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Friday, December 22, 2006

Jeffrey's Memorial Site

To get to Jeffrey's memorial site in Greenwood Park: (this is the only way I know, however, the actual address is 150 Greenwood Park should you need to do a mapquest)

From 401 west take 427/ Renforth exit (I suppose it's the same if you're coming from the east)

Take 427 south lane

Go east on Gardiner Parkway or Lakeshore Blvd. eventually both merge together to become Lakeshore

Turn left onto Leslie Street

Turn right onto Dundas Street West

Turn left onto Greenwood, you will see the park on your left

Jeffrey's bench, tree and plaque are near the children's playground and water park, in between the washrooms and arena buildings. Just so you know, it's usually wet in that area, I didn't take into consideration the area was lower there when choosing the location.

I hope many, many people will still go and visit. There are ribbons in the tree, so people have been going which is good. Unfortunately someone has written on the bench, so I will re-paint it in the spring.

Happy holidays all and if you're looking for a place to donate money or time this year, may I suggest your local Humane Society or the Canadian Center for Abuse Awareness. (which is NOT affiliated with any C/CAS!)
www.ccfaa.com

Take care,
Amanda

Friday, December 01, 2006

I'm back, sorry for the delay!!

I'm so sorry to have abandoned the blog for so long! I will be going to Greenwood Park this weekend with the permanent plaque to see if it will fit (somehow) on the rock. If it won't, then I will attach it to the bench. In either case, I will be installing it next weekend for sure. I have to borrow or rent a hammer drill to drill the holes in the rock, but I have the bolts and adhesive all ready. Again, I'm sorry for getting too caught up in other things and neglecting this site.

I'm back in the fight, I guess I just needed a rest!

First things first, please write to all politicians listed on this site once again demanding that the Ombudsman be granted oversight of Ontario C/CAS's, especially in light of what has just happened with the revelation of irresponsible spending of our money.

I'm starting to work on my proposal for a Crisis Nursery in Toronto to present to the city next summer. There are only TWO in all of Canada and they are run completley independant of CAS. If anyone can help with this (architects, engineers, child and youth workers, etc.) I need help tweaking my thoughts by professionals before sending out a proposal and would appreciate help!

Thanks for sticking around and posting here!

Take care,
Amanda Reed

Will this FINALLY rouse the public??

Subject: Auditor General Report
CBC: Ontario's Auditor General has found money the province provided for the protection of young children was misspent on expensive cars, meals and other perks for staff at some Children's Aid Societies. CBC News has obtained a final draft of the province's first value for money audit of Children's Aid which is to be released next week. The report looks at four of Ontario's biggest agencies in Toronto, York, Peel and Thunder Bay. The audit details the lack of controls on more than a billion dollars worth of taxpayers money that Ontario Children's Aid Societies spend every year, and as Margo Kelly reports, the Auditor also says the agencies aren't following the laws that protect children.

REPORTER: The Auditor's report contains disturbing details of misspent money. Several executives were given luxury vehicles including two SUV's worth more than $50,000. An employee had a staff car, but was also given $600 a month for the use of their own vehicle. One manager received a $2,000 a year gym membership and $650 every three months for a personal trainer. Numerous meals for child welfare staff at high end restaurants were expensed with no explanation. And the Auditor also questions expensive trips to the Caribbean, China and Buenos Aires.

MICHAEL DAVIS (Retired homicide detective): It's outrageous when you read it.

REPORTER: Retired homicide detective Michael Davis helped Ontario's Coroner review the deaths of hundreds of children who died while in the care of the Children's Aid. He's upset about the Auditor General's revelations about the lack of controls on hundreds of millions of dollars handed out to group and foster homes, and concerns that some services were never delivered.

DAVIS: Where is the paper trail with regard to the money that you're spending, the taxpayers money that you are spending, and...but where is the Minister in this?

REPORTER: Other findings illustrate how the societies aren't following the law to protect children. In one-third of cases reviewed, initial visits to children at risk were late by an average of three weeks, some children weren't seen at all. In the cases reviewed 90 per cent of the plans meant to keep children safe weren't completed as required and some were 10 months late. The Auditor asks why government funding for Ontario's Children's Aid Societies has more than doubled over six years, while the number of families served increased by only 40 per cent. The Children's Aid Societies have refused to comment, but CBC News has learned that the agencies have hired a public relations firm to help managed the damaging news. In their words - to preserve the reputation of Children's Aid Societies and their leaders. Margo Kelly, CBC News, Toronto.

Thursday, November 30, 2006 8:24:57 AM

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Addresses:

Dalton McGuinty
Premier of Ontario
Legistlative Building
Queen's Park
Toronto, ON M7A 1A1

Jack Layton
1506 Danforth Ave.
Toronto, ON M4J 1N4

Andrea Horwath
MPP Hamilton East
720 Main Street East
Hamilton, ON M4Y 1C6

Andre Marin
Ombudsman of Ontario
Bell Trinity Square
10th Floor, South Tower
Toronto, ON M5G 2C9

Mary Anne Chambers
Minister of Children and Youth Services
56 Wellesley Street West, 14th Floor
Toronto, ON M4S 2S3

Mary McConville
Executive Director
Catholic Children’s Aid Society
26 Maitland Street
Toronto, Ontario
M4Y 1C6

Jeanette Lewis
Executive Director
Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies
75 Front Street East, 2nd Floor
Toronto, Ontario
M5E 1V9

Friday, June 09, 2006

Baldwin grandparents sentenced to life in prison
Updated Fri. Jun. 9 2006 1:07 PM ETCTV.ca

Toronto grandparents found guilty of second-degree murder in the starving death of their five-year-old grandson have been sentenced to life in prison with no hope for parole for at least 20 years.Elva Bottineau, 54, was sentenced to 22 years before becoming eligible parole, while her common-law husband Norman Kidman, 53, was handed 20 years, said Superior Court Justice David Watt."The inhumanity revealed here has shocked the community," Watt said. "They must pay a very steep price."But the couple will be eligible to apply to have their sentences lowered after just 15 years under the so-called faint hope clause.Reaction to sentencesCrown Attorney Paul Culver was pleased with the sentences."It was a great judicial reaction to an indescribable situation. Jeffrey was totally ignored during his life and certainly wasn't afterwards. It was a great investigation, a great prosecution," Culver said shortly after the sentencing.Second-degree murder carries an automatic life term, but the judge could have set parole eligibility after as little as 10 years.Bottineau and Kidman were found guilty in April for the death of five-year-old Jeffrey Baldwin.The horrid living conditions that led to Baldwin's death in 2002 have been described as one of the worst cases of child abuse in the country's history.Jeffrey and his siblings were put in the care of Bottineau and Kidman while the Catholic Children's Aid Society (CCAS) probed allegations of abuse by their birth parents.Instead, court heard the couple used Jeffrey and his sister to draw income through government support cheques while they were confined to a cold, fetid room each night.Court was told Jeffrey was hidden away in the unheated bedroom for as long as 14 hours a day, and forced to dig through garbage to find food and use the toilet for drinking water.The boy, who was called "Pig" by his grandparents, weighed an emaciated 21 pounds when he died just short of his sixth birthday in November 2002, weighing less than he did when he turned one.Officially, he died of starvation and septic shock.Worried about futureJeffrey's maternal grandmother said she wonders about the suffering the boy experienced and worries about how his sister will deal with what she experienced."I can't imagine what he must have felt," Susan Dimitriades said Friday. "I can't imagine how he lived under that condition and his sister too. Like the judge said, the sister has to deal with what happened to her, and maybe the rest of her life will never be the same."When authorities rescued Jeffrey's sister from the squalor, she too was showing signs of starvation with a distended belly and open sores.Bottineau and Kidman were also found guilty of forcible confinement for the sister's care.Although Jeffrey and his sister lived in squalor, the living quarters for the other children were normal, court was told.Bottineau's lawyer Anil Kapoor, had argued his client was mentally handicapped with a personality disorder that prevented her from seeing Jeffrey waste away.
No cooperation
Homicide investigator Mike Davis expressed frustration with the CCAS outside the courthouse Friday. He said the agency provided "little - if any - cooperation" during the investigation of Jeffrey's death.Davis said there are "policies and procedures" for organizations such as police and the CCAS, "and at no time did I see any cooperation whatsoever with the Catholic Children's Aid Society.""This is something that only a public inquiry can look into and look into the systemic issues that are underlying with the Catholic Children's Aid Society," Davis said."We were and continue to be shocked and surprised by the level of cooperation that was given by the various children's agencies," Culver said.After last month's guilty verdict, Ontario's chief coroner announced an inquest will be held, which will look into how the system failed to protect Jeffrey and the involvement of the CCAS.It is alleged the CCAS did not do a background check on the grandparents prior to the placement. Each of them has previous child abuse convictions.No date has been set for the start of the inquest.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

The unbearable darkness of being
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
I have been writing about Jeffrey Baldwin off and on for more than three years, since shortly after his miserable death in his prison of a room in an east-end Toronto house on Nov. 30, 2002.
In that 42-month period, I knocked on the front door of the house, this in those early days before his grandparents were ever arrested, and was chased away by his obese, glowering and remarkably entitled grandmother, who later called police to complain about me; broke the story of how the Catholic Children's Aid Society had agreed to give custody of Jeffrey and his siblings to the grotesque grandparents without even checking its own files that detailed the pair's earlier, separate convictions for child abuse; covered much of the grandparents' criminal trial (they were found guilty of second-degree murder and will be formally sentenced on May 30); attended a tender memorial, organized by strangers, for the dead boy; and read and wrote about a searing report written by an external consultant, who described in crisp prose the ways the CCAS had failed Jeffrey.
For the longest time, I had a picture of the little boy on a wall of my home office and, later, a T-shirt with a blown-up version of the same photo.
I took them down a couple of weeks ago.
Jeffrey's grandparents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman, are likely to pass the rest of their lives in prison — second-degree murder carries an automatic "life" sentence with only the parole ineligibility period still to be decided by the judge — but, as an outcome, this is so profoundly unsatisfactory as to evoke despair.
Last month, Mr. Justice David Watt of Ontario Superior Court ruled that, as Jeffrey's caregivers, the grandparents are guilty of killing him, and so they are. For her part, the grandmother is of borderline intelligence but a vicious, self-referential woman, and surprisingly capable and cunning. The grandfather is a big, lethargic dope, uninterested in much beyond his own creature comforts and unwilling to put himself out one bit to help the child who was slowly dying before his eyes.
They richly deserve their sentences, and not a whit of pity.
But, my God, Jeffrey and his little sister, centred out for cruel treatment by the grandparents though Jeffrey bore the worst of it, lived in that small house surrounded by adults.
Two of the Bottineau-Kidman grown daughters, and their men, also lived there, the most notorious of them one James Mills. Mr. Mills is the best known because he was the only one of that household to testify at trial — Judge Watt described him as "a curious mixture of blatant self-interest and unfathomable loyalty to the persons charged" — and because, as the only one in the house not related by blood or marriage, he might have been presumed to be less bound to the studied indifference that was the household's reaction to the little boy's plight.
Alas, like Mr. Kidman, whom he so admired, Mr. Mills lifted not a pinky, not once, not ever, to help the suffering Jeffrey. The night the little guy died, Mr. Mills was in the bedroom next door, playing video games.
The only price he paid for his stunningly heartless behaviour was the sting of publicity, the same price, albeit to a much lesser extent because they were not called to the witness stand, paid by the other adults who lived in the house.
So, while the grandparents are the perpetrators, while it was their legal duty and theirs alone to have properly cared for a vulnerable child, there was a larger pool of adults who donned blinkers. This is not criminal conduct, but it is morally reprehensible and depressing.
Institutionally, there were three different systems involved one way or another in the case. Two of them — the police and the administration of justice — did their jobs and emerged with honour, in reasonable good time.
Though homicide detectives probably harboured dreams of charging every person in that vile house and the agency that agreed to give the grandparents custody in the first place, and though they would have done so to wide applause, they correctly arrested only the grandparents, because only they had legal liability and opportunity and could be successfully prosecuted.
The accused were robustly defended before one of the best judges in the nation, who heard the case without a jury and wrote a 200-plus-page decision that is as sound as it is literate.
Only the Catholic Children's Aid Society came out of the abyss if not entirely unscathed — the agency, too, was called to account in the realm of public opinion — then unbowed.
At the crux of the agency's explanation for what happened was that there was, at the time Jeffrey's grandparents gained custody of him, a policy vacuum in child care.
Back then, went this explanation, when relatives stepped into the breach when parents were deemed unfit, there was no rule that workers do background checks on the relatives — as though it were perfectly acceptable that a requirement for a thorough family history, in any custody case, should flow from a formal directive.
Child-welfare agencies, chiefly the CCAS, were intimately involved with Jeffrey's various family members for 36 years; there was a wealth of frightening information about the grandparents in the files the agency failed to review.
To my knowledge, the agency has never explained — nor been asked to explain by anyone other than the press — how it was that it also approved Ms. Bottineau as one of its own paid child-care providers a mere four years after her husband was convicted of assaulting two of her youngsters from a previous marriage and despite her own conviction in the 1970 pneumonia death of her first baby, an infant named Eva who later was found to have suffered multiple fractures consistent with battered-child syndrome.
Its front-line workers involved in the case have never publicly explained their thinking.
There remains one last hope that the agency and those workers will be asked these questions and others — Ontario's chief coroner has called an inquest into the little boy's death.
The cynical view is that little good can come of these proceedings, because the recommendations of any inquest jury are only that — recommendations — and because the inquest cannot assign blame.
I don't subscribe to that view. I think the more such decisions are examined, the more publicity brought to bear on the workings of secretive organizations, the more good, ordinary people see that wasted little boy as he appeared on the autopsy table, the better.
Studies show that the sort of slow, semi-starvation Jeffrey Baldwin endured is worse, physiologically and psychologically, than total starvation. In the latter, hunger pangs disappear within a few days; in the former, there is no such blessing.
I can't bear to look at his picture any longer, but he remains in my heart. I await the inquest with eagerness.
cblatchford@globeandmail.com
To all:

I am still away at school and haven't read the blog for so long until today. I don't encourage hate or nasty comments, I don't like that people use what is supposed to be an open forum to discuss idea's and feelings about C/CAS, Jeffrey, child care, etc., to vent their problems or attack each other. I probably won't have the chance to read this again for another month.

John, thank you for all the work you are doing. Believe me, it is frustrating and hard to try and fight the 'machine'. I got sick of slamming my head into a brick wall whenever I dealt with Mary Anne Chambers or Mary McConvile! Don't get consumed!! You WILL burn out and your family will suffer because you're so busy. The absolutely must be a joint effort from everyone who wants change, one person CAN NOT do it alone.

Hope everyone is well, take care,
Amanda

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Public Rally May 17, 2006

Wednesday May 17, 2006
10:30 a.m.
Courtroom 4-9
361 University Ave.

is the date for sentencing subissions before Justice Watt.

Please come out and show your outrage for failure to protect Jeffrey, failure to permit Ombudsman investigative oversight of CASs and for failure to take steps to hold CCAS criminally accountable as well for its unconscionable failure to protect Jeffrey. Stand up for Jeffrey, don't just hide behind the scenes!!!
Even the Toronto Sun gets it! In case you missed it, here's the lead editorial today: May 1, 2006 EDITORIAL: Give this watchdog more biteEver since he was appointed Ontario Ombudsman a year ago, Andre Marin has been making trouble for Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government.And that’s good, because that’s his job. Marin investigates cases where citizens receive poor service from the province, just as the auditor reports on fiscal mismanagement. Beyond dealing with individual complaints, Marin has increasingly been taking on cases where he sees a system-wide or “systemic” failure of government. Thus far he’s exposed:- Bureaucratic bungling which forced parents of severely disabled children to give them up to children’s aid societies.- A shocking failure to update the screening of newborn babies for diseases, a situation that could easily have been fixed for $2.4 million.- Arbitrary and secretive conduct by Ontario’s Municipal Property Assessment Corp. in setting property assessments. These assessments directly impact on how much property tax people pay.Such rulings haven’t made Marin popular with the government, even though he was chosen for the job by an all-party committee and says most of the problems he’s uncovered started before the Grits took office.Now he’s worried the powers of his office are being curtailed. He notes a law passed recently by the Liberals establishing a civilian review process for complaints about the police contains a specific clause keeping the agency out of his jurisdiction.Ontario, Marin says, is also lagging behind other provinces which empower their ombudsmen to probe municipalities, universities, school boards and hospitals — the “MUSH” sector which accounts for 80% of provincial spending — as well as children’s aid societies, which receive $1.5 billion annually.Soon after he was appointed to his job by the government, a committee of senior civil servants recommended his entire office be scrapped as a cost-saving measure. Bad idea.As Ontario’s ombudsman and in his previous jobs as the federal military ombudsman and head of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which probes the use of police force, Marin has shown himself to be a tough, compassionate defender of ordinary citizens.We agree with him that his office should be given the same jurisdictional authority as the auditor.Marin says he doesn’t know what the government is afraid of, given that he only has the power to report on and publicize his findings. Neither do we.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Remember we have collected over 5,500 sigs, from doctors nurses, hospital social workers, in 2 cities, one in only a small affluent area, all stating agreeing with the below statement, one has been presented, already, the other should be next week, and still going strong. I am shocked by the stories from the medical community they are NOT fans of the child protection agencies, nor are the teacher, they see this system doing more harm then good. Its time to really listen to the people, of this province after all we are whom they represent. So yes we have spoken to doctors social workers nurses, lawyers, judges, parents, there needs to be change, this petition has yet to reach the family's that have had involvement , but it will be interesting to see what they have to say. The mandated reporters are not happy. They report they feel more harm is done to the child and family.

PETITION

TO The Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

WHEREAS The Child and Family Services Act of 1999 has been misused toapprehend large numbers of Canadian children; it is financially onerous tothe people of Ontario;

WHEREAS the current legislation gives CAS workers more power than anypoliceman, physician or judge, the rights of Canadian children are routinely trampled in the name of "child protection";

WHEREAS the funding of this agency is piecework based, it is financially rewarded for each file opened and each child apprehended;

WHEREAS to insure accountability and transparency, we need to have the Ontario Ombudsman have oversight over Bill C210

We the undersigned petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to open up the process to public scrutiny to ensure a level playing field, and ensure a proper judicial review with proper representation.

Name (Please Print)
City Signature________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Name

(Please Print) City Signature

If people want a printable copy of this petition calling for Ombudsman oversight, Andrea Horwath will email them one. You can then print and circulate it to family, friends, neighbours, etc.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Jeffrey's case
If any 'good' comes from Jeffrey Baldwin's death it will be from the inquest called by Ontario's chief coronerBy MARK BONOKOSKI
The Grandparents Grimm -- custodial monsters Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman -- will appear in court again May 17 to learn how long the jailer's key will be thrown away before they can apply for the unthinkable prospect of parole following their convictions for second-degree murder.
Their barbarism has been well documented in recent days, of course, despite words falling short of fully describing what is surely indescribable for even the best of writers.
When their 5-year-old grandson, Jeffrey Baldwin, died from the brutality and starvation they had inflicted upon him, for example, his weight was that of a 10-month-old baby -- his years, according to Ontario Justice David Watt, "eked out" in the "miserable existence" of a locked room described as a "dungeon" that was cold, urine-soaked and coated with the filth of human feces.
There is no mind's-eye picture that could possibly conjure the reality of that scenario -- unless, God forbid, a photograph of the poor boy's wasted corpse was able to flash on some screen in the psyche of us all.
Until then, it must hopefully remain unimaginable.
INQUEST IS NEEDED
If there is any good that can come from this horror, and the word "good" is used because of the lack of any other, it is that Ontario's chief coroner, Dr. Barry McLellan, has ordered an inquest into young Jeffrey's death -- with the focus clearly centred on the Catholic Children's Aid Society.
And rightly so.
For it was that agency -- a taxpayer-funded, social safety-net of guardianship -- that handed the boy over to his eventual killers when a simple background check would have uncovered a high degree of child abuse in that family.
In 1998, when Jeffrey's own parents were being investigated for child abuse, and he and his siblings were seized, the CCAS never opposed Bottineau's bid for legal custody of her daughter's children -- meaning they never checked their files to learn that, as a teenage mother, Bottineau herself was convicted of assault causing bodily harm in the 1970 pneumonia death of her first child, Eva, who was also found to have suffered multiple fractures.
And then there was Bottineau's husband, Norman Kidman, whose documented history has him convicted of the extreme beatings of two of Bottineau's children from a previous marriage -- another record easily accessed by the CCAS.
Yet into those abusive arms young Jeffrey Baldwin was tossed, as well as three other siblings.
Following the trial, Paul Dimitriadis -- husband of Jeffrey's paternal grandmother, Susan -- minced no words when it came to the CCAS which, according to reports, backed Bottineau and Kidman in barring the two from even visiting their grandchildren ... a visit which, in retrospect, might have led to young Jeffrey being rescued from their clutches.
But this was never to happen.
CASTLE WALLS
"I believe the Catholic Children's Aid Society lives in a big castle with high walls," he said. "And when they come out, they are guarded by pit bull terriers called lawyers, who are ready to tear anyone apart (who) try to question them."
And he, in many ways, is not far from being wrong.
Not a week goes by that I do not get one or two e-mails, and just as many calls, from a parent or a grandparent with what they see as critical concerns regarding one children's aid society or another -- concerns they want to see go public.
And this is where the "high walls" come into play. Privacy laws not only prevent names from being used, they are also used as a shield by all CAS to deflect, not only comment, but often even acknowledgement of the case in question.
And this is a dilemma for those in the news business who, after time, often find it easier to walk away from a potential story than face the inevitable dead end of the agency invoking privacy laws as a convenient and effective way to legally cover ass until the story goes away.
And it could have even happened here in the Jeffrey Baldwin case, if not for the chief coroner calling an inquest.
While the vast majority of CAS cases are undoubtedly well handled, the few that are not demand scrutiny.
Perhaps the upcoming inquest into Jeffrey Baldwin's death will find a way to address that concern as an important sidebar issue in the juggling act between privacy and protection.
While it may seem small in the greater scheme of the unfathomable picture of the horror that brought the Grandparents Grimm to trial, what of the case I wrote about a month ago about the Cobourg father who discovered -- through a third party, not the CAS -- that the man living with his ex-wife and their 7-year-old daughter was also the man written up in the local newspaper as being sentenced to "house arrest" for sexually assaulting his teenage stepdaughter's best friend?
Facts being facts, it would seem a simple task to get his daughter out of harm's way.
Surely the Children's Aid would see absurdity in these living arrangements, as well as the inherent danger of a 7-year-old little girl having an admitted sex offender as an authority figure.
But that is not the way it played out.
SEXUAL ASSAULT
In fact, the Children's Aid refused to acknowledge that the man in the newspaper convicted of the sexual assault on a teen was the same man now living with his ex-wife and therefore sharing the joint custody of his little girl.
"All I am asking is for one of two things to happen," the girl's father told me back then. "Either give me full custody of my daughter, or get him out of that house."
Neither has happened.
Today, his daughter is still living under the same roof as that convicted sex offender, but it is no longer in Cobourg.
They have packed up and moved because they have supposedly "found God," and the only church where that "God" can be found is apparently nowhere else but Peterborough.
Perhaps the children's aid there will find this odd.
But, then again, likely not.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Public Rally

I'm sorry I couldn't be at the sentencing on April 7th, however, I e-mailed all my media contacts asking them to be there and heard there were a small hand full of people. So, let's try again. Unfortunately I won't be at this one either, (in the Fall, I will be back in force) but please see post below. I will again e-mail my contacts, if you think you can get out of work or make it, PLEASE do! I don't want to cry wolf and have no one except the media show up. Hopefully this is enough of a notice so you can ask for the afternoon off work or make arrangements to be there. Please post your thoughts so I can guage if I should formally 'announce' it to the media.

Thanks,
Amanda

POST:

Anonymous said...

TO EVERYONE RE. RALLY:

Please note that I am advised by Nick Pron of T.O. Star that Wednesday May 17, 2006 starting at 10:30 a.m. in courtroom 4-9 at 361 University Ave. is the date for sentencing subissions before Justice Watt. If it goes a second day, Friday May 19th is reserved.

I told Mr. Pron that we are attempting to have public rally on the sentencing date, he suggested it be on May 17. I agree. Please come out and show your outrage for failure to protect Jeffrey, failure to permit Ombudsman investigative oversight of CASs and for failure to take steps to hold CCAS criminally accountable as well for its unconscionable failure to protect Jeffrey. Stand up for Jeffrey, don't just hide behind the scenes!!!

Posted: Thursday, April 13, 2006 11:02:27 AM

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Some hate mail... WHO is this guy??

I assume he is elva's son who was one of the two children taken before she had the three girls? Elayne, can you elaborate? I don't think he is part of the paternal family...?


Date:
Wed, 12 Apr 2006 23:34:55 -0400
To:
jeffreyslaw@cogeco.ca
Subject:
Jeffrey Baldwin
From:
FRED CROTTA

Amanda Reed,
Where do you get off interfering in family matters? Why do you feel the need to fight for someone you don't even know? Do you not have a life of your own? I truly believe you should consult the family before broadcasting a plaque memorial when the family hasn't been consulted. I'm sure his family would have quite a bit to say about you interfering with their personal losses. I know I do and none of it can be stated in this email, due to proper ettiquette. Being his uncle I thin k you should butt out! This is a family matter and last I checked you weren't family.
F. Crotta

My response:
That's unfortunate then because I WON'T butt out of this! YOU should have done something... he's not yours anymore. He will be the catalyst for change for all future children in this country! It's good you didn't swear because I'm posting your letter on my blog... feel free to visit me there and voice yourself, you won't offend me, though I'm SURE you must have SOMETHING better to do with your time!

By the way, I'm thrilled I'm not part of your family!

Amanda Reed
Jeffrey's Law Organization

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Did you see:


"Failing Jeffrey"
The Fifth Estate

Will re air on CBC Newsworld over the weekend
RE: Plaque

I can not move installing the plaque to the Spring because of a few reasons, however, if someone else would like to be 'in charge' of organizing this, I will certainly hand over the plaque. Please let me know and please remember I have very limited internet access so may not respond as quickly...
Thanks
Is she joking??

Death cannot cloud work
Apr. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM
Abusers convicted of killing grandchild
April 8.
When a child dies or is maltreated, especially when the circumstances were preventable, demands for a full and thorough investigation are warranted. It is important that every effort be made to examine what went wrong and to identify the checks and balances that must be put in place to prevent future tragedies. Moreover, it is important that the implementation of recommendations receive both priority and adequate resources.
In the case of Jeffrey Baldwin, the 5-year-old child who died of malnutrition while in the care of his grandparents, the Toronto Catholic Children's Aid Society (CCAS) has acknowledged that its records were not checked when the grandparents applied to the courts for custody of Jeffrey a number of years ago. The CCAS has since put protocols in place to ensure this will not happen again.
While the hardships associated with Jeffrey Baldwin's tragic death must not be diminished, the Ontario Association of Social Workers cautions against allowing his death to overshadow the important and effective work the CCAS and other child welfare agencies carry out each year.
In Ontario, highly skilled child welfare staff, many of whom are social workers, conduct more than 82,000 investigations a year and provide services to 30,000 children in care. They operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Caseloads are complex and the demands on staff immense. Professionals working in this important, yet often times maligned role, need the support of the community as they continue to protect our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

Beverley J. Antle, President, Ontario Association of Social Workers, Toronto

_____________________________________________________
Well said!

Change child welfare rules
Apr. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM
Abusers convicted of killing grandchild
April 8.
Jeffrey Baldwin's death is a tragedy. Everyone from government to children's aid societies to the people who care for children and youth in need of protection like Jeffrey must learn from his experiences (and those of his siblings) so they are not repeated.
In our view, there needs to be fundamental changes to Ontario's child welfare system to avoid the chances of something similar happening to another child in the future.
Changes are needed to ensure that children are placed with the best people to provide proper care; to provide the ability for a third party to independently review the child's care and to fund the child's care and treatment accordingly. In short, providing children with the care they need, not just the "minimum" as can sometimes be the case.
As providers of high-quality treatment foster care and group home care to more than 4,000 children and youth in Ontario yearly, our members continue to work with the Ontario government, children's aid societies and other partners to recommend ways to make the system better.
Jeffrey's death must serve as a catalyst to ensure vulnerable children can get the best chance at a good life.
Richard Solomon, Executive Director, Ontario Association of Residences Treating Youth, Richmond Hill
Amanda - FYI

CBC has posted the audio and a summary of the Jeffrey Baldwin case discussion with the Ombudsman this morning at

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2006/200604/20060411.html.

If you didn't catch it this morning, thought you might want to listen in or share it with your readers.

_____________________________

Hi everyone,
I'm at school now and there is NO internet access except early in the morning. So, I won't be posting very much but will be of course reading the newspapers and keeping up as much as possible.

Take care,
Amanda

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Bill 88, 2006, Ombudsman Amendment Act (Children's Aid Societies), 2006.
Andrea Horwath NDP MPP has introduced to the Legislative Assembly, Bill 88, 2006. By Introducing this to the Legislative Assembly, she is forcing the Government to publicly admit that they do not want any form of external accountability over CAS's.

Saturday, April 08, 2006


Here is the permanent plaque I will be installing in Greenwood Park this summer with my dad. I will of course let everyone know when I'm going so you can all come.

May this sweet child be the catalyst for change in a corrupt, broken system to save other children from suffering the same fate... he is an angel.
Please write the Chief and Deputy Chief Coroners thanking them for calling an inquest. They could have ignored it, they could have been in bed with CCAS, but they didn't and they're not.
Thanks!
Amanda

Dr. Barry McLellan, Chief Coroner
Dr. Jim Cairns, Deputy Cheif Coroner
Office of the Chief Coroner
Coroner's Bldg, 2nd Floor
26 Grenville Street
Toronto, Ontario M7A 2G9
Phone: (416) 314-4000
Fax: (416) 314-4030

Friday, April 07, 2006

2nd Degree Murder and a Public Inquest Called!

April 7, 2006
T.O. grandparents who starved boy to death guilty of second-degree murder

TORONTO (CP) - A Toronto couple who allowed their five-year-old grandson to starve to death have been found guilty of second-degree murder.

Fifty-four-year-old Elva Bottineau and 53-year-old Norman Kidman were supposed to have saved their grandchildren from a life of abuse after they were taken from their birth parents. Instead, five-year-old Jeffrey Baldwin was confined to a locked, unheated bedroom for as much as 14 hours a day, breathing in the smell of his own urine and feces.

The details of his tragic life were outlined for the court Friday in a lengthy address by Justice David Watt that took much of the day.

Court heard he was treated like a dog, made to eat out of a bowl with his fingers and he often drank from a toilet when he was thirsty.

Immediately upon the verdict's release, Ontario's chief coroner announced that an inquest would be held.

"The circumstances surrounding Jeffrey's death have been a matter of public interest," Dr. Barry McLellan's office said in a release.

"Issues to be addressed at the inquest include the Toronto Catholic Children's Aid Society's involvement in Jeffrey's placement and the role that agency, and others, had in monitoring his well-being prior to his death."

Emergency crews were shocked when they found Jeffrey's frail body, weighing less than he did on his first birthday.

He was just 21 pounds when he died of starvation and pneumonia in November 2002, weeks before his sixth birthday.

When his sister was rescued from the house she too showed obvious signs of starvation with skinny limbs, a distended belly and open sores.

Although the children lived in squalor, the rest of the house was immaculately clean, court heard.

The couple was also found guilty of forcible confinement for the girl's care.

Bottineau's lawyer Anil Kapoor had argued his client did not deliberately kill her grandson. He cited a psychologist who testified Bottineau was mentally retarded with a personality disorder that prevented her from seeing Jeffrey waste away.

But another expert witness, Lisa Ramshaw, contradicted that assessment and said Bottineau had "a higher order of thinking than someone with mental retardation" and lied to protect herself.

Lawyer Catherine Glaister told Watt that Kidman did not plan to kill Jeffrey and had little involvement in the children's lives.

1:15pm...

... still not too much from the courthouse, but there probably won't be illegal confinement charges in regards to Jeffrey's sister...

Thursday, April 06, 2006

April 5, 2006

GIVE OMBUDSMAN OVERSIGHT IN FORBIDDEN KEY AREAS
Queen's Park - Ontario

New Democrats are pushing a legislative package thatwould give the provincial Ombudsman powers to better protect Ontarians when government institutions fail them. NDP Critic for Children and Youth Issues, Hamilton East MPP Andrea Horwath,and Trinity-Spadina MPP Rosario Marchese, the party's Education Critic,unveiled a trio of private members bills they'll introduce today. They want the government to adopt the entire package and give people a fair opportunity to appeal unjust decisions.

"We believe the Ombudsman should have a broad and unfettered mandate.There's no reason why a government should stand in the way of the Ombudsman's investigation of any problem," said Marchese. "Getting to the bottom of complaints about schools, health care facilities and children's welfare is the right thing to do for kids' sake and foreveryone's sake," Horwath said.

Horwath is proposing two new laws giving the Ombudsman the currently forbidden power to investigate matters concerning the administration of Children's Aid Societies and hospital and health care facilities. Five provinces - Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick and NovaScotia - have Ombudsman oversight of child welfare issues, including child protection. Saskatchewan, Quebec and Newfoundland have independent oversight through separate offices. Eight jurisdictions in Canada --British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador,Quebec, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and Yukon Territories -- give their Ombudsman Offices the mandate to investigate hospitals. Concerning schoolsand boards, the Ombudsman has a role in BC, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Yukon.

In December, Ontario Ombudsman André Marin told a government committee hewas "duty-bound" to seek independent oversight of CAS administrativedecisions following the death of Jeffrey Baldwin.

Currently, the CAS board of directors investigates complaints.

Similarly, the government doesn't let the Ombudsman investigate problems inhealth care or education, said Marchese. His private members bill wouldenable the Ombudsman to investigate complaints relating to school boardpolicies, such as suspensions and expulsions under the controversial SafeSchools Act. "It is vital that people have a neutral third party who can investigate andmake recommendations. Just because the government won't listen, doesn't meanpeople don't deserve to be heard," he said. "Independent oversight is crucial for families dealing with the harsh and heart-wrenching impact of decisions that adversely affect them," said Horwath. -30-

Monday, April 03, 2006

There have been a couple of requests for a public rally this Friday April 7. The day of the verdict. Is anybody interested?
April 3, 2006
Toronto Sun
Should foster care be licensed?
By VIVIAN SONG

Like licensed daycare, foster care should also be professionalized, says a professor of child and family studies and a foster parent.
"When our own children go to daycare, we as parents insist that the daycare is licensed and insist that the provider has some educational background like early childhood education," said Thomas Waldock, a professor at Nipissing University and a published child-advocate author.
"We demand more of those systems, but when it comes to foster care, because we're talking about marginalized kids from marginalized populations, we place ads in papers requesting foster parents to join the system."
On average, the base rate foster parents receive is about $26.71 a day, not including incidental fees like soccer, music lessons or special needs costs.
$350 A DAY
Costs of keeping a child in a group home - which eats the biggest chunk of the system's budget - can get as high as $350 a day.
By investing resources and money into foster parents with educational backgrounds in social work and early childhood education, children would be looked after with the same kind of standard parents exact of the daycare providers who only look after their children eight hours a day, Waldock said.
"What tends to happen is that people and the press focus on the fact that kids are left in (horrible) situations ... but where the children get placed after they're removed tends to get lost ... There's very little focus on the quality of system children go into," Waldock said.
For Jeanette Lewis, executive director of OACAS, the licensing notion is at once idyllic and impractical.
"There's something to be said for that," she said. "But at the same time, you can't professionalize love, attachment, respect and caring. That's the dilemma."

April 3, 2006
Wards move every 22 months
Aim of Ontario's new child-care legislation is to bring permanency for children in care
By VIVIAN SONG

Young people in foster and group homes move on average every 22 months, according to the ministry of children and youth services.
There are about 9,000 permanent Crown wards in Ontario, but only 10% of them are adopted each year.
Last Monday the province passed new child protection legislation in Bill 210, for children like the youth in the documentary Wards of the Crown, who spent loveless childhoods being shuffled from home to home.
Minister Mary Anne Chambers said the new bill places priority in creating greater permanence for kids in care.
"If kids are changing homes on average every 22 months, that means new schools, getting accustomed to new neighbourhoods and friends. It's not the kind of stable environment that support strong growth in kids," Chambers said.
There are no caps on the number of times a foster child can be uprooted and moved to another foster home, says Jeanette Lewis, executive director of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies, in part because there's a shortage of foster homes.
As of March of last year, the OACAS counted 8,004 foster homes and 1,460 adoption homes in the province.
"Overall, the whole question of taking care of another person's child has changed and the reality is more difficult," Lewis said.
As they grow older, existing foster parents stop fostering and retire the children back into the system. Increasingly multicultural communities also present unique challenges to an already overburdened child welfare system.
"There's a tremendous emphasis on the recruitment of foster parents from different cultures. But it's tough because in some cultures there is no word for foster care in their language. It's quite a challenge," Lewis said.
Claudette Maheux, manager of child and youth care services of the Ottawa CAS said the whole premise of foster care needs to be redefined.
"We need to do away with the term 'long-term foster care,'" she says in the film. "Foster homes should be for purposes of temporary care of children until we can find them permanence. It should not be the permanent plan."

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Someone posted this link and I've spent the morning reading these stories. Although it is an American site, they are still relevant stories. Some of the abusers got long sentences, others have been let off with a slap. Please see it if you get a chance.

http://www.amfor.net/KillerAdopters/

Friday, March 31, 2006

Programs to watch:

Global Television's Focus Ontario program this weekend as the Ombudsman will be discussing the issue of CAS oversight. The program is scheduled to air on Saturday at 6:30pm and will repeat on Sunday morning at 7 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.



"Failing Jeffrey"
The Fifth Estate
Friday April 14, 2006
10:oo pm

From the clip they showed last night it looks like it is going to be good.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Hi Amanda:

I am a Toronto Star reporter working on a story to come out April 7 the day of the ruling into Eva Bottineau & Norman Kidman on Jeffrey's death.
I am trying to find other cases of kinship care where children have been killed or abused in care of other relatives after having been taken from their mother.

Please contact me,
Sincerely,
Dale Anne Freed
Toronto Star
416-869-4436
email dfreed@thestar.ca

A CAS story...

Program Supervisor
Ministry of Children & Youth Services
119 King Street West, 7th Floor
Suite 600
Hamilton ON L8P 4Y7


To whom it may concern

This is a letter explaining my situation and complaint with the Brant County Children’s Aid Society. The Society has been involved with my family on and off since July 1992 on assumption of alleged abuse on my children, poor parenting skills and too much stress.

In October 2002, a worker by the name of Donna Symes was assigned to my case, who since then has remained involved to this day even though I have no more children in my care since December 5, 2002. All of my children live in different homes. My youngest has been in foster care since that date, and is waiting for the courts to make her Crown Ward for the purpose of adoption. I was required by them to take parenting courses, group sessions, counseling and be seen by a psychiatrist for hopes that my children would return in my care. I followed through with each of their demands in order to be in good standing with the Society. Yet, it seems that my honesty and willingness to improve myself has caused much grief and pain to my family and to me. There have been accusations made against me that were untrue and overly exaggerated. For example, having high expectations of my children; punching them, which I never did because my approach to hot situations has always been to walk away; neglecting them, lack in parenting skills; failed to protect them; forcing my daughter to toilet train, which was never the case. My family life and my mental health haven been shattered which brought me to a depression and undo stress. This mental state was use against me and was told that I could not be a good parent. A parenting assessment was done in 2004 and so much information was untrue and distorted also. At that time, it was obvious to me that the doctor in question, seemed very bias on the whole situation and the recommendation was exactly what the worker wanted in the end.

I am presently expecting another child and I am being told, by this worker, that apprehension is very possible. There are many uncertainties on this at the present time. I am taking it one day at a time but still wonder what the agency will do. An alert has been place throughout Canada against me. So upon the delivery of this child, C.A.S. will be contacted and I will loose this child. She has stated that I can bond with the baby in the hospital and can nurse but to not expect the child to come home with me. In the last few weeks, Donna Symes was getting me to go to the office on a bi-weekly appointment. I have signed all the Form 14 required so that at the time of birth of this child, the Society can call the authorities involved in my life. I have been told that I need to continue counseling and see a psychiatrist, which I have no problem doing this even though I do feel that all is well with me. I was told to take, once again, a parenting course which if my memory serves me right, I have taken at least 4 of them to this date. She also told me that I would be re-assessed around the time of the birth of the new baby. I have no solid evidence of the outcome of my near future. I did tell Ms. Symes, why not let me take the baby home and have a worker at my home every day of the week if necessary even on Sunday. Her instant response to this was that this was not possible.

This worker, Donna Symes, has made many promises that she did not kept on more then one occasion. For example: Do what is required and your children will be returned to you; scheduled make – up visits with my daughter with no show from her part and no calls to cancel either. A few weeks ago she even told me that C.A.S. does not apprehend babies from the hospital and then stated differently. My doctor was upset that this woman was being dishonest with me and said that she should be telling me the truth.

I have often sought, in the pasts, the help of the Society, for help and advice. My children are my life and my world. All I want is a chance to prove that, but it seems that once again it’s impossible to prove anything to the Society when a worker is bias and seems to not follow what the Society really represents. I do understand that you are there to protect children but it’s also been my understanding that the Society is suppose to try to keep families together. It seems that this particular worker has been working very hard in keeping my family apart and continues to do so. I honestly believe that there is no reason for C.A.S. to be involved at this time or anytime in the future. But Ms. Donna Symes seems to think that she needs to be involved to be in control of the situation, which at this time there is no situation or anything else for that matter. How do I get the Society to stop being in my life and what damage is she trying to do or continue to do?

The only reason this worker knows of my pregnancy is because I’ve told her. In April 2005, I had to remove myself completely from the whole situation that surrounds me and moved to another province. At the time, it was something that was very much needed for my mental state. Removing myself away from all stressors that was surrounding me was the only thing I could think of doing at that time. I had nothing left to give to anyone including myself. I was so stressed out that I would break down at the least little thing. Before I left, I had my last visit with my daughter (April 7, 2005) who is in foster care as mentioned above. Upon my return to Ontario (Jan.16, 2006), I thought that being there still was nothing settled for her case, that maybe I could see my daughter again, so I called the worker. At that time, I told her about the pregnancy because I figured, if I was to see my girl, the Society would then notice my condition and so that I would not withhold any information, I voluntarily gave the info but now it’s causing me more grief once again.

I have found that over the years, there have been many contradictions with the Society. Some workers use to say that a spanking was ok but others would scold me for doing so. I am not talking about hard-core spanking; I’m referring to one or two spanking on the bottom with clothing. For one thing, how is a child suppose to be raise to respect and obey when we have no right to do anything to show them the right path? The Society and the Government has taken all of our parenting rights away and as we see the children now, we have children that are out of control and turning to a life of crime.

I’ve had workers in the past, wondered why they were involved with the family. They could not see what the problem was. So how can in so little time all of that has changed? I am not a monster as I have been made out to be and I want a chance to prove this but it seems to be impossible to do. I feel that I can’t breathe with C.A.S. constantly being involved and telling me what I can and cannot do. Yet I know that I have put into practice what I have been taught over the years. My biggest problem is that I’ve allowed to many people around me to tell me what to do and ended up feeling and believing that I was no good at anything especially in parenting. That is why I have often let others take over because I had no more self-esteem. If I’ such a bad parent, at it’s been perceived, then why do my older children keep telling me how good of a mom I am and all wish to be residing with me? I do admit that my choices of relationships were not healthy, even though it took me a while to see this, I did eventually take care of it. Unfortunately, not always when I should have. I get scared and it takes me some time to get this accomplished. I have a tendency to give the benefit of the doubt to all whom cross my part. I’ve allowed people to abuse my kindness and it’s something that I do have to work at so that I may not repeat my previous mistakes.

On a final note, I wanted to say that I have read your beautiful brochure call “Working together to protect children”. I will say that it’s well put together. Unfortunately, not even 1/3 of it’s content was applied towards my case since Donna Symes go involved.

If you require any additional information from me, please feel free to contact me in any way that is convenient for you.

Sincerely,

Nathalie Gauthier
Brantford ON
nathalie19682000@hotmail.com
March 20, 2006




Dear members of the Social Policy Committee,


I am writing to ask each of you to visit the blog; http://jeffreyslawnow.blogspot.com
so you may get an idea of what the general public thinks of Bill 210. We are all very apprehensive of it going through and feel we are losing the battle. If you are elected to decide what society accepts and does not, then you should be listening to what society wants, not use your own personal judgment! Society is demanding accountability from the people who determine our future generations’ fates.

The child welfare agencies need more accountability for their actions, never mind none at all! They must answer to someone and the first step is to give the Ombudsman the power to investigate them. We, as taxpayers, are paying for the 'Canadian Mafia' to do whatever they want to Ontario families and children and we refuse to let this continue! The CCAS and CAS's of Ontario should be made public agencies, accountable to us, their employers. You, as
government officials do not pay these societies, we do. All government does is dish out our hard earned money and I want a say in where it goes.

If you refuse to listen to the public, then maybe the public should stop paying their taxes. You would fine and put us in jail for not paying, yet these social workers suffer no consequences when a child dies or is tortured or starved to death as a direct result of their poor judgment or laziness.

Do any of you honestly believe that Margarita Quintana visited Jeffrey or his siblings after they were placed? Did the social worker visit Matthew Reid after he was placed or listen to the child's grandmothers complaints against the foster family? I know for a fact Mary Ann Chambers didn't.

Please do not let this bill go through. The public is demanding this of you, our elected officials. Visit the blog and pay attention to what we want, NOT what you or the children's aid societies want.

Sincerely,

Amanda Reed
jeffreyslaw@cogeco.ca

c.c
mracco.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
kramal.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
ted_arnott@ontla.ola.org
ted_chudleigh@ontla.ola.org
kcraitor.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
pfonseca.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
jleal.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
rmarchese-co@ndp.on.ca
info@kathleenwynne.ca

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

March 22, 2006
Toronto Sun Publication
Foster parent guilty of abuse
'He's the father I never had'

By IAN MCDOUGALL, COURTS BUREAU

A former foster parent has admitted sexually abusing two wards of the Catholic Children's Aid Society in a surprise guilty plea entered yesterday.
Paul Blackwell, 64, was convicted of one count of indecent assault and four counts of sexual assault on five different victims, including the two CCAS wards, between 1977 and 1992.
The victims were from 12 to 16 years old.
"It took a lot of courage for these people to come forward," said assistant Crown attorney Cara Sweeny. "For them it's good to see that the system works."
The trial had barely begun when Blackwell changed his not guilty plea. He was originally facing 22 charges.
None of his victims can be identified under a court-ordered publication ban.
But the Crown's first witness, a 43-year-old man, testified Monday he was first assaulted when the CCAS placed him in Blackwell's home as an emergency measure in 1977.
Despite the abuse, the man said Blackwell treated him well otherwise.
He said he quit school in Grade 10 to go to work for Blackwell's construction company.
NO EXPLANATION
"He's the father I never had," the man said yesterday as he continued testimony before Blackwell entered his guilty plea.
"You felt he treated you well," defence lawyer Louise Botham said.
"Yes," the man answered.
No explanation for the change in Blackwell's plea was given in court.
Justice Frances Kiteley said she will hold a sentencing hearing Friday.
"I think you have taken a very important step," she told Blackwell.
When Blackwell was arrested and charged in September 2004, a spokesman with CCAS said they had no reports of abuse.

The victim who testified Monday said he was also abused by his caseworker and at one point contemplated legal action against CCAS. Instead he went to the police.

"There may be more victims," Sweeny said outside court yesterday.
"If there are I would urge them to call Toronto Police 55 Division," she said.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

CCAS in the hot seat... AGAIN

March 21, 2006
I was abused: Ex-ward
Says guardian, CCAS staffer molestersBy IAN MCDOUGALL, COURTS BUREAU
A former ward with Catholic Children's Aid Society was sexually abused first by his guardian and then by his social worker, court heard yesterday.
Paul Blackwell, 64, is facing 22 charges allegedly involving five victims over 20 years, assistant Crown attorney Cara Sweeny said as the trial began.
The first witness, now 43, was a CCAS ward in 1977 when he was placed with Blackwell and at first things seemed fine, the jury was told.
"It was one of the first times in his life he felt loved," Sweeny said.
But when the man took the stand, he described a recurring pattern of abuse that began with a trip to Florida -- he was 14 at the time -- when the pair shared a bed.
'TOUCHING MY GROIN'
"Paul had started fondling me," said the man, whose name is protected by a publication ban. "He was touching my groin ... I was a little scared ... I probably asked him to stop. I can't remember if he stopped at that time."
The abuse continued into the man's 16th year, when he was asked by a social worker if Blackwell was abusing him. He said there was nothing going on.
The worker invited him to stay over and also sexually abused him, he said.
"There was no one I could talk to. They were both molesting me," the man said.
He said Blackwell's sexual advances, which had included oral sex and touching, gradually lessened after he turned 15.
EMBARRASSMENT
In the fall of 2004, he recalled seeing a police story on the TV news announcing Blackwell's arrest and asking that witnesses come forward.
He had thought before about going to the police, but the fear of embarrassment always kept him from going ahead.
Still angry about the treatment he suffered from his social worker, he contacted a lawyer about Catholic Children's Aid.
"I told him I was molested as a child, and I wanted to hold CCAS responsible for it," he said, adding the lawyer said he should go to the police.
"I was a little reluctant," he said. "I just didn't want to be in a position to have to tell somebody."
Blackwell is also accused of slipping one of his victims sleeping pills in milk, Sweeny said in her opening address.
//

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Things the CCAS wants you to do for free...

Current Volunteer Opportunities
The following volunteer opportunities are currently available at the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto:
The Hope for Children Foundation raises funds to provide services to children and youth in the Society's care that are not covered by government funding. The four core programs (Education and Scholarships, Youth, Emergency and Enhancement, Community Development) the Foundation supports, brings hope to thousands of children and youth every year.
At the Hope for Children Foundation of the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto, we have several openings for donor-relations volunteers. As a volunteer, you will assist in:
data input
organizing information
mailings
donor calls
other administrative support.
You have:
good organizational and communication skills
computer skills
previous donor-relations experience an asset
sensitivity in handling confidential information.
Time commitments:
a half to full day every week, for a minimum of six months.
If you are interested in volunteering with the Hope for Children Foundation, please call 416-395-1500. Fore more information on the Hope for Children Foundation and the programs it supports, please check the Foundation page on this web site, by clicking on the Foundation logo.
Return to top
Special Friends, male and female, needed for children in families in the Scarborough Branch area. For more information contact our Scarborough Branch at 416-395-1900.
Volunteers are needed for the Child Access Program at the Scarborough Branch. This is a volunteer supported program, bringing children in foster homes and their birth families together for access visits and operates on Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. For more information contact our Scarborough Branch at 416-395-1900Return to topChild Access Program requires volunteers at the West Toronto Office (Dufferin/Bloor), which is a volunteer-supported program, bringing children in foster homes and their birth families together for access visits. The program operates on Saturdays from 10:30 am to 3:30 pm. For more information contact Toronto West (416) 395-1785.

Friday, March 17, 2006

My 'parallel' crusade

Please read this. I think this deserves our attention as well. Letters to the government demanding tougher sentences for these menaces, these perverted, demented people preying on our babies! This article will turn your stomach, guarenteed.

They were talking about it last night on CH 5:30. If you saw it or want to comment, please do at the same e-mail address. 530@chtv.ca

Thanks,
Amanda

Save the Children

W-FIVE Staff
The Internet Connection

If you worry that more pedophiles are out there than before, you're not alone. Hardly a day goes by without news of an arrest -- for luring a minor, possession of child pornography, or, worst of all, an assault on a child by a sexual predator.
At the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Police, they deal with that reality every day.
It's an uphill battle, but there are also moments to celebrate. Like the arrest in August 2005 of 36 year-old Kenneth Symes, a church pastor and married man from Ajax, Ontario, who was charged with luring a minor on the Internet.
The minor in question wasn't a minor at all, but Detective Constable Scott Purches, a specialist in Internet luring. The detective had been communicating with Symes for four months in an online teenage chatroom, where Symes had never concealed the fact he was an older man.
"When he started to formulate a plan on how to meet is when it really moved from the realm of the virtual world to the real world," says Purches. "And simultaneous to that, he was becoming more sexually interested, asking about the experience my online persona had been involved in as far as sexual experience and things like that."
Symes pleaded guilty to two counts of luring a minor and was sentenced to 12 months in prison. He was released after serving six because time spent in custody before conviction was counted as double time.
He's just one in a growing army of predators, but catching them is just one of the problems confronting the unit.
Most of their time is spent analyzing the flood of pornographic images and videos on the Internet, most of it produced in the United States, Canada and Western Europe.
The head of the Child Exploitation Section, Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie, says the producers are people who have worked themselves into a position of trust with children.
"The boyfriend, the uncle, the father, the doctor, the person who all of a sudden is willing to spend a whole bunch of time with a child."
Every day, in cramped quarters and using equipment that can hardly be called state of the art, investigators trawl the Internet, sorting through thousands of images of almost unimaginable depravity. They're searching for clues, any detail that might lead them to the children and their tormentors.
Most people wouldn't want to see these images, but Gillespie and his team have no choice. That's their job.
"To say that there's thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people around the world who are trading and producing these horrific photographs and movies of children being tortured and babies ... it's very hard to get a handle on," says Gillespie.
He believes the Internet has led to a huge increase in the amount of pornography.
"It has combined modern technology with an age-old problem. And it has allowed a number of these offenders to realize how many others are out there, other like-minded individuals."
The sheer volume makes it hard for the police, harder still because much of it is hidden in dark corners of the Internet. Beyond the reach of most surfers and search engines, only those in the know are invited to join what's become a kind of exclusive club for the depraved. It's here the investigators find the worst of the worst.
"I think a lot of people now are a little more educated, especially in Canada, as to how bad it is, but they still don't want to let their mind go there," says Gillespie. "They don't want to force themselves to realize it's not a 10-year-old frolicking on a beach naked. It's a baby being bound and gagged and tortured and crying until they pass out."
Such sights and sounds haunt even hardened investigators like Detective Constable Warren Bulmer, who says he'll never forget watching the rape of a 16-month-old baby.
"During the entire two or three minutes of video, he screamed from start to finish. And I will never, ever forget that sound. Because visually, you can look away, or you can picture something else that's going on, but you can't get rid of the sound. While that movie's playing it doesn't matter where you look in the room, you'll hear it."
Gillespie says that such atrocities have prompted a shift in priority at the Toronto unit ƒ{ from hunting down the perpetrators, to identifying and rescuing the victims, the estimated 50,000 children from around the world who have been abused.
The Toronto Police were one of the first to recognize that child pornography knows no borders. With help from Bill Gates at Microsoft, they've developed a tracking system for police forces around the world to use, in identifying abused children, no matter where they are.
"Their only cry for help is the fact that we watch the action and with our limited resources, do our best to try and make a bit of a difference," says Gillespie.
That international outlook led to one of the unit's most dramatic rescues.
Attention To Detail Pays Off
In February 2005, undercover officers in the Toronto Child Exploitation Section posing as online pedophiles received some unusual pictures of a young child -- unusual because there was nothing pornographic about them. They showed a boy of about 18 months wearing a diaper and posing on a sofa, or playing with a computer keyboard -- the kind of picture a proud parent might show to friends and relatives.
But Detective Constable Warren Bulmer was intrigued. Why would a pedophile send such harmless looking pictures? Bulmer suspected he was being checked out.
"I think some of the offenders are getting a little bit wise that if certain things occur during Internet conversations that in fact it could be an undercover officer," he says. "And some of them are just a little bit careful, maybe meeting you for the first time online."
Bulmer passed the test -- he was accepted into the club. Then the images became more graphic and more disturbing. The toddler was being raped on camera.
The officer studied the images in every detail. Was there anything that might tell him the identity of this child and where he was from?
Bulmer noticed a light switch in one of the pictures and recognized right away it wasn't a type found in North America.
In another image, he examined the computer keyboard held by the child and when he blew it up, spotted a manufacturer's name and keys with Spanish symbols.
A call to the company confirmed that this type of keyboard was only sold in Spain.
But Spain's a big country and police needed another detail to narrow down the search.
Bulmer found it in another image -- what looked like a ticket held in an offender's hand.
The Toronto Police sent their information to Spain via Interpol, where it ended up on the desk of Inspector Luis Garcia, the head of Madrid's Child Pornography Unit.
Garcia hadn't seen these images before and, shocked by the age of the victim, quickly opened an investigation.
He focused on a key clue -- the ticket discovered by Toronto Police. Examining the video, Garcia watched the ticket being given to the child and clutched in his tiny hand as he's being raped.
"It's a way of distracting the boy," he says.
But revealing that ticket was a huge mistake and turned out to be a key clue in the investigation. The Spanish police recognized it immediately as coming from Madrid's suburban train system. It helped narrow down the search because information printed on the ticket showed it was only valid for five stops on one line of the system.
Then Garcia noticed another detail on another image sent from Toronto -- what looked like a towel with lettering on it. When he enlarged the picture, he identified the letters A and Z, and a cross. The towel was from a hospital.
Turns out that hospital was called La Paz and served a community called Villalba, one of the five along the train line police were looking at.
Villalba was 40 kilometers from Madrid, a community of working couples and plenty of children. A perfect hunting ground for pedophiles.
Now police had somewhere to show the child's picture and quickly got results.
"The boy was identified first and then his family," says Garcia.
The Spanish police discovered the family had lived for a time in one particular apartment in Villalba, but had moved.
When they searched the apartment, they took photographs and immediately recognized it from the furniture. The sofa was the same one as in the images sent from Toronto. They'd found the scene of the crime.
The parents had rented the apartment from a man who had offered them something no working couple could refuse -- cheap babysitting.
But while they were at work, their child was being abused in unimaginable ways. That man also ran his own computer store, which police immediately put under surveillance.
And they began to wonder. Could he be the same man they'd been tracking on the Internet for some time? A pedophile who went by the online name of Nanysex.
So just two months after getting their first clue from Toronto, Spanish police had a possible suspect under surveillance. But they couldn't be sure it was him. He'd always been careful not to show his face on video
They asked Toronto Police for more help. Warren Bulmer began going through the videos again, this time, frame by frame and found what he was looking for in one of them. It was only four frames, a fraction of a second. But it was enough.
"The offender shows his face as he's abusing the child," says Bulmer. "And once we sent that video to Spain, that was ultimately the final straw."
It was the same man Spanish police had under surveillance. As soon as confirmation arrived from Toronto, they raided the computer store run by the suspect, Nanysex.
They found a treasure trove of evidence -- thousands of horrific videos and images. Nanysex was running a porn factory -- other children abused in the same horrible ways.
Inspector Garcia told W-FIVE that the parents had no idea what was going on because they trusted Nanysex and his friends.
"If you've never experienced something like this and you're living in a normal social environment, it's hard to believe it could happen," he says.
Three suspected pedophiles were arrested, including the ringleader who called himself Nanysex.
And police believe the group may have on the verge of expanding their operation. They found books about child care and application forms needed to open a day-care centre in Spain.
In all, seven abused children were identified and rescued, including the little boy who came to the attention of the Toronto Police ... untold others spared the horror of Nanysex and his ring of pedophiles.
It was the high point in Warren Bulmer's career, knowing the work he and his colleagues started in Toronto led to the arrest of Nanysex.
"I don't think we really have the time to sit and bask in it as much as we might think," he says. "But it becomes a confidence builder that no matter how small you think something is, even if it's just one or two pictures, you never know where that's going to lead you."
Victim and Offender
He was only four at the time, but Max -- not his real name -- will never forget what happened on a winter's night in 1993.
"That's in my head forever," he says. "No matter how old I get, it's still going to be there."
His parents had gone out for the evening and two teenage boys who lived nearby offered to look after him. As Max played video games in their living room, he was lured to another room and sexually assaulted by one of the babysitters.
"I was scared. I was petrified," says Max. "It's hard to tell other people about it when it's something you want to keep away from everybody. But when stuff like this happens, it has to be told."
W-FIVE can't reveal Max's real identity because he's still a minor. That's the law.
It's designed to protect young victims. But that same law often prevents victims like Max from doing what they often want -- and need -- to do. Speak out and tell their stories of ruined childhoods.
"Even though it's happened to me, I just don't want it to happen to anybody else," says Max. "It's just something that hurts and it's indescribable. When I was younger, I used to beat on my Mom and, now, looking back, I feel so bad because I didn't mean to. But it's something that happened because I was rebelling against what happened to me. I've been in and out of behaviour schools. Nothing's worked. I'm not in school anymore cause they can't handle me."
Max believes his troubles can be traced all the way back to the assault, an assault that imposed a kind of life sentence on him.
Charged with that assault were twin brothers, Stephen and Junior Spencer. Stephen pleaded guilty, but the charges against Junior were dropped. Since then, both brothers have piled up a string of convictions involving children
"Jail's nothing to both of them," says Max. "They've gone in, they've come out, they've gone in, they've come out. And they think it's a joke. It's life. They've ruined people's families, ruined children's lives."
Stephen Spencer recently moved to Ottawa, and Junior is finishing a five-year sentence for producing child pornography.
"He sees nothing wrong with having sex with kids," says Detective Constable Stefan Mueller of the Toronto Police Child Exploitation Section who has been tracking Junior Spencer's career.
Mueller believes this attitude may be typical for some pedophiles.
"I think that's what it's all about for them, that in their own minds they justified the fact that kids are sexual objects and they should be allowed to do whatever they want with the children."
If that's hard to believe, reading what Stephen Boone has to say may be even harder.
Now living in Winnipeg, he's been convicted three times for sexually assaulting children, some as young as eight years old.
Boone insists it's the children who want to have sex with him.
"Children would like to be sexual if they were allowed to," he says. "They're just politically repressed, repressed to the point where it actually kills them, to the point where it's almost fanatical. It's like a religion. You're not allowed to say it could be possible that some children like sex and would have sex if they could."
He doesn't see children as victims. "Because they tend to be open. Children seem to be so amazingly open to that experience. That is what causes the problems for me. People see children who take an interest in me as unnatural and suspicious."
If Boone is convicted a fourth time, he could be declared a Dangerous Offender and put in jail indefinitely.
While that's kept him from re-offending so far, he argues that the morality of sex with children depends on how you define sex.
"I have never tried to make a baby with a child," he says. "If you define sex as purely procreative, I haven't tried to sex a child. If you're asking me if I've been sensual with a child, or with children, or with adults in various contexts with the collective sort of approval, or with the understanding of the children's intent, I have been sensual. I will go as far as that."
Trying to navigate the mind of a pedophile is what Dr Julian Gojer does for a living.
He teaches psychiatry at the University of Toronto and is one of Canada's leading experts in deviant sexual behaviour. He believes there is no scientific explanation as to why a person is a pedophile. They are just born that way.
"It's like saying you or I are born gay or heterosexual," he says. "We can't change that."
Dr. Gojer also believes pedophilia can't be cured.
"If you're going to look at it from a treatment perspective, it's like diabetes. Can we cure diabetes? No. You can manage it, and I'd say pedophilia is a condition that can be managed but not cured."
Stephen Boone is being managed by means of a court order restricting his movements. He's refused psychiatric help, refused hormone therapy that would control his urges.
And he admits that steering clear of children -- as he's been ordered to do -- won't be easy.
"You try limiting yourself, your personal life to not having children around you," he says. "Just try it. Just try going for a walk, going to the grocery store. Do anything at all and see how many children you come across. It's impossible."
This creates a dilemma for the men and women whose job it is to protect our children from the likes of Stephen Boone.
"What are we supposed to do with these people?" asks Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police Child Exploitation Section. "Some would say let's lock them up. Some would say it's not fair, and I certainly agree, you can't lock them up forever. But I just wish we would build a better support system and a better way of enforcing compliance. These are our children that we're playing with. We shouldn't be using them as bait to see whether or not these guys are going to be able to control themselves or control their sexual urges."
Pedophiles and the Justice System
One of the tasks at the Toronto Police Child Exploitation Section is checking up on people convicted, or charged, with offences against children to make sure they stick to their conditions of release.
It should be routine, but it often turns out to be an exercise in frustration. In many cases, conditions of release or bail are changed by the courts, but the police aren't told.
"This is ridiculous," says Detective Constable Stefan Mueller. We have to have a say in the bail variations. There's got to be a hearing."
You're not supposed to be out walking around and going around and do whatever you want, but that's what it's come down to," Says Detective Ian Lamond.
"They know that we don't have the resources to go check them every day," says Detective Constable Paul Krawczyk. "So they know the chances of getting caught are slim to none."
Just keeping track of pedophiles is hard enough. Getting them locked up in the first place is even tougher.
"I can simply say I'm way past frustrated," says Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie. "The fact that child abuse itself is not dealt with properly. These are children that are destroyed. Their souls are destroyed. They'll never live up to their full potential. Their lives are wrecked. And that someone might do this out of pleasure and go to jail for one or two years or one or two months, I don't understand it."
No one knows that better than Max. Assaulted when he was a child, he makes a point of turning up every time his former babysitters, Stephen and Junior Spencer, are in court on another charge.
"The victims need to be heard," he says. "It's hard to get closure on something when you have no say in anything because of age. They need to have something where the courts, or a lawyer, or something will talk to the victim and figure out what's gone on and use that against them."
Even more heartbreaking for the victims and frustrating for the police are the light sentences being handed out by the courts.
Believe it or not, 42 per cent of people convicted of some sort of sexual offence against a child never see the inside of a jail cell. And when it comes to child pornography, 70 per cent of those convicted get off with a conditional sentence, probation or a fine.
"It's very apparent to me there are some judges and justices in Toronto that are just way too sympathetic," says Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie. "And maybe they just don't understand the problem. And they're not that often that willing to look at the images that we have to present in court. They often don't want to see them or they don't want to see all of them. I don't get it. These are crime scene photos of torture of children. And would that child be something else, perhaps an animal, I suggest people would be all over it.
But for some reason, if it's an unknown child, it's not our problem. And it's a big dilemma."
Among judges, Ray Wyant, the Chief Judge of Manitoba's Provincial Court, is seen as something of a renegade.
Once a month, he goes on the radio to take calls from listeners. He thinks it's important for judges to stay in touch.
And what he's hearing about jail sentences disturbs him enough to take the unusual step of speaking out publicly through W-FIVE.
"I think the perception is in the public that sentences may be too lenient in certain cases," he says. "And I'm concerned that public confidence in the system may be eroded from that particular view."
That concern also troubled politicians in the House of Commons in Ottawa, who recently brought in a mandatory minimum jail term for possession of child pornography of 14 days.
"It's better than what we had," says Detective Sergeant Gillespie. "It's a start. My own personal opinion, the fact that we even had to go down that road of introducing mandatory minimums says something about our whole system. Why did it have to get this far? Why are judges, why is that discretion taken out of their hands? Because they obviously were not dealing with this the way that society thought it should be dealt with."
The light sentences may have something to do with how the crime has been sanitized.
Take child pornography for example. In most cases, plea bargains are worked out in the backrooms between lawyers, meaning the victims aren't heard from and the evidence isn't seen.
Even when cases do come to trial, judges often choose not to look at the evidence. It's simply too disturbing.
In Manitoba, a crusading Crown Attorney, Mick Makar, is working to change that.
He says it's not enough for prosecutors to simply describe what's in the pictures and videos.
He's tried and he remembers one particularly disturbing example.
"The adult male was a very large male," he recalls. "The little girl was laying on a bed and she was very thin. And when he began to force intercourse on her, obviously causing her to be in pain, she pulled a little sucker out and put it in her mouth to comfort herself when it occurred. So how can I describe that orally in front of a court? I can't."
Working with police, Makar helped develop what's called the Integrated Child Exploitation Project (ICE for short).
As part of that project, judges and lawyers are provided with video monitors and are now required to see and hear the evidence for themselves."
Manitoba judge, Ray Wyant, believes this allows judges to full understand the nature of the evidence, but has it affected the length of sentences?
"I don't know whether it has or not," he says. "I certainly can't comment on whether or not other judges feel they've been affected in a particular way by seeing the images. I can simply say it's evidence that's there. It's real evidence. It's the best evidence. Why not see it?"
The problem is that this type of program doesn't exist in most other provinces. So judges don't have to look and often choose not to.
But those on the front line, like the members of the Toronto Police Child Exploitation Section, have no choice.
Paul Gillespie has been at it since the unit was formed five years ago.
Five years that feel like a lifetime.
"I'm not quite sure how much longer I'm going to be able to do this," he says. "I don't do as much viewing as I used to. I have a wonderful team and they do a terrific job. The fact that we on a daily basis now pull dozens and dozens of new full-length movies of babies having their diapers removed and being raped. How many times can your heart break before you just can't do it anymore?"

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Murder charge laid in case of missing child

Last Updated Mar 14 2006 06:51 PM
CSTCBC News

Child welfare agencies in Manitoba are under scrutiny for losing track of a five-year-old girl believed to have been killed last summer.
Phoenix Victoria Sinclair had been missing for nine months, but it seems no one noticed or reported the case to authorities.
The alleged crime came to light last week when police received new information about the girl, who had been living on the Fisher River First Nation reserve, 150 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
Although the girl's body has not been located, RCMP Sgt. Steve Colwell said police were able to lay the charges through "an investigation that has been conducted in the past week."
Samantha Dawn Kematch, 24, has been charged with assault with a weapon, aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life. Her 43-year-old common-law husband, Karl Wesley McKay, is charged with second-degree murder. Both are awaiting bail hearings.
'She was a loving baby'
Phoenix was in and out of foster care during her short life, spending some time in the care of Kimberly Edwards, a friend of Samantha Kematch.
"She was a loving baby. She loved everybody," said Edwards. "Everybody loved her."
Near the end of 2003, the cases of many aboriginal children were transferred from Child and Family Services to three native-run agencies. Edwards says she was told Phoenix was one of those cases – however, it appears that never happened.
Eventually, Phoenix lived in the home of Edwards' ex-husband. Edwards says Kematch came to her ex-husband's house and took the little girl away one day in April 2005, saying she would return in a few hours. Edwards says that's the last time anyone saw the girl.
Court documents indicate police believe Phoenix was abused, confined and eventually murdered in June 2005.
"They failed her and they fail children every single day. How many babies have to die before politics are changed?" said Chief David Crate of the Fisher River First Nation.
"The question has to be posed to the provincial agency, the Winnipeg Child and Family [services agency], why the file was closed."
Three investigations launched into the case
Provincial officials can't say exactly what actually happened in the case, but say Phoenix was not lost in the transfer to the new native child agencies.
"The actual transfer of cases in devolution occurred between May and June of 2004, so this case was actually not one that had been transferred," said Family Services Minister Christine Melnick.
Melnick says three investigations have been launched into the case – by the chief medical examiner, the RCMP and Child and Family Services – in order to uncover the facts.
She would not speculate on when the investigations would be complete.
"I know that everyone is anxious for the answers – I'm anxious for the answers, too – but I also have to respect the processes that have been in place for many, many years in this province," Melnick said.
Conservative family services critic Mavis Taillieu says it ultimately doesn't matter which agency was responsible or who's to blame, saying the province failed a child in its care.
"This little girl, unfortunately, didn't just fall through the cracks. She fell into the abyss," Taillieu said.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Please keep e-mailing CH TV with comments regarding the discussion between Mr. Marin and Andrea Horwath! They are being flooded, but there can never be too many!

530@chtv

Thanks!
Amanda

Friday, March 10, 2006

The 'Wards of the Crown' airs again on CBC tonight at 10pm. Here is the link to the show http://www.cbc.ca/thelens/program_070306.html

The following is the e-mail I received from Andree Cazabon, the filmmaker of this documentary.
I urge everyone to take the time to please e-mail the show after the program tonight.

Thanks!
Amanda

__________________________________________________
Hi,

Thanks for your comment and please help pass the word along... your passion is so appreciated! If we can get over 67 email comments to CBC this would help tremendously in setting this issue as a national priority. Please pass along this notice to all those who want to see changes in the child welfare system and do keep me posted!

Andrée Cazabon
Filmmaker