one method of achieving accountability is through costs sanctions);
The judge in CASNR tells us that a society can attract an adverse costs award where it fails in any of the following seven areas (paragraph 102):
1. Investigation before apprehension;
2. Continued investigation after apprehension;
3. Consideration of all appropriate protective measures;
4. Formation of a fair and defensible position;
5. Reassessment of that position as circumstances warrant;
6. Use of properly trained workers; and
7. Accessing independent experts in the field of child psychology.
This more critical approach adopted by some courts should provide some modest encouragement to parents who have been subjected to biased investigations or litigation undertaken by a children's aid society where the C.A.S. actions were patently unfair or indefensible. These factors should be relevant not only to a costs determination but also to the expected standard of care to which child protection authority must adhere. Holding these agencies accountable to such standards should hopefully be encouraged by the case management judge as the case unfolds.
If you have a matter where a children's aid society has acted unfairly, indefensibly or there are exceptional circumstances, you may benefit from a consultation with our experienced child welfare lawyers.
Tags: CAS, Child Custody, Child Protection, Child Welfare, Children's Aid Society, Costs, Procedural Fairness
Related Posts: THE EASTER BUNNY AND C.A.S. ABUSE OF POWER, Do's and Don'ts of a CAS Apprehension of Your Child, C.A.S. Attitude: Win child welfare cases at all costs, PROPORTIONALITY, SUMMARY JUDGMENT, SELF REPRESENTED CHILD WELFARE LITIGANTS
https://www.complexfamilylaw.com/blog/2018/03/the-easter-bunny-and-cas-abuse-of-power.shtml
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The Ontario government has ordered all children's aid societies to immediately review the credentials of experts used to assess whether parents should lose their children.
(Translation: Ontario government to OACAS - Ditch all your fake experts - STOP - They're onto us... STOP)
The directive comes in the wake of an ongoing Toronto Star investigation into parenting capacity assessments — expert reports that can be heavily relied on in child protection proceedings when deciding whether children should be permanently removed from their parents' care.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/23/province-orders-childrens-aid-societies-to-review-credentials-of-experts-used-in-child-welfare-cases.html
https://youtu.be/Wz_DNrKVrQ8
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The Motherisk Commission details years of rights infringements by courts. "If the same problems were identified in criminal court, there would be a huge public outcry." Tammy Law.
::: Tammy Law's delusional thoughts, excuses, rationalizations and justifications for using the Motherisk test to justify denying parents due process and circumventing the Constitution, the Charter of Rights and the principles of fundamental Justice behind the closed doors of Ontario's family courts. :::
I want to be clear about what I think some of the fundamental problems are and how I think we can start to change this system. Because I am first and foremost a lawyer, my thoughts naturally focus on the role of lawyers in this mess. My thoughts are summarized as follows:
As lawyers, we need to recognize that good intentions are not enough. It is really easy to hide behind “the best interests of the child” and agree or acquiesce to all types of infringements of our clients’ basic human and Charter rights. This needs to stop. Lawyers need to start seeing their role in the context of defending our clients’ very real rights to human dignity and security of the person.
The culture of cooperation has gone too far. While I agree that it is very very important to work with the Children’s Aid Society to address their concerns, a line must be drawn when they demand cooperation that crosses the line. As a state agent, the Society has an obligation to ensure that it works in the most minimally intrusive way possible – respecting the client’s right to individual freedom while trying to ensure that its clients are served. This is a difficult job. Lawyers and courts should be there to ensure that the fine line is respected.
Society counsel need to understand that they have a public interest role. They should be providing advice to their clients in the context of being a public interest litigant. They have a duty to the court to be fair. This means that if unreliable evidence is being tendered (and there were many signs of this with respect to the Motherisk testing), they should be advising their clients about the unfairness of relying on it. Lawyers are and should be gatekeepers of evidence as much as courts are.
We need to be more vigilant. As noted in the report, our role as advocates is to raise every defense possible for our clients.
HOW ABOUT PRESENTING EVIDENCE THAT COUNTERS SWORN AFFIDAVITS WHEN CLIENTS HAVE IT IN ABUNDANCE - JUST SAYIN'..
Our clients are often extremely vulnerable, having lived lives that were challenged by multiple obstacles.
SO LAWYERS FAILING TO REPRESENT THEIR CLIENTS ISN'T JUST ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE OBSTACLES???
Many have made admirable attempts to parent their children. We need to be fearless in our advocacy for them. As a lawyer, I have experienced and seen derisive, sarcastic, or rude comments directed at myself and other lawyers who attempt to defend their clients. This needs to stop. It’s our client’s right – their children’s right – that they have a full defence.
http://www.tammylaw.ca/…/report-of-the-motherisk-commission/
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Abuse of power, in the form of "malfeasance in office" or "official misconduct," is the commission of an unlawful act, done in an official capacity, which affects the performance of official duties. ... Abuse of power can also mean a person using the power they have for their own personal gain.
The act of using one's position of power in an abusive way. This can take many forms, such as taking advantage of someone, gaining access to information that shouldn't be accessible to the public, or just manipulating someone with the ability to punish them if they don't comply.
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Covert and overt abuse of power: Covert: covert means that something is hidden, in the case of power, it would mean that someone is concealing their abuse of power from the public/other service users/other care workers. Covert abuse of power can happen in any setting.
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.”
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Oppression can refer to an authoritarian regime controlling its citizens via state control of children, politics, the monetary system, media, and the military; denying people any meaningful human or civil rights; and terrorizing the populace through harsh, unjust punishment, and a hidden network of obsequious informants reporting to a vicious secret police force/children's aid societies.
Oppression also refers to a less overtly malicious pattern of subjugation, although in many ways this social oppression represents a particularly insidious and ruthlessly effective form of manipulation and control.
In this instance, the subordination and injustices do not afflict everyone—instead it targets specific groups of people for restrictions, ridicule, and marginalization.
No universally accepted term has yet emerged to describe this variety of oppression, although some scholars will parse the multiplicity of factors into a handful of categories, e.g., social (or sociocultural) oppression; institutional (or legal) oppression; and economic oppression.
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.
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
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
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DEFINITION of 'Protected Cell Company (PCC)
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.
https://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/9053901-parents-lose-second-bid-to-launch-class-action-suit-against-motherisk-over-flawed-hair-tests/
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.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2015/02/10/ontario-rejects-call-to-merge-childrens-aid-societies.html
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.
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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 counter-part."
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 after the damage has been done.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/beef-up-information-laws-ontario-privacy-czar-says/article1120573/
http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/commissioner-cavoukian-calls-on-government-to-preserve-freedom-and-liberty-514463911.html
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Researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clear majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis.
A Toronto Star investigation has found Ontario’s most vulnerable children in the care of an unaccountable and non-transparent protection system. It keeps them in the shadows, far beyond what is needed to protect their identities.
“When people are invisible, bad things happen,” says Irwin Elman, Ontario’s now former and last advocate for children and youth with the closure of the Office.
In Ontario the CAS has turned themselves into a multi-billion dollar private corporation using any excuse to compel parents into submitting to a fake drug testing to justify removing children or keeping files open keeping that government funding flowing.
While the same time they've taking the thousands of children to specific CAS approved doctors who are all to happy to prescribe medication based on the workers assessments of the child's condition..
That's why there are no follow ups with qualified medical and psychiatric doctors and not because the CAS lack the funding, staff or attention span to care properly for the children.
A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street.
"A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily."
Marti McKay is a Toronto child psychologist was hired by a CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians only to discover a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs.
"There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses.
"There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders."
“There are lots of kids in group homes all over Ontario and they are not doing well — and everybody knows it,” says Kiaras Gharabaghi, a member of a government-appointed panel that examined the residential care system in 2016.
Nearly half of children in Crown care are medicated.
Psychotropic drugs are being prescribed to nearly half the Crown wards in a sample of Ontario children's aid societies, kindling fears that the agencies are overusing medication with the province's most vulnerable children.
According to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail under Ontario's Freedom of Information Act, 47 per cent of the Crown wards - children in permanent CAS care - at five randomly picked agencies were prescribed psychotropics last year to treat depression, attention deficit disorder, anxiety and other mental-health problems. And, the wards are diagnosed and medicated far more often than are children in the general population.
"Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes."
Almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 per cent — 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 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/12/use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_widespread_in_foster_group_homes.html
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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.
https://dailyhealthpost.com/common-prescription-drugs/
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Standards of Care for the Administration of Psychotropic Medications to Children and Youth Living in Licensed Residential Settings.
Summary of Recommendations of the Ontario Expert Panel February 2009.
http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/documents/specialneeds/residential/summary_report.pdf
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“Harmful Impacts” is the title of the Motherisk commission's 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.
WHAT ARE THE HARMFUL IMPACTS?
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.
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2020: Children's aid societies in northeast worry COVID-19 is making troubled kids 'invisible.'
CAS workers being 'extremely creative' in how they help families during pandemic.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/children-s-aid-societies-covid-19-northeastern-ontario-1.5520171
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2010: Psychologist got degree from U.S. 'diploma mill'
A psychologist with the Durham Children’s Aid Society has pleaded guilty to professional misconduct for misrepresenting himself and for making multiple unqualified diagnoses of mental illness.
Gregory Carter, 63, appeared before the College of Psychologists of Ontario’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday. He and the college agreed on the terms of the penalty, which includes a three-month suspension, a recorded reprimand and one year of supervised practice under an approved practitioner.
In his practice with the Children’s Aid Society, Mr. Carter’s expertise was used to determine child custody cases.
https://nationalpost.com/posted-toronto/psychologist-got-degree-from-u-s-diploma-mill
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2016: Nov 24, 2016 - Although the Ontario Risk Assessment was a “state of the art” clinical tool at the...
The purpose of the Child Protection Standards in Ontario (dated February 2007) is to promote consistently high quality service delivery to children, youth and their families receiving child protection services from Children’s Aid Societies across the province. The new standards are the mandatory framework within which these services will be delivered. They establish a minimum level of performance for child protection workers, supervisors and Children’s Aid Societies, and create a norm that reflects a desired level of achievement. The standards will provide the baseline for demonstrating the level of performance within the ministry’s overall accountability framework for child welfare.
http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/professionals/childwelfare/protection-standards-2007/childprotectionstandards.aspx
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2019: Expert who gave more than 100 assessments in Ontario child protection cases lied about credentials for years, judge finds.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/07/31/expert-who-gave-more-than-100-assessments-in-ontario-child-protection-cases-lied-about-credentials-for-years-judge-finds.html
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2019: Province orders children’s aid societies to review credentials of experts used in child welfare cases
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/23/province-orders-childrens-aid-societies-to-review-credentials-of-experts-used-in-child-welfare-cases.html
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2017: Motherisk hair test evidence tossed out of Colorado court 2 decades before questions raised in Canada
A U.S. court laid out extensive problems with how hair-strand tests were being done at the Motherisk Drug Testing Lab at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto more than two decades before similar issues were uncovered in Canada.
But the lab's work continued to be used in Canadian courts and relied upon in thousands of child protection cases, including ones in which children were permanently removed from their parents.
From 1991 until 2015, Motherisk was performing what have now been determined to be unreliable and inadequate drug and alcohol tests on thousands of members of vulnerable families across Canada, with the results in some cases leading to child welfare decisions to separate children from their parents AND TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FILES BEENING LEFT OPEN OR REOPENNED AT WILL.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/motherisk-colorado-court-case-1.4364862
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2017: Motherisk tests 'felt like junk science,' says lawyer in Colorado case
Colorado prosecutor Eva Wilson exposed flaws in Motherisk's testing methodology and analysis during a murder trial in 1993.
https://youtu.be/WIJqYz91ceU
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Confronting Motherisk co-founder Dr. Gideon Koren.
Fifth Estate co-host Mark Kelley confronts Dr. Gideon Koren, the founder and former director of Motherisk, at a medical conference in Windsor, England this month.
https://youtu.be/3POTUUN2tXU
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2018: What separation from parents does to children: ‘The effect is catastrophic’
This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents.
Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites — the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and — especially in young children — wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain.
“The effect is catastrophic,” said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”
Separating kids from parents a 'textbook strategy' of domestic abuse, experts say — and causes irreversible, lifelong damage even when there is no other choice.
“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.
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2020: Orleans-area youth group home worker faces sex-related offences involving minor
A youth group home worker based in Orleans is facing sex-related offences in relation to a minor, according to Ottawa police.
Shelby Wilson, a 21-year-old, who was previously employed at a group home in the Orleans area, was arrested on Friday, following complaints received by police earlier this month.
READ MORE: Woman charged with sex assault of minors worked at group home at time of alleged offences
https://globalnews.ca/news/6491236/orleans-youth-group-home-sex-offences-minor/
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2020: Disgraced Ottawa child-protection lawyer pleads guilty to molesting six-year-old girl.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/0410-lawyer/wcm/de3df15e-9aa8-47de-95f8-6a29f928a2cf/
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2020: A former supervisor at Highland Shores Children’s Aid group home has chosen to represent herself at trial.
According to Global News, Sandra Forcier did not show up for a scheduled court date today (Friday) to set a date for the trial.
She was charged by Belleville Police in January 2019 in relation to two historic sexual assaults of two underage boys.
Forcier’s former lawyer Edward Kafka says he will personally assure she shows up for her next court date on January 29.
A bench warrant was issued with discretion, with the Justice of the Peace stating she was absolutely required to appear in court on that day.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6393452/sandra-forcier-drops-lawyer-no-show-court-date/
https://www.quintenews.com/2020/01/10/225387/
2019: Woman charged with sex assault of minors worked at male CAS group-home at time of alleged offences.
“I can tell you that she was in a position of authority and trust in relation to the victims,” Kellar said. “Many times young persons find it very difficult to come forward, particularly in case of sexual assault, particularly male victims.”
Global Kingston confirmed on Thursday that Forcier worked at Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society at the time of the alleged offences. On Friday, Global Kingston learned that from April 2012 to April 2013, Forcier worked as a supervisor for a male youth residential facility in Thurlough Township, which was then run by the Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society.
The branch’s new executive director Tami Callahan confirmed that Forcier was working at the group home on a one-year contract. According to Forcier’s LinkedIn page, she first started working for Children’s Aid in 2002, and Callahan confirmed that Forcier had worked under many roles during her time with Children’s Aid.
Callahan said the group-home, which housed males from 13 to 17 years old, was meant to give young men a leg up to help them transition to new stages.
Belleville, ON, Canada / Quinte News
Amanda Smith January 10, 2020.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4916584/woman-charged-with-sex-assault-of-minors-worked-at-male-cas-group-home-at-time-of-alleged-offences/
WATCH: Former Picton Childrens Aid Executive facing charges.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4182170/childrens-aid-executive-charged/
http://www.pictongazette.ca/2019/07/02/charges-against-former-childrens-aid-executive-director-proceeding-to-superior-court/
https://www.iheartradio.ca/purecountry/kingston/picton-man-faces-multiple-offences-in-children-s-aid-society-investigation-1.3794018
https://inquinte.ca/story/trial-date-set-for-former-county-childrens-aid-society-executive-director-o
https://globalnews.ca/video/5382125/teen-sexual-cult-in-ontario-foster-home-known-to-childrens-aid-society-victim-says
https://globalnews.ca/news/5360057/teen-sexual-cult-ontario-foster-home-childrens-aid-society/
https://nypost.com/2019/06/12/childrens-aid-society-in-canada-turned-a-blind-eye-to-sexual-abuse-report/
https://www.intelligencer.ca/2014/10/21/three-cas-cases-settled/wcm/3fd07287-3f2a-1755-7386-1c8c2353c943
https://globalnews.ca/news/5428684/reports-of-sexual-abuse-foster-home-dismissed/
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Victim says a “sex cult” was run out of an Ontario foster home for years and Children’s Aid Society knew.
Global News is reporting that an Ontario county Children’s Aid Society failed to detect or act on the systemic abuses of countless vulnerable children in several foster care homes over a span of 8 years.
https://thepostmillennial.com/a-sex-cult-was-run-out-of-an-ontario-foster-home
https://nypost.com/2019/06/12/childrens-aid-society-in-canada-turned-a-blind-eye-to-sexual-abuse-report/
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In a rare legal case, Toronto teen gets green light to sue children’s aid for negligence.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/08/23/in-a-rare-legal-case-toronto-teen-gets-green-light-to-sue-childrens-aid-for-negligence.html
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Three CAS cases settled.
https://www.intelligencer.ca/2014/10/21/three-cas-cases-settled/wcm/3fd07287-3f2a-1755-7386-1c8c2353c943
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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.
The Project Truth inquiry into a pedophile ring cover-up and sex abuse allegations in Cornwall ended in December 2009.
Alleged victim Steve Parisien says the public has a right to know about large settlements paid out to sex abuse victims.
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.
"It's a lot of money coming from very few taxpayers, and the people of the Catholic Church are taxpayers."
While sources have told CTV the payouts are in the millions, alleged victim Steve Parisien says some individuals are getting less than $20,000.
"I think parishioners and taxpayers have a right to know how much has been paid out," he said.
A lawyer representing dozens of the victims wouldn't reveal how much money was paid. However, he confirmed several settlements have been reached with the Catholic diocese, the Ontario government and other Catholic organizations.
There are also several cases in the works against the Children's Aid Society.
Cornwall's Catholic Diocese says it has settled all 16 of the lawsuits against the Catholic Church. The last lawsuit was settled a few weeks ago.
Bishop Paul-Andre Durocher says the total payouts from those lawsuits amount to $1.2 million. He adds none of those settlements involved confidentiality agreements.
"There's no doubt in my mind that these victims deserve this money," said Guzzo.
"You know the confidentiality agreement - never going to trial, never allowing it to become public - there's an element of hush money."
Although Parisien hasn't received a settlement, he is hoping to get some compensation for his experience.
He says while no amount of money will change his life, it will help validate what he went through.
"Just for my loss of wages - that's all I seek. I don't want nothing else from these people, they've done enough damage. And they have to sleep with themselves at night."
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Catherine Lathem
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/cornwall-sex-abuse-victims-given-large-settlements-1.521190
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Crown Ward Class Action (Children who suffered abuse before and while they were Crown wards, including in foster care and foster homes, and while in the care of the Children’s Aid Society (“CAS”)).
https://kmlaw.ca/cases/crown-ward-class-action/
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EXCLUSIVE: Convicted group home owner moves operations to Oshawa.
The man at the centre of an in-depth CityNews investigation into illegal group homes is now accused of moving his operations to Oshawa.
Authorities in Oshawa believe Winston Manning is in breach of probation and say more charges are pending, adding that vulnerable people have been put in danger.
In 2016, Manning was a key figure in an Ontario Provincial Police probe into illegal group homes. The investigation found that people with physical and mental health issues were living in deplorable conditions: mattresses on the floor, inadequate food, mouse feces and the smell of urine in the homes.
The findings were corroborated by a former tenant at the time, who was identified only as Dave.
“[It was] filthy. Turn on a light in the middle of the night and you could see the cockroaches moving, almost like a carpet. There were thousands of them,” he told CityNews.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/07/10/group-home-owner-moves-operations-to-oshawa/
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2012: When Robert Horsburgh confessed to having sex with his foster daughter more than 30 years ago, then-Dufferin Children’s Aid Society (CAS) executive director Gary Putman saw no reason to inform police.
In those days, reporting illicit sex wasn’t something CAS workers did, Putman told The Banner.
“I have no regrets in what I did. I did exactly what would have been expected in that time, given that situation,” Putman said.
(and isn't that the problem and always been the problem [and how very catholic of him] some things are always wrong despite what decade it is)
Although Horsburgh, who grew up in foster homes, had committed illicit sexual intercourse with a foster daughter — a criminal offence that was repealed in 1988 — Putman said CAS had yet to establish protocols to work jointly with police.
https://www.orangeville.com/news-story/1481994--no-regrets-for-not-reporting-sex-with-foster-child/
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2013: She thought she was finally home.
Shunted about in the care of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society from the time she was six years old, bounced around more than 22 different foster homes in the previous two years alone, the young teen was relieved when they placed her in the Scarborough home of Howard Smith and his family.
He was a rising star at the TTC, she was given her own room in their four-bedroom house and was initially treated as well as the couple’s two children. She thought she was safe at last.
But in reality, the 14-year-old had been placed in a hornet’s nest. And by the time the CCAS finally heeded her pleas and rescued her, she was 15 and pregnant with Smith’s child.
Now 35 years later, Smith, the retired TTC general superintendent for surface routes, has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a girl between 14 and 16 and having illicit sexual intercourse with a foster daughter between April 26, 1978, and July 13, 1978.
In the downtown courtroom, his victim sat huddled in the corner of the first row, her frail body bent in on itself as she shook with sobs. She has lost so much to this man and finally, after so long, he was admitting to what he did to her.
But not to everything.
Smith, 61, was also charged with rape, but that count on the indictment is to be withdrawn at his sentencing as part of the plea agreement, though Crown attorney Jonathan Smith hastened to clarify outside the courtroom that “there’s no suggestion that it was consensual.”
And still, she wanted that rape conviction most of all.
“But it doesn’t matter what I think,” she said bitterly when she learned the plea bargain would stand despite her objection. “What matters to them is getting it done and over with.”
If she feels let down, it is nothing new.
At 49, she has been on disability for the last decade with post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments she traces back to a foster father stealing her virginity while she was in his care. “Everyone thinks he’s a pillar of the community. Everyone looks at him and sees Mr. Wonderful,” she explained in an interview. “I’m the one who sees the wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s what my nightmares are made of.”
The assaults began after he was injured in a car accident and they were home alone together. “I couldn’t move, I was frozen,” she wept as she recalled the sexual assaults.
Her CCAS worker ignored her pleas to be moved. “Nobody would believe me over Mr. TTC inspector at the time,” she recalled. “They told me it was either there or the street.”
That quickly changed when they discovered she was pregnant. The CCAS yanked her out of Smith’s house and placed her in a home for unwed mothers. Court heard that the shameful child welfare agency never reported Smith to the police.
They failed her at every turn. She says her social worker even warned her that if she listed Smith as the father on the baby’s birth certificate, they’d ensure her daughter was given to him. Terrified, she agreed to list paternity as “unknown” because no one was going to take away her baby.
“I raised the child of a man I absolutely despised. But she was my lifeline. I got to love someone who loved me back. Without her, I wouldn’t have seen my 16th birthday.”
If they hadn’t done enough, she says a CCAS supervisor laughed at her in 1998 and told her she couldn’t bring charges against Smith because there was a statute of limitations. It was only while talking to a lawyer friend three years ago that she learned there is no such thing.
So in April 2010, she went to the police and DNA tests confirmed the horrible story that for so long no one would believe — that Smith got her pregnant when she was his 15-year-old foster child.
She has never been the same since.
“For two years I used to take two showers a day with bleach, I couldn’t get him off me,” she wept. “I was just a 14-year-old kid and he took my entire life.”
Smith is to be sentenced March 7.
https://torontosun.com/2013/01/29/catholic-childrens-aid-society-failed-teen-impregnated-by-foster-dad/wcm/934e92f3-a164-45dc-b3d1-85e9a660ab32
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2017: A Sudbury boy's stolen childhood.
Vincent himself never had that confidence in people — not in his alcoholic parents, whose home he ran away from as young as 12, and especially not in the operator of a North Bay group home, who repeatedly abused him both sexually and psychologically.
He survived the horrors of his early teen years but struggled in any relationship that came later. "Whenever someone got close to me, where I thought I was going to get hurt, I’d get up and run," he says. "I’d move, I’d move, I’d move."
https://www.thesudburystar.com/2017/05/20/a-sudbury-boys-stolen-childhood/wcm/91375975-998c-50f6-1641-60a9cd66ae30
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2009: Suit settled in horrific case of child abuse.
Ms. Sanders was able to obtain an inexhaustible supply of victims by opening her home to a procession of foster children, runaway youths and children of unwed mothers. "Once she got her hands on somebody, they weren't going anywhere," said Mr. Manes.
He said that Ms. Sanders's estate has effectively admitted that she permitted adult boarders to rape children - including her daughter, Yvonne - and that Ms. Sanders habitually tortured children who had refused to assault their young confreres.
Ms. Sanders also attacked children with her fists, belts, lumber, cattle prods and hockey sticks; shaved the heads of girls; held a hot metal knife on one child's tongue; and tied another to a car, forcing the girl to run along behind it.
"The mistreatment they suffered was enough to make your stomach turn," Mr. Manes said. "But the fact that the system denied them access to justice was more than we could abide."
Horrendous tortures and abuses with cattle prods, electrical cords, hockey sticks and other objects were described at the trial, along with Sanders's ongoing campaign to control and dominate her weird household of many children -- both her own and adopted -- and numerous boarders.
Mr. Manes had planned on showing the jury a sheaf of Children's Aid reports that he and co-counsel Jillian Evans assembled.
"These records are replete with a staggering number of entries that Edith Sanders was mentally ill - unpredictable, impulsive and unstable - a pathological liar, a criminal who even tried to deceive [Children's Aid]and kidnap a children from them," said a prepared text for Mr. Manes's jury address.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/suit-settled-in-horrific-case-of-child-abuse/article4290587/
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Child abuse pandemic is turning Canada into a nation of nasty irrational snitches.
The current child abuse threat makes us feel powerless and out of control. So by denouncing, it gives people the impression that they have more control'
“People are being told that you have to snitch. It has become the civic duty of a good citizen. If you suspect child abuse then be a good citizen and report it,” said criminologist and former MP Maria Mourani.
“We’re possibly (?) headed towards becoming a country of snitches,” she said.
https://nationalpost.com/news/it-has-become-the-civic-duty-covid-19-pandemic-is-turning-us-into-a-nation-of-snitches
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2020: Child abuse a big concern during COVID-19 outbreak.
Agencies that serve abused children are bracing for an increase in abuse cases as they reduce their services because of COVID-19.
With governments calling for people to stay home, and schools and some social support services closing, many who work with abused children are worried.
For some children, home is not a safe or healthy place.
https://www.ottawamatters.com/national-news/child-abuse-a-big-concern-during-covid-19-outbreak-2186077
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2013: Pediatrician charged in sexual assaults says he was monitoring patients' puberty.
https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2013/04/09/pediatrician-charged-in-sexual-assaults-says-he-was-monitoring-patients-puberty.html
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2017: Disgraced Hamilton pediatrician has 2nd sex assault conviction tossed on appeal.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/marshall-acquittal-1.4375431
https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2016/04/15/pediatrician-daniel-marshall-fined-5-000-for-sexually-abusing-teen-patient.html
https://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/6526248-dr-daniel-marshall-case-it-is-just-not-safe-to-allow-this-man-to-practice-/
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2018: Sarnia pediatrician charged with indecent assault on 15-year-old.
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/sarnia-pediatrician-charged-with-indecent-assault-on-15-year-old/
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/indecent-assault-charges-against-sarnia-pediatrician-set-aside/
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2019: Sudbury doctor charged with child porn released on bail.
https://www.sudbury.com/police/sudbury-doctor-charged-with-child-porn-released-on-bail-1461584
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2013: Toronto pediatrician charged with assaulting patient.
https://www.cp24.com/news/toronto-pediatrician-charged-with-assaulting-patient-1.1343042
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2017: Court of Appeal orders new sex assault trial for Toronto pediatrician.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/12/18/court-of-appeal-orders-new-sex-assault-trial-for-toronto-pediatrician.html
:::
See related...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/pediatrician-facing-sex-charges/article1047117/
https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/local/halifax-pediatrician-jailed-for-child-porn-after-judge-struggles-with-sentence-341424/
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pediatrician-indicted-on-65-charges-after-rape-accusation-1.4430008
https://globalnews.ca/news/5510078/st-albert-pediatrician-sexual-assault-practise-chaperone/
https://globalnews.ca/news/5765009/edmonton-pediatrician-ghassan-al-naami-charged-child-porn/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/pediatrician-sex-charges-seeing-patients-1.5081897
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/pediatrician-charged-sexual-assault-child-resigns-st-albert-1.5083429
https://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/saskatoon-pediatrician-facing-child-luring-charges/
https://thestarphoenix.com/news/crime/saskatoon-pediatrician-faces-another-charge-of-soliciting-a-minor-for-sex/
:::
2007: Nearly half of children in Crown care are medicated.
The researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clear majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis.
A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street.
"A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily."
'whole range of disorders'
Nowhere is concern greater than in Ontario, where the provincial government recently appointed a panel of experts to develop standards of care for administering drugs to children in foster care, group homes and detention centres.
The move was made after the high-profile case last year of a now-13-year-old boy in a group home outside Toronto came to light. The boy was saddled with four serious psychiatric diagnoses, including oppositional defiant disorder and Tourette's syndrome, and doused daily with a cocktail of psychotropic drugs before his grandparents came to his rescue. Now living with his grandparents, he is free of diagnoses and drugs.
Marti McKay is the Toronto child psychologist who, when hired by the local CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians to the boy, discovered a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs.
"There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses.
"There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/nearly-half-of-children-in-crown-care-are-medicated/article687480/
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2014: Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes.
In almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 per cent — 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 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
“The medication problem is huge,” says Raymond Lemay, who retired this summer after 32 years as executive director of the Prescott-Russell children’s aid society. “It’s catastrophic.
“We should be doing other things than medicating these kids,” he says, adding his agency discourages the use of psychotropic drugs. “Medication is inappropriate in many circumstances and will do these kids long-term damage.”
MEET THE PUSHERS...
At the Brant CAS, drugs make up 52 per cent of expenditures on health insurance claims. The top five drugs prescribed and paid for by insurance are all used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including Concerta, Strattera and Adderall.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/12/use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_widespread_in_foster_group_homes.html
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2015: Ontario Foster Care System Overmedicates, Underdiagnoses Kids.
by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization
Before you read this article and the following blog post, you might want to go back to Sunday’s post about Molly McGrath Tierney’s excellent TEDx talk in Baltimore last year (Toronto Star, 12/12/14). Her talk is just 11 minutes long, but she pretty much demolishes the system of foster care that we foist on so many children. Tierney’s a veteran of the child welfare system and a successful manager in Baltimore. But she’s clear that the system harms kids and is driven by money. The federal government pays states for each kid taken into care where they are all too often less well off than they were with their parents. Studies show that to be the case and when we ask children their preferences, they say they want to go home to their parents.
The Star article is about the shocking overuse of psychotropic medication on children in foster care in Ontario. Mental health experts agree that kids are overmedicated, but that’s just the start of the problem.
Almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 per cent — 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 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
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.
Top CAS officials describe the high number on “psychotropic or behaviour-altering medication” as a crisis.
“The medication problem is huge,” says Raymond Lemay, who retired this summer after 32 years as executive director of the Prescott-Russell children’s aid society. “It’s catastrophic.
“We should be doing other things than medicating these kids,” he says, adding his agency discourages the use of psychotropic drugs. “Medication is inappropriate in many circumstances and will do these kids long-term damage.”
Those percentages for kids in foster care dwarf those for kids in the general population.
For youths in care, the rate of psychotropic drug use is significantly higher than the general population. A 2005 study in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry estimated that only 2.5 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 19 were on psychotropic medication.
Of course it can be argued that kids in foster care are those with abusive family backgrounds, and are therefore more in need of medication. That’s probably true, but foster kids rarely receive proper mental health evaluations to determine whether they need medication. That means that kids who don’t need medication often get it anyway and those who do may be getting the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages.
Ontario’s highly decentralized child-protection model — 46 private agencies funded largely by tax dollars — seems to make matters worse.
Only half of children’s aid societies have a prescribed way of assessing the mental health needs of children, and barely 15 per cent of these use methods recommended by the provincial government, according to a 2009 survey sponsored by OACAS, the lobby group representing the agencies.
The lack of standardization “likely means that many children in need are not identified and referred for treatment,” concludes the survey report, co-authored by Elisa Romano, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa.
The sheer number of kids in foster care and group homes, the lack of diagnostic resources and the need to maintain control of a population that’s experienced the worst of parental care inevitably leads to medicating children as a means of control. Unsurprisingly, the great majority of the medications given are for ADHD.
MEET THE PUSHERS:
At the Brant CAS, drugs make up 52 per cent of expenditures on health insurance claims. The top five drugs prescribed and paid for by insurance are all used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including Concerta, Strattera and Adderall.
Again, many kids are getting that medication whether they’ve been properly diagnosed or not.
A soon-to-be-published report by Klein, Taraba and other child-welfare experts also warns of children who have symptoms of attention deficit disorder being misdiagnosed and given “unhelpful medications” for long periods. “The big question is, what are we treating?” [Dr. Ben Klein, medical director at the Lansdowne Children’s Centre in Brantford] says.
Perhaps worse, the overmedication of the kids obscures real mental health issues many of them have. The drugs damp down and alter behaviors that could tip off a mental health professional as to the proper diagnosis for a child.
Drugs can ease disruptive behaviour. But doctors and CAS officials are concerned that mental-health issues caused by trauma aren’t being addressed..,.,
Medication might make them less likely to act out, Klein adds, but it doesn’t deal with the root cause of a child’s trauma. That requires “trauma-focused cognitive behaviour therapy,” which he says is almost impossible to access in Ontario.
This is all going on despite a relative lack of information on the long-term side-effects of many of the drugs being administered. For other drugs, the side-effects are known to be harmful.
A Star investigation in 2012 found 600 cases, reported to Health Canada during a 10-year period, of children and youth suffering serious side effects while on ADHD medication, including amnesia and suicide.
Finally, kids who’ve endured significant periods of abuse, particularly early on, produce high levels of the stress hormone cortisol that can have long-term deleterious effects on learning and impulse control. That’s not ADHD, but it can be mistaken for it, resulting in both a failure to diagnose the correct problem and the wrong medication.
As a sidelight, boys are more likely than girls to undergo that particular response to abuse early in life. As psychologist David Geary has written, “M. Davis and Emory..,., found that newborn boys showed an increase in cortisol levels after exposure to mild but prolonged stressors, but newborn girls showed no such increase..,., [A]n overall sex difference in cortisol responses..,., would make boys and men more susceptible to growth disorders and other diseases – through suppression of immune functions and growth hormones..,.,” That may explain the remarkable difference between the numbers of boys diagnosed and treated for ADHD as compared to girls.
Add to that the fact that parenting in foster care is, on average, markedly worse than it is in biological families, even somewhat abusive ones, and we have a “prescription” for lasting damage to the very children we’re supposed to be helping.
A recent study co-authored by researchers at the Child Welfare Institute of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto found that poor parenting in foster homes partly accounts for higher levels of behaviour problems in some children.
Here’s the experience of one boy, Nick Woolridge, profiled by the Star:
Woolridge was taken into care a month before his eighth birthday. He was bounced from foster homes to group homes — a dizzying 22 different homes during 10 years in care.
“I had a lot of anger issues due to my past, and dealing with my family,” he says. “And, growing up in foster homes and group homes, my anger just kept getting worse.”
During visits with his grandmother, Woolridge noticed she patiently found ways to defuse his outbursts and calm him down. Foster parents rarely tried doing so, and Woolridge says the Brant CAS too easily acquiesced to bouncing him around.
“I don’t think it’s right for a kid growing up in CAS to be shipped from foster home to foster home,” he says.
Is it any wonder that, as Molly McGrath Tierney said of kids in foster care, “they just want to go home?”
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/22448-ontario-foster-care-system-overmedicates-underdiagnoses-kids
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2019: These Are The Most Dangerous & Heavily Promoted Prescription Drugs.
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.
https://dailyhealthpost.com/common-prescription-drugs/
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Could Ontario's Pharmacies And Pharmacists Do Anything To Protect Children In Care Of The CAS?
A Rexall medication review provides the opportunity for you to sit down one on one with your Rexall Pharmacist to review your prescription and non-prescription medications. Unless your a child in Ontario's care this process will identify medication-related issues.
Why Rexall Medication Review?
The Rexall Medication Review was created specifically for people who are regularly taking multiple medications at a time.
You can rely on your pharmacist or healthcare provider to let you know if medications you take have any unsafe interactions unless your a child in Ontario's care. Not only do certain prescription medications interact dangerously with one another, but they can also interact with over-the-counter medications, vitamin and mineral supplements, or even certain foods.
In the US if the pharmacist doesn’t feel comfortable filling the prescription they can refuse to fill it.
There are many reasons, including ethical and religious beliefs, for why a pharmacist may not feel comfortable filling a prescription. We saw this recently when a pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for misoprostol, a medication used to end a pregnancy.
A pharmacist is technically allowed to decline filling your prescription based on their moral beliefs. If that happens, try seeing if there’s another pharmacist working at the pharmacy and speak with them. You can also try transferring your prescription to another pharmacy to be filled, although this can add some inconvenience.
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2019: Court rules Ontario animal protection law enforcement regime unconstitutional.
"Animal protection laws are the only laws still enforced by private agencies, and the court ruled that private enforcement without transparency and accountability is unacceptable," said lawyer Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, in a press release statement.
WHAT ABOUT ONTARIO'S SELF REGULATED FULLY GOVERNMENT FUNDED NON PROFIT MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR PRIVATE CORPORATION?
THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY...
While Breder says she agrees that in most cases, private organizations shouldn’t possess government-like powers to enter a person’s property and seize their belongings, finding the OSPCA’s powers completely unconstitutional could lead to a slippery slope for other SPCAs nationwide.
The sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in question are sections 7 and 8 (concerning individual autonomy and unreasonable search and seizure, respectively). While the decision states there is no direct charter violation of the distribution of legislative powers and “specific warrantless search and/or seizure powers” in the OSPCA Act, Justice Timothy Minnema wrote in his decision that assigning “police and other investigative powers to the OSPCA” violates s. 7.
(FUNNY HOW SECTION 7 AND 8 APPLIES TO PETS AND NOT CHILDREN)
Animal Shelters:
Like group and foster homes for apprehended children in Ontario not all animal shelters are the same. Fortunate homeless and unwanted animals end up in the hundreds of open-admission animal shelters that are staffed by professional, caring people.
At these facilities, frightened animals are reassured, sick and injured animals receive treatment or a peaceful end to their suffering, and the animals’ living quarters are kept clean and dry. Workers at these facilities never turn away needy animals and give careful consideration to each animal’s special emotional and physical needs unlike most group and foster homes who prefer to use prescription cocktails, police intervention and physical restraints on children at the first sign of a child in need.
Many less fortunate lost or abandoned animals end up in pitiful shelters that are nothing more than shacks without walls or other protection from the elements, where animals are often left to die from exposure, disease, or fights with other animals like apprehended children in Ontario's child welfare system.
https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/animal-shelters/
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mummified-cat-found-in-t-o-humane-society-ceiling-1.458967
https://www.cp24.com/official-calls-animal-shelter-house-of-horrors-reports-finding-mummified-cat-1.458960
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2009/11/28/humane_society_it_seems_like_house_of_horrors.html
https://thepetshopsite.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/animal-shelter-turned-into-a-%E2%80%98house-of-horrors%E2%80%99/
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2019: Court rules Ontario animal protection law enforcement regime unconstitutional.
The current animal protection law enforcement regime in Ontario has been ruled to be unconstitutional by the Superior Court of Justice.
The court struck down the province’s current regime Jan. 2 in a Kingston court in Bogaerts v. Attorney General of Ontario, declaring that it is unconstitutional for the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a private charity not subject to reasonable oversight measures, to enforce public animal protection laws.
Unlike the majority of SPCAs across Canada, the OSPCA is both government funded and also privately funded by donations. The OSPCA, a charity, holds law enforcement powers, without the same transparency and accountability a public or government agency has.
“There's a bit of a divide within the animal protection movement,” says Rebeka Breder, a Vancouver-based animal law lawyer at Breder Law. “I think the concern here is that if you're going to have someone's property being searched and someone's property, like animals, being taken away, then those powers should be [given to] the government and not a private organization that's not subject to freedom of information requests. There's very little transparency and arguably, perhaps even accountability, because it's a private non-profit organization.”
The sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in question are sections 7 and 8 (concerning individual autonomy and unreasonable search and seizure, respectively). While the decision states there is no direct charter violation of the distribution of legislative powers and “specific warrantless search and/or seizure powers” in the OSPCA Act, Justice Timothy Minnema wrote in his decision that assigning “police and other investigative powers to the OSPCA” violates s. 7.
As a result, the court suspended the declaration of invalidity for 12 months to provide Ontario time for restructuring its animal protection regime to ensure the desired accountability needed to operate with having such a public function. Minnema wrote that it would be “an untenable result” to “compromise animal welfare for even a transitional period” of time as the province “considers its next step.”
The Canadian animal law organization, Animal Justice, intervened after the case’s hearing last May and argued that in order for animals to maximally benefit from legal protections, the enforcement agency needs to be transparent.
"Animal protection laws are the only laws still enforced by private agencies, and the court ruled that private enforcement without transparency and accountability is unacceptable," said lawyer Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, in a press release statement.
While Breder says she agrees that in most cases, private organizations shouldn’t possess government-like powers to enter a person’s property and seize their belongings, finding the OSPCA’s powers completely unconstitutional could lead to a slippery slope for other SPCAs nation-wide.
“The SPCAs across the country should remain having the powers that they do to investigate animal welfare and cruelty concerns because [due to] a lack of financial and human resources it means they're in the best position to look into these issues and to deal with them,” she says. “If we just left it up to the government, I think we would be seeing significantly less animal welfare issues being investigated.”
Suzana Gartner, mediator and founder of Toronto-based Gartner & Associates Animal Law, says she agrees with Breder’s sentiment.
“This [decision] is like a win-win for everybody in my view because if they're given an opportunity to restructure their enforcement regime and to be accountable and transparent, I think that's going to help the province. It can help them mandate their policing powers,” Gartner says.
Legal Feeds contacted Daniel Huffaker, a lawyer representing the Attorney General of Ontario, in Bogaerts v. Attorney General of Ontario. A ministry media representative, Philip Klassen, declined comment, stating via email: “We are currently reviewing this decision. As this matter is in the appeal period, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
On Jan. 4, OSPCA general counsel Brian Shiller sent an email statement to media outlets clarifying the role of the OSPCA in this case. “There was no allegation that the Ontario SPCA was at fault for anything regarding the subject matter of the application and the court did not criticize any conduct on the part of the Ontario SPCA in its administration of the Ontario SPCA Act,” he said. “Rather, the court created a new legal principle and used it to rule that it was unconstitutional for the Province of Ontario to enact legislation that permits a private charity to have policing powers in the absence of government oversight.”
https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/general/court-rules-ontario-animal-protection-law-enforcement-regime-unconstitutional/275753
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Standards of Care for the Administration of Psychotropic Medications to Children and Youth Living in Licensed Residential Settings.
Summary of Recommendations of the Ontario Expert Panel February 2009.
http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/documents/specialneeds/residential/summary_report.pdf
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2009: Ninety children known to Ontario's child welfare system died in 2007, according to the latest report from the chief coroner's office – a number the province's new child advocate says is shocking and should trouble us all.
https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2009/02/23/why_did_90_children_die.html
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2011: Child Welfare and Children's Mental Health in Ontario.
In 2009–2010, spending on child welfare in Ontario represented approximately $1.4 billion. In many ways, the organization of child welfare in Ontario mirrors the organization of healthcare. Child welfare is delivered through 53 independently governed agencies who receive funding through transfer payments from the provincial government. In parallel to healthcare, where the largest proportion of spending is represented by the relatively small portion of patients who receive in-patient care, the largest proportion of spending in child welfare relates to services to children who are "in care" – foster care or group care. In Ontario child welfare, approximately 27,000 children and youth receive in-care services each year, accounting for approximately 40% of total expenditures. A much larger number of children and youth who have been maltreated or are at risk for maltreatment are supported in their homes with their families. The Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies estimates that for every one child in care, another nine children are being supported by CASs at home with their families.
The 2009–2010 spending on core children's mental health services in Ontario was $384 million (excluding funding for complex special needs). Transfer-payment recipients include stand-alone agencies that provide child and youth mental health services, 17 hospital-based outpatient programs and First Nation and non-profit Aboriginal organizations and service agencies, including 27 friendship centres. The provincial government also funds the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and the Ontario Child and Youth Telepsychiatry Program. Beyond the formal mental health system, many children and youth receive mental health services through schools, private providers, CASs and other sources. As with child welfare services, the vast majority of children's mental health services are community-based, and children requiring intensive out-of-home treatment are the minority.
https://www.longwoods.com/content/22360//improving-mental-health-outcomes-for-children-and-youth-exposed-to-abuse-and-neglect
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2012: ADHD drugs suspected of hurting Canadian kids.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/09/26/adhd_drugs_suspected_of_hurting_canadian_kids.html
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Between 2008/2012 natural causes was listed as the least likely way for a child in care to die at 7% of the total deaths reviewed while "undetermined cause" was listed as the leading cause of death of children in Ontario's child protection system at only 43% of the total deaths reviewed.
92 children equals 43% of the deaths reviewed by the PDRC. 92 mystery deaths and like every other year no further action was taken to determine the cause...
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/sites/default/files/content/mcscs/images/195633-19.jpg
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/DeathInvestigations/office_coroner/PublicationsandReports/PDRC/2013Report/PDRC_2013.html (REDACTED)
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2017: Ontario children and youth with ADHD often prescribed antipsychotics, study finds
Almost 12% of people aged 24 or younger with ADHD have been prescribed antipsychotics.
One in 20 Ontario children and youth have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and many are prescribed antipsychotic drugs, despite having no other mental health diagnoses, researchers have found.
A study by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences found almost 12 per cent of kids and youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, were prescribed antipsychotics like Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel.
"When we looked at the information on the children and youth with ADHD who were prescribed antipsychotics, a very, very small number of them had a condition where you would expect the use of an antipsychotic — conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia," said senior author Dr. Paul Kurdyak, head of the mental health and addictions program at ICES.
Prescription of antipsychotics to kids with ADHD 'surprising'
They found about five per cent — or 536 — of the children and youth had a diagnosis of ADHD. Eight per cent of them were male and almost three per cent were female.
About 70 per cent of the young people with ADHD were being treated with drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which are considered standard, first-line therapy for the common condition. About 20 per cent had also been prescribed antidepressants, "which isn't terribly surprising because depression and anxiety commonly co-occur with ADHD," Kurdyak said.
"But the surprising finding to us was the 12 per cent of kids with ADHD who were prescribed an antipsychotic," he said, explaining that the medications have a sedating effect, which could help reduce disruptive behaviour.
However, these drugs can have adverse effects, such as causing significant weight gain. One study found kids gained almost 19 pounds on average after 10 weeks on the drugs — and the risk of developing pre-diabetes or diabetes.
'Not a lot of evidence that they work for ADHD'
"We don't know why these children and youth with ADHD are on antipsychotics, but there is a risk associated with early antipsychotic exposure, so we need to know more about why they are being used, so that the benefits can be weighed against the risks."
Mark Henick, national director of strategic initiatives at the Canadian Mental Health Association, said it's known that some doctors prescribe antipsychotic medications for ADHD, and he's concerned about the high level of use in young people with the disorder.
"They're not indicated for ADHD and there's not a lot of evidence that they work for ADHD," he said Wednesday. "In fact, there's good evidence that they could be harmful."
The ICES study shows that people who go to a psychiatrist for treatment are more likely to be prescribed an antipsychotic, noted Henick, who was not involved in the research. "But it's often not appropriate in these kinds of cases, where we know psychotherapy is quite effective for ADHD."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-children-and-youth-with-adhd-often-prescribed-antipsychotics-study-finds-1.3942049
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2017: Nearly a third of tests and treatments are unnecessary: CIHI.
The study also showed that doctors are increasingly and inappropriately prescribing antipsychotics to children and youth. Between 2005 and 2012, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia saw a 300% increase in dispensing of quetiapine to young people aged five to 24, even though the drug is not recommended for use in children and youth.
https://www.cmaj.ca/content/189/16/E620
In our recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, we report that nearly 40 per cent of adults with developmental disabilities in Ontario were prescribed antipsychotics over a six-year period. Sixty per cent of the individuals prescribed these medications did not have the psychiatric diagnoses for which these drugs are generally studied and approved.
This kind of prescribing has costs — for all of us.
Antipsychotic medications are expensive and their use in this population cost the Ontario government over $117 million during the six-year study period. Scale this amount across the country and the price tag becomes even more significant. If any of that prescribing is potentially inappropriate, as our study suggests, that's a lot of public health dollars that could be better spent elsewhere to support these individuals.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/no-one-is-talking-about-this-overmedicated-group-of-canadians_ca_5cd5147ce4b07bc729749505
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2017: New study suggests link between foster care system and youth homelessness.
OTTAWA -- A first-of-its-kind study in Canada has painted a national picture of homeless youth and drawn a link to the foster care system that researchers say could be playing a more active role in keeping young people off the streets.
The study found nearly three out of every five homeless youth were part of the child welfare system at some point in their lives, a rate almost 200 times greater than that of the general population.
Of those with a history in the child welfare system, almost two of every five respondents eventually "aged out" of provincial or territorial care, losing access to the sort of support that could have kept them from becoming homeless, the study found.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/new-study-suggests-link-between-foster-care-system-and-youth-homelessness-1.3538232
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2017: Stop dumping kids in care onto the street: Editorial.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2017/08/09/stop-dumping-kids-in-care-onto-the-street-editorial.html
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2017: Study urges federal, provincial governments to revamp foster care system to help address youth homelessness.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/08/09/groundbreaking-study-suggests-link-between-canadian-foster-care-system-and-youth-homelessness.html
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2019: A new study, published in Psychiatry Research, has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders. ... Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules. There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses.
The main findings of the research were:
Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules
There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses
Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events
Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need
The authors conclude that diagnostic labelling represents 'a disingenuous categorical system'.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708131152.htm
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2019: More Canadian teens using over-the-counter drugs to overdose, data show. ERIN ANDERSSEN
The number of intentional overdoses involving common over-the-counter and prescription drugs has increased steeply among young people in the last decade, according to new data provided to The Globe and Mail by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
The number of cases roughly doubled for children and teenagers in Alberta and Ontario, the two provinces for which data were available, in two categories of drugs that include over-the-counter painkiller medications and prescriptions for drugs such as antidepressants and sedatives, according to the CIHI data, which tracked emergency-department visits.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canadian-teens-overdoses-painkillers-antidepressants-data/
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2019: Ontario passes bill to join B.C.-led class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.
globalnews.ca/news/6288335/ontario-opioid-class-action-lawsuit-bc-led/
(Related: Ontario is using a new law to retroactively dismiss lawsuits it lost: lawyer 2019 - https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.5389171/ontario-is-using-a-new-law-to-retroactively-dismiss-lawsuits-it-lost-lawyer-1.5389627)
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2019: Alberta to join B.C. in class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.
The lawsuit alleges that Purdue Pharma Inc., the makers of OxyContin, and more than 40 other companies knowingly marketed quantities of the drugs that went well beyond legitimate needs.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/alberta-to-join-b-c-in-class-action-lawsuit-against-opioid-manufacturers
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2018: B.C. Government files class action lawsuit against opioid industry.
More than 40 manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors are listed as defendants. The province will argue the defendants "placed profits over the health and safety of the public."
https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/b-c-to-announce-lawsuit-against-opioid-manufacturer-for-overdose-crisis-costs
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Mike Smyth: Eby swings the wrecking ball at Big Pharma in opioid crisis.
https://theprovince.com/news/bc-politics/mike-smyth-eby-swings-the-wrecking-ball-at-big-pharma-in-opioid-crisis
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