Flagrant violations to the Charter rights. |
| Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - 06:04:03 PM Chad Wells, Justice Advocate |
| Flagrant violations to the Charter rights of children by Children’s Aid Society (CAS) workers unlawfully entering schools in Ontario! Schools allowing children’s rights to be trampled upon by unregulated CAS workers secretly interrogating children at schools without knowledge of parents. While Canadian leaders boast to the world that Canada is the land of the proud and free and that Canada has the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protecting its citizens, an investigation by Canada Court Watch into the involvement of Children’s Aid Society workers in many schools in Ontario has revealed quite the opposite to be true. Instead of children’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms being protected, it has been uncovered that many young children are being threatened and intimidated during secret interrogations by Children’s Aid Society workers who brazenly and unlawfully come into their schools. Shockingly, most school boards, ignorant of some of the most fundamental laws, have been allowing CAS workers to violate the rights of children inside their schools without questioning CAS’s authority to do so. Some of the children claim that they felt terrified and violated. Some children reported CAS workers going right into their classroom and pulling them out of class in front of their teachers and peers. Some children report being afraid to go back to their school because of CAS and because of the sense that school officials are working alongside of CAS. What is very troubling is that most of these unlawful and forced interrogations of children are being done in secret at schools without the consent and knowledge of parents or guardians. A review of a number of school board polices actually reveal that the boards have formally adopted policies which instruct principals and teachers to allow unregistered and unregulated CAS workers to come into school without any questions being asked as to the qualifications of the CAS workers or about their authority to enter schools (CAS workers have none). Recently the Trillium Lakelands District School Board had policies on its website which violated the rights of Children but when confronted with this by parents in the region, the Board refused to meet or communicate with the parents who were trying to get the Board to correct its unlawful policies. Another school board, the Halton Board of Education was informed back in the spring of 2010 that its policies broke the law the Board did not effectively respond to the concerns raised. The policy of the Halton School Board actually contains a clause in their policy titled, “Holding children after school” in which school officials are instructed to hold children at school against their will and to keep the detention of children a secret from parents if directed to do so by unregistered and unregulated CAS workers. Under the law, CAS workers are considered as private citizens and have no more authority to tell school officials to hold a student than does any ordinary person off the street. While school boards ensure that their teachers are properly registered with the teacher’s college, for some strange reason many school boards feel compelled to take orders from CAS workers, who in most cases are not even properly registered or regulated as social workers and working unlawfully. Retired veteran Provincial Police Officer and current elected school board trustee with the Rainbow District School Board, Mr. Larry Killens, told Court Watch during an interview that he agrees that it is completely unlawful for CAS workers to be coming into schools to secretly question children. “It is unacceptable that unregistered CAS workers come into schools and violate the rights of children and their parents by conducting investigations without the informed consent of parents when it is required,” said Killens. As an elected school trustee, Mr. Killens has attempted to address several issues with CAS in the jurisdiction of his own school board but in spite of waiting for a year CAS has been very elusive in providing answers. Mr. Killens is advocating to get CAS out of the schools and has been making good headway in his efforts to put an end to the lawlessness by CAS in schools in his school board district. Most CAS workers going into schools are not registered and are breaking the law! In a research document recently published and made available for downloading on the website of Canada Court Watch, it was revealed for the first time to the public that significant violations to the law in Ontario by CAS workers has been occurring on a massive scale going back as far as the year 2000. The document titled, “The unlawful practice of social work in Ontario by unregistered CAS workers providing services to the public under false pretence” was authored by Mr. Vernon Beck, a child and family justice advocate from Oakville, Ontario. The information contained in Mr. Beck’s research document, provides very clear evidence showing that the vast majority of front line Children’s Aid Society workers in the province of Ontario have been violating the law since the year 2000 by not being registered with the Ontario College of Social Workers as is required under Ontario law. Mr. Beck sent a copy of his document to the Minister of Children and Youth Services but to date the Minister has not challenged Mr. Beck’s claims that many of the province’s CAS workers are breaking the law in violation to the Social Work and Social Services Work Act (1998),Beck’s document also touches on how CAS workers have been going into schools and other public institutions and breaking the law right under the noses of school officials and public institutions as well. The problem of CAS workers breaking the law has become very widespread with many children having been secretly interrogated in their schools by unregistered CAS workers acting unlawfully. What is also very troubling says Beck, “is that a number of school boards have policies which violate the Charter Rights of children and parents and in some cases violate the Criminal Code of Canada.” Mr. Frank Klees, MPP for Newmarket Aurora raised the issue of CAS workers breaking the law in the Ontario Legislature on May 5, 2011. Currently, Canada Court Watch is working alongside other parent groups in Ontario to bring awareness to the pubic of this problem and to present petitions to MPP’s to make schools respect the Charter Rights of children at their schools. True freedom cannot be said to exist in Canada when unregistered workers with CAS agencies are openly trampling on the Charter rights of children and parents and flouting the very laws which were meant to provide the most basic protection for all Canadians. The current status quo is just not acceptable. An immediate stop must be put to the massive law-breaking by CAS workers in the province of Ontario intruding into schools before more children are harmed. Chad Wells is a freelance journalist who writes about the justice and child protection systems. |
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