A Children's Rights Rally

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Press conference at 11:30 am –12: 30 pm
Rally at 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Provincial Parliament Building of Ontario

7 Queens Park Cres. E
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y7, CA

Sponsors

Canada Court Watch

National Association For Public and Private Accountability

Family Aid Society

Dufferin VOCA

Citizens for Social Morality

Mothers-in-Exile

Delhi-Brant Parents Assistance Group

The Child Predator Intolerance Division of Canada

The Foster Care Council of Canada

The Committee ( People 4 People)

The Children's Voice

Organizer: Advisory Committee for Child and Youth Services

A "union" of families and advocacy groups joining together in one voice to bring reform to Child and Youth Services and preserve the family structure

This political advocacy group is trying to bring public awareness to the legal issues affecting families in the Child and Family Services Act.
   As parents, we want input into social, health, and educational polices which affect our children. Government cannot implement programs without consulting parents. With this template, we want parents to influence public policy across Canada.
   We welcome your organization’s participation in this rally under the banner of “Advisory Committee for Child and Youth Services.
   Through this joint effort, we hope to improve the lives of the parents and children in Ontario.
Background and Circumstances

...Right now they’re funded because of the former government’s funding formula. They’re funded only on how many kids they can take away

CFMU FM (Hamilton), March 16, 2004

The Child and Family Services Act is due for its 5-year review. As representatives of the various parent groups through the Province, we are calling for public input into its revision. We demand that a level legal playing field be created wherein the rights of the child and the parent are protected.

The rights of child and parent must remain intimately intertwined and balanced under the law. Justice must be served. The “best interests of the child” demands that genuine effort be made to preserve family structure. Government must help parents to provide the social, educational and medical services required to help Ontario families be successful.

Canada must recognize that parents are the best providers of care for their own children limiting intervention only to families unable to care for themselves.

This present Act targets families in poverty, single parents, immigrants, children and parents with disabilities and religious and racial minorities. Its vagueness allows almost anything to be defined as “neglect.” The lack of family supports justifies the indiscriminate “apprehension” of children.

The Ontario funding formula provides a monetary incentive for opening files, keeping them open and labelling them as high risk. It rewards the identification of children as having “special needs”.

This Act has created a “child welfare industry” wherein careers and jobs revolve around the destruction of “innocent” families.

Canada in 1990 signed the U.N. Convention of the Child. It agreed to act in the “best Interests of the child.”

Since that time, Canada has seen fit to only selectively implement the Convention. It is time that Canada fulfills its commitment to the Convention. Canada must provide every child with quality daycare, food clothing, education and medical care regardless of parental status.

Total net expenditures for CAS during 2003 - 2004 are $1.085 billion. CAS funding has as a result increased by 100% since 1998-19

This Act has created an environment where every professional person and citizen must report any problem involving children.

Professionals are told to report and not to think. Children are taught to call 911 on their parents. The Act undermines the ability of parents to “parent” their child. It makes people afraid to seek professional help.

Mothers are afraid to take their children to the emergency room of their local hospital. Social workers are forced into police roles that they are not trained for. As a result, the average career of a child protection worker is less than 2 years. Social workers once again need to make "social work" a helping profession. Join us as we endeavour to mobilize parents to become a powerful advocacy group for their children.

Print out a brochure with the preceding information and additional details, including a map of how to get to the rally. Print a few copies, one for each of your relatives and friends and ask them to be there on Wednesday.

A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.

Milton and Rose Friedman
in Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
(Milton Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics)

Back to index on issues relating to Children's Aids Societies and Child Protective Services

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Posted 2005 02 14