Percentage breakdown of primary substantiated harm types in Australia in 2011-12 Source: AIHW (2013, p.59)

Former CPS investigator Carlos Morales, author of "Legally Kidnapped The Case Against Child Protective Services" exposes the nature of the child protection industry in the U.S. Most English speaking nations that practice state-sponsored child removal face the same problem.

The Child Protection Industry

Introduction

The child protection industry (hereinafter known as the industry unless otherwise specify) is a state-run regime supported by a variety of service providers from inside and outside government offering "child protective services" (CPS) to children and families. It exists in countries where governments have the general statutory power to remove children from their parents if bureaucrats form an opinion that children are in need of protection. The industry is prominent in most English speaking nations (such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K.) that ardently speak of freedom, democracy and civil liberty, especially those with a colonial background. There is no general consensus of year in which the industry became operational. We believe that the industry has been in business since the 1940's. In Canada, provincial and territorial governments have their own child protection law enforced by social workers employed by either a ministry or designated non-profit societies. Names of child protection agencies vary in each province. Most names imply child welfare or social services. All of them are funded by tax dollars.

On the surface, state-run child protection services involving professional disciplines such as law, social work and psychotherapy are instituted to encourage family stability and to protect underage children from abuse of their parents or guardians. Child abuse is the physical, sexual or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children. The pie chart on the right is a breakdown of typical child abuse in an English speaking nation. In many child protection regimes, the most common reason of child removal is parental substance abuse and domestic dispute.

Service providers in the industry

The industry provides business and employment opportunities for a wide variety of service providers from different backgrounds inside and outside government. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, they include:

1. Child protection workers (aka social workers) whose job security depends on the number of state-sponsored child removal. They are legally authorized to remove children from their parents if they form an opinion that children are unsafe at homes. Most of them are unionized government employees and are all paid by taxpayers. Despite their job title suggests benevolent work, their main duty is to enforce a special type of law called child protection law. They investigate reports of child abuse, have the power to remove children based on their opinion (in most jurisdictions no court order is required), re-remove them with or without fresh evidence and act as business broker to distribute child protection tax money to other service providers. They do not earn extra bonus by removing more children, a fact often used to fend off allegation that child removal is driven by money. Critics often overlook the fact that child protection workers are very well paid in view of their skills and education. Their main focus is job security. Moreover, their unique work experience of removing children from their parents has very limited value elsewhere in the labour market, rendering child protection workers almost unemployable outside the industry without intensive job skill retraining.
2. Lawyers representing child protection agencies and parents. Child protection law is a very specialized field. Lawyers practice child protection law earn a large proportion of their income from child protection litigations. Many parents scrutinized by child protection workers are from the grass root class and cannot afford retaining lawyers to represent them in court. Taxpayers funded legal aid is available to low-income parents if child protection agency has threatened to remove or has apprehended their children. Services covered include litigations on guardianship or custody and contact or access issues related to children in the care.
3. Foster parents who could earn a very comfortable living by warehousing removed children in their homes.
4. Supervised visitation workers (those who hired by child protection agencies to oversee parents when seeing their removed children. Approved friends and relatives of parents to act as unpaid supervisors in visitations do not fall in this category.
5. Psychotherapists paid by child protection agencies (or by parents in some rare occasions) to do counseling and assessment.
6. Secret agents hired by child protection agencies to mount surveillance on parents.
7. Court staff and family court judges (the apex service provider in the industry) engaged in child protection litigations.

The aforesaid service providers have one thing in common. They are all paid by tax dollars when rendering their services in child protection related activities. Some derive their income exclusively from state-sponsored child removal. Job security and livelihood of most of these service providers rely on tax dollar funding on child protection activities. Beyond doubt, they are the true beneficiaries of state-sponsored child protection.

Commonalities and differences among child protection regimes

Aside from some minor differences, the child protection industry operates in similar legal, cultural and demographic settings among Canadian provinces and territories. The following are some commonalities:

1. Mandatory registration of social workers employed by child protection agencies with any professional governing bodies is not required in most regimes. Enactment of legislative authority exempting social workers from mandatory registration before they can practice "social work" is often shrewdly written outside child protection statute to avoid attracting unwanted attention. In B.C., exemption was written in Section 4 of the Social Workers Regulation, not in the Child, Family and Community Service Act (CFCSA). There are many different types of social workers. We do not want to confuse our readers that other types of unrelated social workers are involved in the industry. We will use the term child protection worker(s) instead of social worker(s) hereinafter.
2. Law obliges everyone to report suspect child abuse. Failure to do so is an offence in law and will result in penalty. Reports of suspected child abuse can be made anomalously (ie. informants do not have to disclose their names). If informants choose to identify themselves, they are not legally responsible for information provided in good faith. Their name remains confidential except where required by the court and are protected from harassment for giving the information. This renders child protection a witch hunt frequently abused by estranged spouses, hostile in-laws and malicious parties.
3. Generally, law authorizes child protection workers the following absolute power (the child protection statute, CFCSA in British Columbia is used as an example below):
   1. removal of children if they form an opinion that children are unsafe under the custody of their parents or guardians, no good evidence or court order (in most jurisdictions) is required by law before this bureaucratic power could be exercised (Section 30 of CFCSA);
   2. right to any information necessary to perform child protection duties, including but not limited to information in public body (such as medical history, criminal records, welfare applications); this right is exempted from confidentiality protection guaranteed in other enactment such as the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in B.C. (Section 96 of CFCSA);
   3. authority to disclose information obtained without consent of any person (Section 79 of CFCSA);
   4. legal power to oblige the police to act as instructed, often in child removal, escort service to enter homes while conducting fishing expedition, forcibly separate children and parents after supervised visits and prevent parents from discovering locations of foster homes.
4. Means and methods, such as tactics and covert surveillance used on parents, psychological assessments, in most child protection regimes are similar.
5. In most child protection regimes, there are provisions outside the child protection statute banning publication of identifiable personal information on child protection matters before a court of law. Publication ban applies to parents and other family members as well as the media and the public. The ban is often alleged by child protection officials to protect the privacy of children. This is often used as a convenient excuse for politicians and officials not to answer questions from the media.
6. There is no provision in law that punish child protection workers if they abuse child removal power. There is no legal mechanism that could expedite return of children if removal is unjustified.
7. Child protection workers are indemnified by government, or more precisely taxpayers, if they are sued by parents (whom they call "clients") for tort of public malfeasance and bad faith.
8. In every jurisdiction, foster children and children receiving "services" die while in care.
9. There is an exceptional over representation of Aboriginal children in most foster care. Statistics suggest that Aboriginal families attract the attention of child protective services ten times higher than non-Aboriginal families. There are compelling reasons to believe that modern child protection is a derivative of the now renounced residential schools where cultural assimilation is the political objective for the purpose of destroying a sovereign nation.
10. Most child protection regimes also have the mandate of adoption of foster, non-foster and foreign children, a lucrative sister industry of child protection.
11. Percentage of children in care is relatively very low (range from Prince Edward Island's 0.0052% to Manitoba's 0.0244% in 2011 according to "Foster care in Canada") in every jurisdiction. This effectively prevents the majority of the populace from learning the corruption in the industry and hence protecting the industry from dismantlement.
12. The modus operandi of handling media inquiry and crisis management after scandals or atrocities hit a child protection regime is more or less the same. Often, privacy is cited as excuse to refuse comment on individual cases. Politicians often allege that child removal decisions are not made lightly and will only return children to their parents if it is safe to do so. When children die in care, expensive inquiry conducted by retired judges is often called to placate public outcry. Oppressed parents never have input in these proceedings.
13. Most front line child protection workers are members of government employee union and are therefore protected by their unions. As evident in the inquiry of the murder of the 5-year old Phoenix Sinclair by her parents on 11 June 2005, the Manitoba Government Employees� Union files a motion to suspend the inquiry on 6 February 2012, which was denied by the Court of Appeal on 16 February 2012. Unions often place interests of their members ahead of public interest. This adds difficulty to restore accountability.
14. Child protection workers are not a disciplinary force. They have little law enforcement training but are given absolute power to enforce child protection law. Some academicians call them bureaucratic police. Given the nature of their business, unarmed child protection workers need muscle to escort and protect them when they exercise their child removal authority and other oppressive duties. Most child protection statutes oblige the police to provide whatever assistance child protection workers demand. Police officers have no discretion and must obey instructions from these god-like creatures. This effectively reduces the police to their running dog. In B.C., the word "police" occurs 30 times in the Child, Family and Community Service Act (CFCSA). Trigger itchy police officers will not hesitate to use force when carrying child removal duty under the direction of child protection workers. Misha Peterson, a 16-year old teenage B.C. mother, was tasered twice by 3 or 4 cops as she clutched her one-month-old son, Taige when child protection worker removed him from her on 22 September 2008.
15. Most child protection agencies receive federal subsidies from Aboriginal child removals and adoption of foster children.
16. Service providers in the industry are cohesive and well organized. They share a common financial interest and similar mind set. Many are self-serving, self-boasting and self-righteous. Those who appear in front of the camera are good propagandists. Using twisted logic, unjustified allegations and unqualified remarks, they disseminate messages calculated to protect the industry and to mislead the public to believe in the merit of their activities.
17. Most child protection regimes monitor the media and cyber space hunting for derogatory information and use the police and/or lawsuit (or threat of lawsuit) to have such information removed. For example, shutting down CYFS Watch blog on 22 February 2007 in New Zealand and Alleged Insanity of Ms. A of Salmon Arm, British Columbia (on 8 November 2011). Be mindful that this self-serving activity has nothing to do with child protection.
18. Many child protection regimes exhibit a high turnover in minister (or director in some jurisdictions). Political shuffling is often necessary to fend off criticisms of failing to protect children. Bureaucrats and other service providers know that they will remain much longer than their political masters and are therefore in a position to manipulate incumbents, bombard them with information that enhances job security and mislead them to make policy favourable to the financial interests service providers. Different opinions are suppressed heavy handed. Whistle blowers are threatened with lawsuit and/or retaliation. Under the pretext of protecting privacy, even oppressed parents with children died or abused in foster care are prohibited to go public by law in many jurisdictions. Service providers may conduct their business in secrecy and evade accountability. This renders ameliorative reform impossible.
19. It becomes more and more common that child protection regimes are now associated with a separate outfit often called "Representative of Children and Youth (RCY)". On the surface, RCY acts as an independent watchdog to create an illusion of transparency and accountability. This pseudo watchdog appears to be critical and pro children. It has no power to overrule decisions made by the child protection agency and only have the mandate to write reports. RCY is a political necessity. When industry-created atrocities occur, it serves as a shrewd political shield to placate public criticisms and outcry that government has done every it could to ensure accountability. The crisis of "Unreported Deaths of Albertan Foster Children" in November 2013 clearly illustrated how politicians will use RCY in due course.

There are differences among various Canadian child protection regimes. The following are some notable distinctions: Error processing SSI file

1. Age of protection ranges from 16 to 19 in Canada.
2. There are various level of publication ban on the name and photo of foster children died in government care.
3. Some provinces have more than one statute that authorizes child removal.

4. Victims of child abuse registry: Gary and Melissa Gates, Texas

   Some child removal regimes have child abuse registry to keep record of perceived child abusers. In Canada, Manitoba and Nova Scotia have established a provincial Child Abuse Registry. In addition to guilty plea and court disposition of child protection matters, the opinion of the child and family service agency's Child Abuse Committee that a person has abused a child is sufficient to list a person as a child abuser on the Registry. Employers and other party with the person's written consent may apply for access to determine if a person is listed on the Registry. Other than an expensive, time consuming and complicated judicial review application in the Supreme courts, we are unsure whether there is other layman-friendly venue a person could use to rectify wrong bureaucratic opinion from the Child Abuse Committee.

   Unlike criminal records in the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) where addition, removal and usage of CPIC data are governed by law [for example the Criminal Records Act (R.S., 1985, c. C-47)], record entries in Manitoba's child abuse registry are at the discretion of members in the Child Abuse Committee. Opinions from the Committee could be subjective, arbitrary, biased and could be made without a fair hearing. Since legal rights in the Canadian Charter only applies to criminal trials, parent's right to be tried fairly within a reasonable time and the presumption of innocence is being circumvented by the legal design that all child protection matters are civil in nature. Having a record in the child abuse registry is derogatory and may have a serious adverse effect on a person's ability to seek employment, emigration, adoption or a political career.

   The Gary and Melissa Gates case in Texas aired by CBS 42 Investigates News on 10 July 2008 sheds light on how child abuse registry could be unjustly used against parents perceived as uncooperative and how bureaucrats could use it as a means to publish parents. Child abuse record could open another oppressive arena that may take wrongfully accused parents years and huge legal expenses to have their names removed from the registry.

Means and Methods

Since inception of the industry, service providers have invented means and methods that appear seemingly reasonable, fair and imperative to child protection. Many means and methods are condoned by law or prescribed by court orders. In reality, these modus operandi are subjective and often carry oppressive hidden objectives. Many are futile or counter productive in archiving their alleged goals but extremely effective in archiving their hidden objectives. Our "tactics" page contains some of the specifics of the following means and methods:

CPS Complaint Process

Most CPS regimes have a complaint process that child protection workers will not hesitate to tell parents to use. They know this process will get parents absolutely nowhere because no one have the power or the will to reverse their decisions. For example, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) in B.C. has a web page titled "Making a Complaint" and another page called "Complaints Process For Youth"

A typical CPS complaint process provides complainants two options: resolution with in-house CPS staff and an external review through the Office of the Ombudsman. Unless parents have tangible evidence that will embarrass the CPS agency if they go public, in-house CPS staff often rally behind front-line workers and support their decisions. If parents are not satisfied with the outcome, they could go to the next level and request an external review from the Office of the Ombudsman who has no statutory power to make binding decisions on CPS agencies.

Be mindful that this complaint process is time-consuming. Parents must make effort to take time off work and organize documents to support their complaints. At the end, this futile process often gets them nowhere after months of waiting and intensive work. In essence, this process is designed to decorate fairness and openness but serve to wear and tear parents.

That said, if parents feel that they are not treated fairly, they should still jump the hoops and file their complaints. The Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) guarantees that there will not be any negative consequences to anyone, including children, youth and families, as a result of making a complaint. Assuming that this is true, there is no downside risk. But do not expect that such effort will result in prompt return of their children. High complaint statistics will reflect negatively on the CPS regime by their political masters. If parents do not complain because they known that it is a waste of time, CPS will be laughing as such attitude will guarantee low complaint statistics that service providers could use to boast success of the industry.

It is also noteworthy to remark that:

1. The aforesaid guarantee of no negative consequences does not include going public. The industry hates unwanted publicity. Retaliation and threat of lawsuit are common when the media airs abuse of power and industry-created atrocities. News footage in the next section confirm the foregoing.
2. Representative for Children and Youth (RCY) (a separate bureaucracy independent of CPS agency) has no mandate to assist parents or the power to overrule decisions made by child protection workers. The scandal of "Unreported Deaths of Albertan Foster Children" in November 2013 confirms that the real function of the RCY is to provide a political shield to fend off criticisms and to placate public outcry when crisis and scandal arise.

Absurdities of CPS: a state monopoly

State sponsored child removal (or child protection as government would like its citizens to believe) is a government monopoly, which functions under the rules of command economy. It is under the strong influence, if not the direct control, of a cartel of bureaucrats and service providers whose job security, livelihood and main source of income derived from child removal. In Canada, child protection agency could be a provincial ministry (or department in some provinces) or a designated "non-profitThe term non-profit society could be misleading. The society itself may not be pursuing profit. But their directors and employees may. Directors and managers of many non-profit societies draw a high salary and receive good remuneration." society (such as the children's aid society in Ontario). They have different names suggesting child and family welfare business nature. Despite the aforesaid minor differences, all child protection agencies are funded by tax dollars. Child protection workers achieve monopoly not by competitive edge, advance technology or lack of viable substitute, but by law. Legislation empowers them as the sole agent to legally remove children from their parents. Competition is prohibited. If any party other than delegated agents remove children, kidnapping is committed. Be mindful that once a child is removed, child protection agency becomes the sole guardian. Biological parents will be charged of kidnapping if they repossess their removed children. Apprehension of the Toronto couple Hung-Kwan Yuen and Anna Zhang in Richmond, B.C. on 25 October 2009 is just one of the many examples. Even unauthorized contact with removed children will have serious consequences (such as termination of supervised visitation, escalation of custody application). This does not mean that removed children are always safe in government's care.

Tragic deaths of young children caused by their parents or foster parents always draw intense public attention. The murder of 19-month-old Sherry Charlie in 2002 and the murder of the three young Schoenborn children (Kaitlynne, 10, Max, 8, and Cordon, 5) in Merritt, B.C. on April 6, 2008 are examples of the foregoing. Ironically, the child protection industry hits a jackpot when young children were killed by their parents or in foster homes. Government often responds by hiring a retired judge (the Hon. Ted Hughes O.C., Q.C. appears to be a popular choice) to conduct an inquiry and puts more money in child protection. The Phoenix Sinclair inquiry�s budget hiked from $4.7 million to $6.1 million in February 2013 and finally cost $14 million. Taxpayers are always an indirect victim. Although the child protection industry fails to fulfill its duty of protecting children, no service provider is held accountable. The identity of child protection workers in charge of the case is seldom made public. The industry suffers little damage when atrocities occur and emerges as a winner by getting more funding and power.

The child protection industry operates in the following unique ways that you will not find in any market economy:

1. Because of the absolute power to remove children granted by child protection statute, service providers may define child abuse and control the demand of their services. Child protection workers will exercise their child removal authority to ensure job security and to use up their budget. Empirical data supporting the foregoing can be found in "Our Comment on When Talk Trumped Service" and will not be repeated here.
2. State-sponsored child protection is a monopolized business. Service providers define the quality standard of their services. Objective performance measures such as the number of children died in care, school graduation rate of foster children, percentage of crime involvement and welfare-recipient rate of foster care graduates seldom have an impact in refuting the self-proclaimed success in the child protection industry. Self-praising is the norm. For example, Alberta's foster parent association representative Katherine Jones alleged that their foster care system is the best in Canada in a damage control press conference in November 2013 after the media uncovered substantial number of unreported death in foster care, some died only after a few days in care.
3. Critical opinions and dissatisfaction of clients (parents commonly called by CPS service providers) are often ignored or suppressed with no consequence to service providers in the industry. Complaints often yield little results. Complainants with children under the provincial protection age limit run the risk of attracting retaliation. Fear, secrecy, ignorance and blind faith in government are their keys to success. The following are some cases of CPS retaliation after parents went public to air the corruption:
   1. the Bayne's case (2007 to 2011 British Columbia)
   2. Jessica Laboy case (2006 Florida)
   3. cases identified by WLKY 32 Investigates in Kentucky
   Many oppressed parents remain silent due to fear of retaliation and feeling of hopelessness.
4. Child protection budget often increases after service providers fail their duty to protect. Insufficient training, case work overload, lack of resources are often cited as reasons of failure in subsequent inquiry. Recommendations always require more funding. Incidentally, the child protection industry benefits financially when it fails to do its job. The common sense management principle of rewarding success and reprimanding failure does not apply in this unique state and special interests joint monopoly.

In view of the above absurdities, restoring accountability is impossible. Government is inevitably open to corruption and racketeering.

Factors contributing to success of the industry

Despite failures to protect children and outcry from oppressed families, the industry prevails and continues to get gradual increase in budget every year. Some foster children are sexually abused, murdered and almost all are traumatized by forceful removal from their parents. No service provider is held accountable for industry-created atrocities. This remarkable success is not archived by fulfilling the noble mandate of protecting children but because of the following factors:

5. Service providers occupy the moral high ground of child protection. When challenged, they often pull out their big gun: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Self serving service providers will proudly allege that Canada is a signatory of this convention and is therefore bound by international law to remain status quo. Since we raised this issue, we are aware that the web sites of some child protection regimes have included this notion to further justify the value of their existence.
6. Means and methods used by the industry on parents are so oppressive and inhumane that most people will find unbelievable in a democratic country that ardently speaks of freedom, human rights and liberty.
7. Judges are apex service providers in the industry. Contrary to public belief, the judiciary fails to fairly adjudicate child protection matters. Most decisions handed down in courts are in favour of child protection agency. Using legal babble such as "erring on the side of caution", some rulings are so lopsided that arbitrary child removals are condoned. Our views are further elaborated in "Flaws of CFCSA" and will not be repeated here.
8. Service providers have strong influence on their political masters. Critical views are filtered by bureaucrats and seldom reach politicians. High turnover rate of children minister ensures that policy is dictated by bureaucrats.

Structural Corruption

The only solution to build a safer future for our children

So far, we make no positive comment on the industry. Are we cynical? Mudslinging critics as biased and using success testified by grateful foster children are tactics frequently used by the industry to confuse the public. Given their financial resources, the industry is fully capable to create showcase success for propaganda purpose. The only party qualified to give reliable comments on the industry is parents who have received "services". not politicians, service providers, bureaucrats, retired judges or academicians.

There are thousands of child protection workers in every regime. Are they all that bad? We do believe that there are good service providers who do their job in good faith. However, their presence is insufficient to rectify corruption in the industry. In the child protection business, whoever betrays the principle of accrual of power and money, others betray him. Service providers have to go with the flow or risk alienation by their peers if they don't. Most of them choose the former. This renders corruption in the industry structural. In view of the lopsided court decisions handed down in the past and the absolute power to remove children, the current system is irreparable. Industry driven reform is a waste of time and money. The only way to stop this corruption is by cutting off the involuntary supply of human inventory to feed the artificially created demand in the industry. This cannot be accomplished without repealing child protection law that authorizes child removal.

The most disturbing development is the extension of power to "protect" unborn children. Service providers consider this unprecedented. An Italian woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was visiting Britain to attend a training course at Stansted airport in Essex, England. She suffered a panic attack after failing to take medication for her bipolar disorder. British social services obtained a court order in August 2012 for the birth to be enforced by way of caesarean section and her infant seized at birth. The woman was taken to a psychiatric hospital and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Five weeks later, her daughter was removed from her womb without her consent. This could happen to any mothers whom child protection workers consider a risk to children. This is a serious challenge to human right, safety and freedom.

Ironically, the industry is the largest institutional risk to child safety. Some readers may find this remark implausible. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) in 1998 reported that children died in foster care six times higher than those in the general public. Children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation in foster homes than in the general population. The NCCAN report on "Perpetrators of Maltreatment" provides statistics on the left.

These statistical data refute foster homes is a known safe place, a faulty justification often used by judges who err on the side of caution in making custody decisions in child protection hearings. In their infinite wisdom, they do err, not on the side of caution, but on the side of naive assumption and irresponsibility.

It does not require a genius to interpret and understand these empirical data. Most foster parents warehouse children to earn a living. It is a lucrative business. Foster children are not their children. Why should they care? Child protection workers seldom challenge parenting skills of foster parents. Complaints from foster children are often ignored. The foregoing are supported the following cases:

1. Howard Smith (Foster Father) of Scarborough Pleaded Guilty of Raping Underage Foster Child committed in 1978 (pleaded guilty in January 2013);
2. Edmonton mother Jamie Sullivan went public after her infant Delonna Sullivan died in care on 11 April 2011;
3. Edmonton foster mother Lily Choy convicted of murder of her foster child on 27 January 2007;
4. 5-year-old Logan Marr was killed by her foster mother Sally Schofield, a highly respected former caseworker for the Department of Human Services (DHS), in Chelsea, Maine.
5. MCFD Richmond foster home run by former male prostitute Kevin Fanning who pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a disabled teen in his care in 2009..

The cases above are cited as illustrative examples of atrocities in foster care and are by no means exhaustive of various kinds of abuse in foster care.

Child removal is an inhumane and oppressive act. Just the threat of child removal alone can create unspeakable horror that could cause immense distress to both children and parents. It is as abnormal as incest, as hideous as genocide and as wrong as the residential schools in Canada. State-sponsored child removal amounts to enforced disappearance of persons. It is a systematic attack directed against a unsuspecting civilian population. With knowledge of the attack, financially motivated service providers work in concert to methodically remove children and ruthlessly break bondage with their parents under the pretext of child protection. Tactics calculated to sever parent's tie with children are despicable and of wanton cruelty. It is difficult to get them to understand something when their salary and livelihood depend on not understanding it. With the formidable power society has so wrongly entrusted, they occupy moral high ground, monopolize the industry, suppress criticisms, control demand of their services aggrandize to the maximum that taxpayers could bear.

Expansion of the industry has become cancerous. Service providers are advocating raising the age of care limit. The Representative for Children and Youth (RCY) in British Columbia published a report titled "On Their Own" in April 2014 recommending raising the age of care limit from 19 to 25. Enough is never enough. A nanny state will serve the best interests of this parasitic industry. What the RCY should investigate are: why these foster children are removed in the first place? Are the removals justified? Why foster children cannot live independently after they graduate from foster care? Does empirical evidence and statistics support the notion of foster home is a "known safe place"? What are the social costs of state-sponsored removal? Of course, this pseudo watchdog will not explore these issues that could potentially embarrass the industry and refute some fundamental beliefs imperative to the survival of the industry. Research conducted by the industry often suggests that failure to protect children is due to lack of funding. Consequently, more government funding is often recommended. Too much money is given to the wrong hands. A good portion of tax dollars allocated for child protection are wasted in counter productive activities and ended up paying service providers rather than helping families in need.

To finance the lifestyle of service providers, the legal costs and damages of lawsuits resulting torts and wrongful deaths of foster children, the B.C. government is compelled to seek new avenues to raise revenue. While increasing tax will attract public scrutiny and often carries a political price, government resorts to non-tax income such as toll fee on bridges already paid for by taxpayers (a de facto dobule taxation), higher medical service plan premium and transit levy, eco fee, electronics environmental handling fee, to satisfy the insatiable financial demand from service providers of various industries that live on the avail of taxpayers. If you do not have children or your children are now adults and you think problems created by the industry is irrelevant to you, you are wrong. Think about the ever increasing taxes you pay. Given the high crime rate of foster children when they reach adulthood, perhaps they are the one who mugs you on the street or break into your house. Save and exempt service providers, no one can be exempted from being victimized.

Even police officers are not exempted from persecution. A RCMP officer shared her experience with child protection agencies in two Canadian provinces. She is a single mother with her son removed. Being a police officer, she instinctively compared criminal law with child protection law. She did not realize that child protection law is very different from criminal law. Despite what its legislative intent is, child protection law circumvents our charter right protection, removes assumption of innocence, puts the onus of proof on parents, reduces the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt to a belief or perception of need of protection and diminishes the stingy requirements of admissible evidence to hearsay and gossip. It is designed for parents to fail and the child protection agencies to attain absolute power to remove children. Case law is also so lopsided that child protection workers have more power than provincial court judges. Against insurmountable odds in lengthy child protection proceedings, if parents obtain an order to have their children returned to them, child protection workers may continue to hold on their children using various excuses until they have sufficient ground to allege that there is no more bonding between children and their parents. Then this becomes legal reason to apply for continuing (or permanent) custody. If they are successful, removed children are ready for adoption, which is another lucrative business falls in the mandate of most child protection agencies. Our views are elaborated in in "Flaws of CFCSA" if you need more information on child protection law.

Furthermore, to ensure sufficient children in foster care, definitions of child abuse have been expanded to encompass some new arenas:

1. obesity of children (advocated by Dr. David Ludwig of Children's Hospital in Boston);
2. excessive suntanning (Patricia Krentcil charged of child endangerment on 30 April 2012);
3. taking innocent nude photos of children Lisa and Anthony Demaree child removal, Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. aired on 18 September 2009);
4. medical child abuse (ie. giving children too much medical care);
5. parents who choose home schooling (for example, home school girl removed in Erlangen, Germany in 2010).

In his book titled "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", French economist Thomas Piketty argued that uneven distribution of wealth lacks self corrective mechanism if the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of economic growth and will lead to economic instability. Professor Piketty proposed a global progressive wealth tax system to help create greater equality and avoid the vast majority of wealth coming under the control of a minority. Similarly, service providers in the industry will continue to take advantage of their privileged positions and maximize their ill-earned income at the expense of taxpayers and destruction of families under the pretext of child protection. Given the public ignorance and apathy on child protection, they will not hesitate to milk taxpayers dry if we let them. This will inevitably open government to corruption and racketeering. This is not only a moral issue on natural justice but also a practical issue of fiscal sustainability. The industry will vigorously fight against any suggestions that will weaken its power or reduce child protection budget. Fair measures that expose their personal assets (such as removal of government indemnification of legal costs and court awarded damages) to lawsuit will be opposed.

State sponsored child removal is a global problem. It is a legalized crime against humanity. Errors do not cease to be errors simply because they are ratified into law. It is a potential source of social unrest and an undue tax burden on every taxpayer. Furthermore, the industry will eventually milk a nation dry if we do not rise to stop racketeering. A people of sheep will beget a government of wolves. Ignorance, apathy, blind faith in government and pseudo science are the foundation of success to the industry. An error does not become truth by reason of artificial propagation, nor does the truth become error because the majority do not see it. Service providers in the industry are indeed brilliant to hijack the noble cause of child protection and devise such a lucrative scheme to rip off taxpayers using oppressive means and get away unnoticed and unpunished for such a long time. We cannot think of any other scheme that is comparable in term of scale and success in concealing its hideous nature and in garnering support from naive and gullible people. The corruption is a disgrace to humanity, an insult to natural justice and a threat to national security as it destroys the backbone of a nation: families. History will one day prove that we are correct.

Child removal authority can be used against any individual or group of people for reason other than child protection. Industry-created atrocities on families in the news footages in our web site could happen on anyone of us. This authority seriously jeopardizes our safety and freedom. Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed. Ameliorative change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through persistent struggle guided by conscience, wit and wisdom. For the love of our nation, we must rise against such a corrupt industry. To build a safer future for our children, act before your love ones fall prey. History will one day affirm that we are right.

Glossary of Terms used in the industry by services providers and families under scrutiny

Legal terms and jargons evolve in the industry. The glossary on the left is used by service providers while the one on the right is commonly used by oppressed families.

References

• More child abuse claims by CPS being overturned by Texas News, 25 May 2014
• Canadian Child Welfare Research Portal
• Table 5.4 Deaths and death rates of children and youth, by age group, 1998, 2003 and 2008 Statistics Canada
• Forced C-section was �the stuff of nightmares�: Social Services condemned for forcibly removing unborn child from woman by Chloe Hamilton of The Independent (1 December 2013)
• Child protection laws are poisoning the relationships between adults and children by Matthew Hickley of Mail Online (26 June 2008)
• Child abuse and neglect statistics Australian Government, last updated May 2013
• Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, English version publication date: April 2014.
• On Their Own published by Representative for Children and Youth (RCY) of British Columbia on 28 April 2014