Challenges on Human Rights, Natural Justice and Civil Liberty

•  Custody of your own children is not a charter right in Canada. Our forefathers had either deliberately excluded child custody as a constitutional right or had wrongly assumed that such fundamental right will not be trampled by government in any civilized nation.

•  According to the findings in Appendix 1 of "2006 B.C. Budget" published by a Vancouver accounting firm in February 2006, a native child stands a chance of removal by MCFD 10 times higher than a non-native child on a per capita basis (based on the government statistics between 1999 to 2001).

•  The Canadian federal government subsidizes provincial and territorial governments for removal of native children on a per head basis, hence providing financial incentive to target native children and families. Does this really happen? It most certainly does. If dung is there, flies spare no time in arriving.

•  Atrocities like the residential school and the Sherry Charlie tragedy are possible because government has the authority to remove children from their families. More information on residential schools is archived in our Native Indians & MCFD page.

•  MCFD's "child protection" social workers have the statutory power to remove your children if they believe that your children are unsafe in your care and re-remove them after a judge ordered their return with or without fresh evidence.

•  There is court case Director v. M.P., 2005 BCPC 651 supporting child removal and granting of temporary custody order in favor of MCFD. Parents cannot use the following as defence:

• when there is no complaint from anyone at all;
• the child is not in immediate danger when in care of parents;
• MCFD fail to show that removal is in the best interests of the child.

Honorable Judge B.K. Davis (the presiding Vancouver Provincial Court judge) cited in this case: "All the Director need do is make out a prima facie case (an extremely low threshold of proof in law) that the child may be in need of protection, and then I can make one of the orders set out above that is appropriate in the circumstances." The learnt judge had set guidelines for his colleagues in the judiciary to follow [added on January 30, 2009].

•  Parents with children removed face immense difficulties and a long legal process to get their children back, if they ever could, and have very little right in child protection proceedings, including the right of access per Supreme Court of Canada decision in New Brunswick (Minister of Health and Community Services) v. L. (M.), 1998 CanLII 800 which stipulated in [17] that:

   Since this judgment was handed down in 1998, 111 cases have cited this decision in support of denying parent's access at the point of writing [revised on January 30, 2009].

•  MCFD's "child protection" social workers have no law enforcement training. Yet they have more law enforcement power than the police and, to some extent, more judicial power than a provincial court judge. Furthermore, there is no deterrent or disciplinary provision in any statute to punish abuse of authority.

•  Many parents are forced to consent to supervision order or custody order sought by "child protection" social workers after their children are held hostage. Courts are endorsing and enforcing such "contracts" in which one party is forced to sign like pointing a gun at his head. This violates natural justice and brings the administration of justice into disrepute.

•  Based on data published by the Human Resources and Social Development Canada in a report titled Child and Family Services Statistical Report 1998-1999 to 2000-2001, MCFD stands a 98% chance of getting the interim custody of removed children in a Section 35 presentation hearing. No provincial court judge in B.C. made an order to return removed children to their parents unconditionally in those 3 years.

•  MCFD's director becomes the sole guardian of removed children and may consent to their adoption if the Ministry is successful in obtaining a Section 49 continuing custody order.

•  Both MCFD and the judiciary do not follow many CFCSA provisions and guiding principles in child protection hearings. The most common violations are:

• failure to place removed children under the care of their next of kin who are willing and able;
• separating siblings and place them in different foster homes;
• failure to respect the free will of removed children;
• failure to provide proper care to removed children in foster homes.

•  Parents under MCFD's scrutiny in many cases are forced to bear the onus of proof in child protection hearings.

•  Children suffer from ministry-created trauma every day and their views are seldom heard in family courts; sadly, judges throw law aside and are partial toward the wishes of the MCFD.

•  Through legislation, special interest groups in the "child protection" racket dictate demand of their service, monopolize service quality definitions, manipulate government "child protection" policies, ignore the needs of their clients and suppress all dissatisfaction.

•  Under the Social Workers Regulation, social workers employed by MCFD are not required to register with the British Columbia College of Social Workers (BCCSW) and therefore are not abide by the Code of Ethics established by the BCCSW. The Social Workers Act stipulates that a person cannot represent himself or herself as a social worker unless he or she is registered with the BCCSW or unless he/she is or is employed by an exempt person. For the purposes of this Act, the Ministry of Children and Family Development is an exempt person (as defined by Regulation 794) [added on January 23, 2009].

•  Established complaint resolution process involving team leaders, local community service managers, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Office of the Ombudsman and Representative for Children and Youth is designed to discourage, exhaust, frustrate, further traumatize, break the spirits of parents and children. Complainants must submit their appeal within a time limit. Then the same team leader or manager who was involved in making the impugned decision gives an 'unbiased' ruling that the decision made by subordinate social workers was correct, lawful and in the best interests of the children. If the complainants are not satisfied with the decision, they may go to the next level with parties, who can only make non-binding recommendations, outside the Ministry.

    This modus operandi is merely a decoration of openness and fairness. Bureaucrats seldom overturn their own decisions. External third parties have no binding authority. What real complaint resolution could this possibly accomplish? This explains why many social workers quickly use complaint process to fan off unhappy campers, knowing that they would accomplish nothing other than wasting their time and effort and, above all, diverting parents to focus on getting their children home [added on September 1, 2009].

•  Create an absurd legal scenario in which natural parents can be charged with kidnapping their own children.

    Few Canadians are aware of the fact that taking (or repossessing without permission) their own children removed by the government also constitutes kidnapping. On October 26, 2009, Ming Pao News aired the arrest of a Hong Kong couple in Vancouver, who immigrated to Toronto, for kidnapping of their own children after they lost the permanent custody to the government. Such absurdity is unheard of in countries where government does not have the authority to remove children from their families. State-sponsored child removal is a serious disturbance of the nature of the relationship between persons [added on October 26, 2009].

[This page was separated from the "Empirical Data & Stats" page on 20 October 2010, last revised on 20 October 2010.]