Families United Ontario.
46 Beckwith St. Smiths Falls, ON, Canada

2018 UN Report, pt 10: Housing Issues in Ontario Group Homes. Housing abuse in group (residential) homes Group or residential homes in Ontario are a vestige of institutional life. The ideal of independent living for IDD and autistic individuals, beyond residential homes, has not been fully realized in our province. And the situation in some Ontario group homes is desperate and terrifying....Continue reading

2020: TORONTO -- Ontario's child welfare system will be redesigned to focus on prevention and early intervention, the provincial government said Wednesday. "Child welfare should not be the system that is feared," Dunlop said in a news conference. "No one should be scared to lose their children for speaking to a children's aid society." Associate Minister of Children and Women's Issues Jill Dunlop said the new strategy will also work to address the over-representation of Blac...Continue reading

2018: Office of the Chief Coroner "Safe With Intervention?" The Report of the Expert Panel on the Deaths of Children and Youth in Residential Placements... http://www.children.gov.on.ca//chil/residential/index.aspx ::: A scathing report from Ontario’s coroner presses the provincial government to reform a child protection system that repeatedly failed 12 youths who died while in care. Change is necessary, and the need is suddenly urgent, said the report, written by a panel of experts appointed by chief coroner Dirk Huyer last November to examine the spike of deaths between January 2014 and July 2017. The 86-page report found that the 12 youths eight of whom were Indigenous were all in the care of Ontario’s child protection system and living in unsafe homes when they died. The report describes a fragmented system with no means of monitoring quality of care, where ministry oversight is inadequate, caregivers lack training, and children are poorly supervised. Vulnerable children are being warehoused and forgotten. The expert panel convened by Ontario chief coroner Dirk Huyer to avoid another very "embarrassing" public inquest for our extremely secretive child welfare officials - the expert panel (leaving out nothing) found a litany of other problems, including: Evidence that some of the youths were "at risk of and/or engaged in human trafficking." A lack of communication between child welfare societies. Poor case file management. An "absence" of quality care in residential placements. Eleven of the young people ranged in age from 11 to 18. The exact age of one youth when she died wasn't clear in the report. ::: The inquest into Jeffrey Baldwin's death was supposed to shed light on the child welfare system and prevent more needless child deaths. Baldwin's inquest jury made 103 recommendations. Sep 06, 2013. http://www.cbc.ca//inquest-into-boy-s-death-to-shed-light- ::: Nearly six months after the inquest into the death of Katelynn Sampson began, jurors delivered another 173 recommendations. APRIL 29, 2016. https://beta.theglobeandmail.com//inquest/article29798749/ 276 OFFICIAL REASONS FOR CONCERN ABOUT CHILDREN IN CARE. ::: Kids see group homes as 'gateways to jail': child advocate CBC News Posted: Mar 07, 2007. Article continues below: ::: After the kids were "protected", near half or more become real criminals. It won't be so many if they were not rob away from their own families. The best alternative is to leave the kids home and warn the family and educate them. Only remove them when crime happened instead of using word "risk" to put kids into real risk places unless parents ask for that. https://www.mapleleafweb.com//13562-cas-is-more-ha/page/4/ ::: 2001: Furor erupts as police seize spanked children Seven children aged 6 to 14 have been removed from their home in Aylmer, Ont., because their parents, who accept the literal truth of the Bible, refuse to promise they will never again hit them with switches if they disobey. Their pastor, Rev. Henry Hildebrandt of the Aylmer Church of God, said the couple have resorted to corporal punishment in the past, believing it is wrong to spare the rod if other methods fail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//furor-er/article4150244/ ::: 2009: Children's Aid Society workers should be reined in, critics say. http://www.nationalpost.com/children+society+w//story.html ::: Ontario psychologist used 'obsolete' tests in expert opinion calling for parents to lose their kids, judge said. (why are these tests "obsolete" and how many other parents lost custody of their children before it became obsolete?") NEWS Aug 16, 2019 by Jacques Gallant Toronto Star https://www.thestar.com//ontario-psychologist-used-obsolet ::: (continued from top) GATEWAY TO HOMELESSNESS, DRUGS AND JAIL.. Almost half of Ontario's young offenders in detention for minor crimes came through the child welfare system, a report from the Office of Child and Family Service Advocacy shows. The trend is a concern for child advocates across the country and Ontario Child Advocate Judy Finlay said many of the province's young people are beginning to think of group homes as "gateways to jail." "We're taking them out of very difficult family circumstances, bringing them into state care and then we're charging them for their behaviour. It's very concerning to me," Finlay said. The report, which was obtained by CBC News, lays much of the blame on group homes that rely too heavily on police to resolve problems that could be handled by staff. Kids have been charged for everything from refusing to read a book or hitting someone with a tea towel, Finlay said. One group home in Ontario called police 400 times in a single year. Don't call police for minor disturbances: minister Ontario's Children and Youth Services Minister Mary Anne Chambers says calling police in to deal with trivial problems is never justified and would not happen if those children were living at home. "It's very important to understand that these kids should be treated as though they're in homes, not in institutions," said Chambers. "When we have children in, for example,the province's child protection system, we the province are their parents." While some in the child welfare field have said low wages and poor training of group home workers are part of the problem, Chambers rejected the claims. "I don't think you should need any special training to understand that some of those behaviours are quite minor, maybe a little anti-social, but minor," said Chambers, adding that rates of pay in group homes are "not shabby." Another problem facing the often troubled and vulnerable children entering group homes is the lack of mental health support, says Jeanette Lewis, the executive director of Ontario's Association of Children's Aid Societies. "The childrens' mental health centres are facing some very long waiting lists and child welfare clients, even though they are children who are wards of the state, often do not get to the top of these lists," saidLewis, adding she wasn't surprised by the child advocacy office's statistics. Teen says workers provoked him. Ontario is not the only province that needs to fix the system, Finlay's report says. A sampling of facilities across Canada found that 57 per cent of young offenders had a connection to the child welfare system, the report said. In British Columbia, a recent study put that number at 73 per cent. While some teens acknowledge the more serious charges may be warranted, they complain that too often, staff lack the training to deal with troubled kids and resort to calling police. Ateen, who can't be named under federal law, said workers would often provoke him. After he was charged, group home workers had an easy way to threaten him by suggesting abreach of his bail or probation conditions would meana return to a young offenders facility. "They threaten you and say you better read that book or you're going back to jail. Come on, what kind of system is this?" the teen said. Finlay is calling on the province to collect data on police calls from group homes and the charges that result. She also wants to see a mental health worker attached to each group home and higher standards for an industry that costs taxpayers more than $200 million a year. https://www.cbc.ca//kids-see-group-homes-as-gateways-to-ja ::: 2017: Youth homelessness linked to foster care system in new study. A first-of-its-kind study in Canada is drawing a link between youth homelessness levels and a foster care system that researchers say could be playing a more active role in keeping young people off the streets. The study, to be released Wednesday, found nearly three out of every five homeless youth were part of the child welfare system at some point in their lives, a rate almost 200 times greater than that of the general population. Of those with a history in the child welfare system, almost two of every five respondents eventually "aged out" of provincial or territorial care, losing access to the sort of support that could have kept them from becoming homeless, the study found. First national portrait of homelessness among 13-to-24-year-olds suggests they make up fifth of homeless. https://www.cbc.ca//h/homeless-youth-foster-care-1.4240121 ::: Nearly half of children in Crown care are medicated. Psychotropic drugs are being prescribed to nearly half the Crown wards in a sample of Ontario children's aid societies, kindling fears that the agencies are overusing medication with the province's most vulnerable children. Ontario researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clear majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis. A Toronto Star investigation has found Ontario’s most vulnerable children in the care of an unaccountable and non-transparent protection system. It keeps them in the shadows, far beyond what is needed to protect their identities. When people are invisible, bad things happen, says Irwin Elman, Ontario’s now former and last advocate for children and youth with the closure of the Office. A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street. "A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily." In Ontario the CAS has turned themselves into a multi-billion dollar private corporation using any excuse to compel parents into submitting to fake drug testing to justify removing children or keeping files open keeping that government funding flowing. All the while they've taking the thousands of children to specific CAS approved doctors who are all to happy to prescribe medication based on the workers assessments of the child's condition.. That's why there are no follow ups with qualified medical and psychiatric doctors and not because the CAS lack the funding, staff or attention span to care properly for the children. Marti McKay is a Toronto child psychologist was hired by a CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians only to discover a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs. "There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses. "There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders." According to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail under Ontario's Freedom of Information Act, 47 per cent of the Crown wards - children in permanent CAS care - at five randomly picked agencies were prescribed psychotropics last year to treat depression, attention deficit disorder, anxiety and other mental-health problems. And, the wards are diagnosed and medicated far more often than are children in the general population. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//nearly-hal/article687480/ "Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes." Almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 48.6 per cent are on drugs, such as Ritalin, tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, according to a yearly survey conducted for the provincial government and the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). At ages 16 and 17, fully 57 per cent are on these medications. In group homes, the figure is even higher an average of 64 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent. https://www.thestar.com//use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_wi ::: What’s worse is that the number of children prescribed dangerous drugs is on the rise. Doctors seem to prescribe medication without being concerned with the side-effects. Worldwide, 17 million children, some as young as five years old, are given a variety of different prescription drugs, including psychiatric drugs that are dangerous enough that regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia, and the US have issued warnings on the side effects that include suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior. According to Fight For Kids, an organization that educates parents worldwide on the facts about today’s widespread practice of labeling children mentally ill and drugging them with heavy, mind-altering, psychiatric drugs, says over 10 million children in the US are prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for alleged educational and behavioral problems. In fact, according to Foundation for a Drug-Free World, every day, 2,500 youth (12 to 17) will abuse a prescription pain reliever for the first time (4). Even more frightening, prescription medications like depressants, opioids and antidepressants cause more overdose deaths (45 percent) than illicit drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and amphetamines (39 percent) combined. Worldwide, prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death. https://dailyhealthpost.com/common-prescription-drugs/ ::: Standards of Care for the Administration of Psychotropic Medications to Children and Youth Living in Licensed Residential Settings. Summary of Recommendations of the Ontario Expert Panel February 2009. http://www.children.gov.on.ca//resident/summary_report.pdf ::: Harmful Impacts is the title of the Motherisk commission's report written by the Honourable Judith C. Beaman after two years of study. After reading it, harmful seems almost to be putting it lightly. Out of the over 16 000 tests (though that number has been reported as high as 35 000 tests) the commission only examined 56 cases of the flawed Motherisk tests, administered by the Motherisk lab between 2005 and 2015 and were determined to have a substantial impact on the decisions of child protection agencies to keep files open or led to children being permanently removed from their families. WHAT ARE THE HARMFUL IMPACTS? Separating kids from parents a 'textbook strategy' of domestic abuse, experts say and causes irreversible, lifelong damage even when there is no other choice. Being separated from parents or having inconsistent living conditions for long periods of time can create changes in thoughts and behavior patterns, and an increase in challenging behavior and stress-related physical symptoms, such as sleep difficulty, nightmares, flashbacks, crying, and yelling says Amy van Schagen - California State University. The Science Is Unequivocal: Separating Families Is Harmful to Children Even When There Is No Other Choice. In news stories and opinion pieces, psychological scientists are sharing evidence-based insight from decades of research demonstrating the harmful effects of separating parents and children. In an op-ed in USA Today, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (University of Delaware), Mary Dozier (University of Delaware), and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Temple University) write: Years of research are clear: Children need their parents to feel secure in the world, to explore and learn, and to grow strong emotionally. In a Washington Post op-ed, James Coan (University of Virginia) says: As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, I study how the brain transforms social connection into better mental and physical health. My research suggests that maintaining close ties to trusted loved ones is a vital buffer against the external stressors we all face. But not being an expert on how this affects children, I recently invited five internationally recognized developmental scientists to chat with me about the matter on a science podcast I host. As we discussed the border policy’s effect on the children ensnared by it, even I was surprised to learn just how damaging it is likely to be. Mia Smith-Bynum (University of Maryland) is quoted in The Cut: The science leads to the conclusion that the deprivation of caregiving produces a form of extreme suffering in children. Being separated from a parent isn’t just a trauma it breaks the relationship that helps children cope with other traumas. Forceful separation is particularly damaging, explains clinical psychologist Mia Smith-Bynum, a professor of family science at the University of Maryland, when parents feel there’s nothing in their power that can be done to get their child back. For all the dislocation, strangeness and pain of being separated forcibly from parents, many children can and do recover, said Mary Dozier, a professor of child development at the University of Delaware. Not all of them some kids never recover, Dr. Dozier said. But I’ve been amazed at how well kids can do after institutionalization if they’re able to have responsive and nurturing care afterward. The effects of that harm may evolve over time, says Antonio Puente, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington who specializes in cultural neuropsychology. What may begin as acute emotional distress could reemerge later in life as PTSD, behavioral issues and other signs of lasting neuropsychological damage, he says. A parent is really in many ways an extension of the child’s biology as that child is developing, Tottenham said. That adult who’s routinely been there provides this enormous stress-buffering effect on a child’s brain at a time when we haven’t yet developed that for ourselves. They’re really one organism, in a way. When the reliable buffering and guidance of a parent is suddenly withdrawn, the riot of learning that molds and shapes the brain can be short-circuited, she said. In a story from the BBC, Jack Shonkoff (Harvard University) discusses evidence related to long-term impacts: Jack P Shonkoff, director of the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, says it is incorrect to assume that some of the youngest children removed from their parents’ care will be too young to remember and therefore relatively unharmed. When that stress system stays activated for a significant period of time, it can have a wear and tear effect biologically. ::: It is stunning to me how these children... are rendered invisible while they are alive and invisible in their death, said Irwin Elman, Ontario’s advocate for children and youth. Between 90 and 120 children and youth connected to children’s aid die every year. When people are invisible, bad things happen, says Irwin Elman, the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth. Why did 90 children die? https://www.thestar.com//02/23/why_did_90_children_die.html Why did a lot more die after that and why is undetermined cause the leading cause of death for children in care in 2013? http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca//content/mcscs/images/19563 http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca///2013Report/PDRC_2013.html (Reacted) ::: Neglect is one of the most common child protection concerns in Ontario: Q & A with OACAS’ former CEO. Neglect is one of the most common child protection concerns in Ontario. Mary Ballantyne, former CEO of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, discusses how Children’s Aid Societies help families dealing with this issue. How is neglect a form of child abuse? A child who is neglected is consistently not having their vital needs met. That could mean poor nutrition, lack of attention to hygiene, and so on. From a child welfare perspective, neglect is a concern because it ultimately affects a child’s ability to thrive. With very young children, neglect is obviously a real, immediate risk. Inadequate feeding can be life threatening, and lack of attention to hygiene can lead to serious illness. As children mature, neglect might not be a matter of life and death, but it does affect how a child manages day-to-day. A hungry child will struggle in school and can be bullied and ridiculed by peers because of poor hygiene. As children enter adolescence, we start seeing the impacts of neglect on their behaviour, including lower self-esteem and an inability to engage in school because they lack the confidence and skills. How does child welfare help children who have been neglected? One of the biggest challenges for a child welfare worker is determining what is at the root of the neglect. Is it that the parent lacks the skills to take care of their child? Is it an addiction or a mental health issue? Poverty can also mean that a parent can’t adequately provide for their child, because there are too many competing needs for the limited resources they do have. So how will child welfare responses differ according to these different situations? If it’s a parenting skills issue, a child welfare worker will work with the parent or connect the parent with the resources they need to learn those skills. With an addiction or a mental health issue, the parent can enter a treatment program. If it’s poverty that’s contributing to neglect, the worker can advocate on the family’s behalf to get them the resources they need. In some cases it’s a combination of all those approaches. It’s important to understand that poverty is recognized as a risk factor in abuse and neglect cases, but it does not cause abuse and neglect. Children are also neglected in families with higher socio-economic status. Concrete interventions can often really help some families. It can be extremely hard for a family living in close quarters where the building is falling apart and unsafe. If a child welfare worker can find them a reasonable place to live, where they feel pride, neglect can be reduced. Similarly, alleviating daily stresses by providing transportation or daycare allows a parent to focus more on child rearing. When parents feel good about themselves, it makes them better parents. Is this a role that child welfare should be taking on? Or should the CAS continue to be a fully government funded privately operated standards enforcement corporation devoid of all the protections that govern the government, law enforcement agencies and other professionals and not help families displaying the signs and stresses of poverty by increasing they stress their under and treating the parents like criminals, launching an investigation and then dragging the parents to court, and labeling the parents incompetent mentally unstable drug addicts in the privacy of the family courtrooms of Ontario and just helping themselves to the children and the funding that goes with them? This is a role that child welfare has played for decades, but it’s probably not well understood as an important form of intervention. The Ontario Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect shows that 89% of child welfare’s work involves children and families struggling with chronic needs such as poverty, trauma, mental health, and addictions.* Child welfare plays an important role in linking struggling families to the many vital programs available in their community. In-home, hands-on support is crucial: people learn how to be good parents while receiving support for themselves and their child along the way. A recent CAS study using data from the Ontario Incidence Study shows that poverty is a correlated to the disproportionate number of Indigenous and African Canadian children taken into care. Does child welfare’s work with children experiencing neglect unfairly impact families living in poverty? We know that poverty is racialized in Ontario and Canada the rates of Indigenous and African Canadian families living in poverty is disturbingly high. Because we work with children experiencing neglect, and poverty can often look like neglect, we realize that this might be a contributing factor to these communities being overrepresented. With the support of the Government, we’ve been consulting on the issue of overrepresentation with African Canadian communities. The release of the One Vision, One Voice Practice Framework: Changing the Ontario Welfare System to Better Serve African Canadians is an important step on this journey of understanding. What role can the community play in helping children who are neglected? The community has a huge role to play keeping an eye on the CAS. Knowing that someone in your community is struggling behind the secrecy of Ontario's care, you can ask yourself how you can help them. Another important thing for people in the community to do if they believe that a child is being abused or neglected is to call Children’s Aid. Their call can lead to a worker threatening children will be removed if the parents expect to have their rights respected or fail to sign consent forms and service agreement and submit to various forms of medical and psychological testing.. * A 25 Year Perspective on Child Welfare Services in Ontario and Canada, Nico Trocmé, McGill University On September 29, 2015 / Child Abuse Prevention, Children, Children's Aid Societies, Featured, Youth http://www.oacas.org/20//q-a-with-oacas-ceo-about-neglect/

2019: Ontario is using a new law to retroactively dismiss lawsuits it lost: lawyer. A lawyer representing several groups who are accusing the Ontario government of mistreatment says the province is trying to shut down their lawsuits unfairly. The Ontario government is asking the courts to throw out at least eight class actions against it. One involves an inmate named Adam Capay, who was held in solitary confinement for most of his 4 years in custody....Continue reading

2020: Ford defends bill that critics say shields long-term care homes from lawsuits.. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ford-defends-bill-that-critics-s https://dailyhive.com//critics-ford-long-term-care-legisla...Continue reading

Opinion: Conspiracists could prolong pandemic, possibly indefinitely Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists threaten to worsen our lives for years to come Jesse ...Kline October 1, 2020. Since the start of the pandemic, we have been holding out hope on two things: that we can implement proper mitigation strategies to limit the spread of the infection and better treat those who become ill; and that we will eventually be able to develop a vaccine that will protect us against the virus going forward. Unfortunately, it’s looking increasingly likely that these two keys to salvation will be scuttled by the tinfoil-hat crowd, a group of people that society can no longer afford to ignore. We’re already seeing growing opposition to such public health measures as mask-wearing and lockdowns in Canada, the United States and Europe. While opposition to such measures in the U.S. is largely political thanks, in no small part, to a president who seems to think that drinking bleach is preferable to donning a mask we can thank our lucky stars that Canadian politicians of all stripes agree that some measures should be taken to contain the virus, and that those decisions should be informed by science. But that has not stopped anti-maskers from taking to the streets throughout this country. Montreal has seen numerous protests in recent weeks, including one that attracted thousands of demonstrators. An Ontario man was fined for breaking quarantine to speak at an anti-mask rally in downtown Toronto, after returning from speaking at another one in Ireland. In Calgary, a video went viral of a maskless woman berating customers and staff for wearing masks inside a local fabric store. Since then, numerous businesses have come forward to complain about their staff being abused by customers who are unhappy about being asked to comply with the city’s mask bylaw. A small group of angry protesters even took to the streets in Campbell River, B.C., despite that province not having a mandatory mask order. And, as the National Post’s Sharon Kirkey reported recently, health officials across the country have been harassed by people who are fed up with public health measures. B.C.’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Bonnie Henry, has even received death threats. A recent poll suggests that the vast majority of Canadians (88 per cent) are opposed to the demonstrations, and a similar number (87 per cent) believe that wearing masks in public is their civic duty, regardless of whether governments try to force them to. This is in sharp contrast to the United States, where a July poll found that the majority of Democrats (86 per cent) and independents (71 per cent) wear masks in public, but less than half (48 per cent) of Republicans do. Support for public health measures south of the border clearly runs along partisan lines. A quick scan of some of the anti-mask Facebook groups here in Canada, however, reveals that they are far less political. Instead, they’re filled with conspiracy theories about how masks don’t work, how the whole pandemic is a hoax and how we don’t actually need a vaccine. This is a problem because, although masks provide some benefits for the people who wear them, their main function is to stop someone who is infected from spreading it to others. And that only works if that person is wearing a mask. The more people there are walking around without masks and disobeying other public health measures, such as social distancing and limiting the size of groups, the faster the virus will spread and the harder it will be to contain. Even so, many are still holding out hope that we will soon develop a vaccine that will stop the whole thing in its tracks and allow life to return to normal. Yet there is increasing evidence that a vaccine will not be the panacea most of us hope it will be. Recent evidence suggests that immunity to the coronavirus may last for only somewhere between four and 12 months. If this proves to be the case, we may all end up having to take a booster shot every year for the rest of our lives. One way to prevent this would be to immunize enough people throughout most of the world in a short enough period of time that, combined with tried-and-true mitigation strategies, we are able to virtually eliminate the virus within the human population. This would be a massive undertaking, but not outside the realm of possibility. If it were to happen, we would just have to ensure that we had enough vaccines on hand to inoculate a local population the next time someone came in contact with an infected bat. But given the growing opposition to vaccines of all kinds in recent years, which has been fuelled by online conspiracy theorists who falsely claim that they cause autism and other harms, this is unlikely to happen. (A Pew poll back in May found that 72 per cent of Americans would take a vaccine once it becomes available, which seems high, but is likely not enough to create herd immunity, if immunity is transient.) Measles, for example, is a disease for which we have a safe and effective vaccine. It was once believed to have been virtually eliminated in Canada and other developed countries. But, thanks to the anti-vaxxer movement, it has returned with a vengeance: last year saw more measles cases around the world than we’ve seen in a generation. Despite the fact that we haven’t yet developed a vaccine to protect us against the coronavirus, conspiracy theorists are already making the case for why people should not take one, when and if it becomes available. Noted conspiracist Alex Jones, for example, has been warning for months that the vaccination program is part of an alien takeover plot. Another widely circulated conspiracy theory holds that Bill Gates wants to use the vaccine to inject microchips into the population. There was a time when we could safely ignore people who espoused views such as these. They were relegated to late-night radio programs, low-budget made-for-TV documentaries about alien abductions and angrily shouting their zany theories in the town square. But the internet changed all that. As my colleague Jonathan Kay wrote in his 2011 book, Among the Truthers, Prior to the mid-1990s, conspiracy theorists pursued their investigations in isolated obscurity, typing out manifestos on basement card tables, or amid the nonfiction stacks at their local library. The stigma associated with their craft, in conjunction with the communications limitations predating the World Wide Web, meant that each conspiracist was essentially a unique movement unto himself, his ideas mutating and evolving without social input from others like an obscure species of land animal confined to a remote island. But, Amid the plethora of newly blooming blogs and discussion fora, the construction of conspiracy theories became a collaborative exercise. All of the tiny little islands of paranoia suddenly were linked up by virtual causeways. Even then, aside from those who used race-based theories to foment hate and violence, most of them could safely be ignored. But now we’re in a situation in which there is a very real possibility that a growing group of conspiracy theorists, fuelled by lies and misinformation spread over social media, could not only worsen the pandemic, but prevent us from stamping out the virus entirely, thus affecting our lives for years to come. National Post https://www.healthing.ca//df7f0263-6707-4aa2-86ed-2da608be https://www.euronews.com//the-anti-mask-movement-who-are-t https://www.iheartradio.ca//anti-mask-protesters-conspirac https://globalnews.ca//ontario-nurse-coronavirus-conspira/ https://www.cbc.ca//bc-anti-mask-comments-covid-19-1.58168 https://www.cbc.ca//calg/anti-mask-rally-calgary-1.5820904 Public health experts are learning from Canada’s anti-mask protests https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/42/E1274 Kourtney Kardashian Sparks Anti-Mask CONSPIRACY Theory! Kourtney Kardashian has immersed herself in even more Kardashian drama this week as she attempted to discourage fans from wearing surgical masks, citing damaging health risks associated with the face covers. Anti-maskers need to reflect on the true meaning of 'injustice,' health officials say. https://youtu.be/nuZ-WR0S7Dg https://www.vox.com//anti-mask-protest-rallies-donald-trum https://www.euronews.com//the-anti-mask-movement-who-are-t What is the meaning of fire break? : a barrier of cleared or plowed land intended to check a forest or grass fire. MPP Randy Hillier charged after hosting anti-COVID-19 lockdown rally Randy is a complete moron, no different from Trump, he inspires the same kind of idiocy in his followers, like having his own mini super spreader events.. He should have been charged with endangering public health and spreading misinformation.. You know what's wrong with the covid virus? It's just not lethal enough.. Maybe if it was just a little more lethal they'd care about who dies.. Covid doesn't care about politics, doesn't care about money or holidays and doesn't care if you're tired of it.. Covid doesn't care and it's not going to go away because you don't feel it's fair.. Randy's followers need to grow the fuck up and start acting like mature responsible adults instead of bunch of whining babies.. My Mother had to move into a nursing home shortly after the pandemic hit and though covid didn't kill her she died a few months later of depression, not being able to be with her family.. The easiest way to put a fire out and keep it from spreading is to starve it of fuel, that's what masks and washing your hands does.. Starves it of fuel.. 2020: Testing face masks: Lab tests reveal the safest and most effective (Marketplace) https://youtu.be/EHVyy08L2gM https://www.cbc.ca//busi/marketplace-cheat-sheet-1.5678001 Why hand sanitizers keep being recalled; COVID-19's effect on small business: CBC's Marketplace cheat sheet. https://globalnews.ca//mpp-randy-hillier-charged-covid-19/ https://www.change.org/p/resign-randy-hillier-independent-m Anti-Jacketers Rally Outside Burlington Coat Factory To Protest Liberal Cold Weather Conspiracy https://www.theonion.com/anti-jacketers-rally-outside-burli https://globalnews.ca//mpp-randy-hillier-charged-covid-19/ CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION: Executive summary The World Health Organization has stated that a parallel infodemic of misinformation is undermining efforts to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This study identifies the most prominent misinformation topics that appeared in traditional and online media in the early phase of the pandemic, from January 1 up to May 26, 2020. The results come from a sample of 38 million articles published in English-language media around the world, making this the first fully comprehensive study of COVID misinformation in the media yet carried out. One major finding is that media mentions of President Trump (followed closely by Ontario's MPP Randy Hillier) within the context of different misinformation topics made up 37% of the overall misinformation conversation, much more than any other single topic. The study concludes that Donald Trump was likely the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation infodemic. In contrast only 16% of media mentions of misinformation were explicitly fact-checking in nature, suggesting that a substantial quantity of misinformation reaches media consumers without being challenged or accompanied by factually accurate information. These findings are of significant concern because if people are misled by unscientific and unsubstantiated claims about the disease, they may attempt harmful cures or be less likely to observe official guidance and thus risk spreading the virus. Quantifying sources and themes in the COVID-19 ‘infodemic How the study worked methodology The study was performed using Cision Media’s Next Generation Communications Cloud platform, which aggregates content from 7 million-plus sources around the world. This database was queried with an English-language search string for misinformation topics in the context of COVID-19, using an iterative cycle of different keywords. The study evaluated over 38 million pieces of content published by English-language, traditional media worldwide between January 1 and May 26, 2020. It analyzed engagement with traditional media stories on social channels. The study identified over 1.1 million news articles (2.9% of the whole COVID-19 conversation) that disseminated, amplified or reported on misinformation related to the pandemic. What the study found The study identified five categories of misinformation: Misinformation/conspiracies sub-topics: We identified 11 key sub-topics within this conversation, which are shown in more detail below. Trump mentions: This topic comprised all mentions of US President Donald Trump within the total misinformation conversation, as a way to quantify the prominence of Trump within the overall COVID infodemic. Infodemic coverage: This topic included articles that mentioned the general term infodemic (or related keywords such as misinformation or hoax combined with mentions of COVID-19) without mentioning a specific additional topic. Fact-checking: This topic includes articles that explicitly mentioned conspiracies, misinformation or factual inaccuracies in a way that aimed to correct misinformation with the audience. Trump-only mentions: This topic represents the volume and frequency of articles that mentioned President Trump in the context of misinformation but did not mention a specific other topic at the same time. The table below shows the quantity of coverage in each category. (Note that subject overlaps result in overall a frequency total of more than 100%.) Misinformation Topic Volume Frequency Identifiable Misinformation Threads/Conspiracies 522,472 46.6% Trump Mentions 423,921 37.9% Infodemic Coverage 261,102 23.4% Fact Checking 183,717 16.4% Trump-Only 115,216 10.3% https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu//Evanega-et-al-Coro

2020: Ontario school board found 'vicariously liable' in sexual abuse case. A former music teacher at I.E. Weldon Secondary School in Lindsay, Ont., has been f...ound liable of sexual abuse of a student in the 1980s, and the Trillium Lakeland District School Board has been found 'vicariously liable' in a recent court decision. (WARNING: This story contains details of sexual assault that some readers may find upsetting) A judge has found a school board in Ontario "vicariously liable" for the historical sexual abuse of a student at the hands of her teacher, in a decision that could set precedent for many other civil cases that blame school administrations for the abusive actions of teachers or other staff. In his June 30 ruling, Justice David Salmers found the co-defendants, the former teacher and the Trillium Lakelands District School Board in Lindsay, Ont., were liable for sexual abuse that took place in the 1980s, ordering them to jointly pay more than $500,000 in damages. "I believe it's a landmark decision because it establishes clearly that a school board in a public school setting, or a school in a private school setting, has to pay damages for sexual misconduct and violence against a student by one of its teachers," said Elizabeth Grace, a partner at Lerners, who represented the woman who was sexually abused. https://www.cbc.ca//ontario-school-board-case-precedent-vi. Other 80's Headlines: In the 1980s, Canadians were shocked into awareness of the widespread evil of child sexual abuse. In Ontario alone, the names Cornwall, Prescott and London became synonymous with "respectable" pedophile rings -- lawyers, doctors, police officers and Catholic clergymen -- that for decades preyed on society's most vulnerable boys. http://www.barbarakay.ca/articles/view/114 https://www.theglobeandmail.com//the-pedoph/article759924/ https://www.cbc.ca//cornwall-inquiry-urged-to-debunk-rumou https://www.thestar.com//huge_inquiry_fails_to_find_pedoph https://www.cbc.ca//ont-premier-questions-cost-of-cornwall https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/cornwall-sex-abuse-victims-given- https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca//E_Vol4_Ph1ExSum ::: 2020: Ontario high school teacher charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation. TORONTO -- Peel Regional Police say a teacher has been charged following a sexual assault investigation involving a student. https://www.sexualabuselawyer.ca/resources/news-media/page/2 Police allege the suspect from a Mississauga high school was in a relationship with a 17-year-old girl that began in 2016. Investigators say Robert Brandstetter of Guelph, Ont., is charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation. The 51-year-old was held for a bail hearing and appeared Tuesday in Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-high-school-teacher-char PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT OF A SEXUAL NATURE - PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY It was originally titled Professional Misconduct Related to Sexual Abuse and Sexual Misconduct in 2002 and has been updated to reflect amendments to the College’s legislation. This advisory applies to all Ontario Certified Teachers (OCTs) including teachers, consultants, vice-principals, principals, supervisory officers, directors of education, those working in non-school-board positions, College members in private and independent schools, and those in positions requiring a certificate of qualification. Read this document in conjunction with College advice on the use of social and electronic media, the duty to report child abuse, bullying, safety in learning environments, and supporting students’ mental health1. https://www.oct.ca//professional-misconduct-of-a-sexual-na ::: 2019: Fugitive Ottawa lawyer arrested on sex crime charges. A disgraced Ottawa lawyer turned fugitive wanted for sex crimes against the child of a former client is now in custody after more than five years on the lam. John David Coon, a one-time criminal defence and family lawyer, abruptly stopped practising law late in 2013 amid an Ottawa police sexual assault investigation. In July of that year, Ottawa cops had started probing an alleged assault on a child. https://ottawacitizen.com//fugitive-ottawa-lawyer-arrested https://www.jellineklaw.com/current-cases.html https://www.cbc.ca//human-trafficking-investigation-york-r ::: 2014: Female teachers: The sex offenders no one suspects. How the treatment of female teachers who sexually exploit male students reflects society’s legal and cultural double standards. by Anne Kingston. In August [2014], Quebec Justice Valmont Beaulieu stated the obvious when he addressed the double standard in the treatment of teachers who have sex with students: The sexual exploitation of a male adolescent by a female teacher must be punished just the same as a male posing the same actions toward a female adolescent, he said before sentencing Tania Pontbriand to 20- and 18-month jail terms to be served concurrently, plus two years probation. The former high school gym teacher from Rosemère, Que., had been found guilty of sexual exploitation and sexual assault of a male student with whom she had a two-year relationship. The trial made headlines internationally. Its details, by turns tawdry and disturbing, revealed how the then 30-year-old Pontbriand acted as mentor, condante and sexual aggressor to the 15-year-old. She gained the trust of the teenager, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, when they exchanged intimate details during a 2002 school cycling trip. He described the pain he felt after his parents’ divorce; she told him her marriage was a mistake. When the student returned home, he told his mother he had a new best friend. Pontbriand initiated sex with the boy soon after on a private trip approved by his mother to help him with his problems; it was the rst of some 300 sexual liaisons that took place on school trips, private getaways, at his home and her home. The teacher bought the boy a cellphone after his mother tried to shut down communication between the two. Evidence shown to the court included coded messages left in the student’s locker and gifts such as the engraved dog tags the teacher gave the student after their rst sexual encounter: BFF. Best Friends Forever. 19-05-02. In a written statement, the student stated that Pontbriand ended it after he entered CEGEP, saying she’d met someone new. He went to police in 2007 after being expelled; later he claimed the relationship left him depressed and suicidal. The victim, now in his 20s, said a psychiatrist helped him understand he’d missed out on normal dating rituals. Pontbriand, now a mother of two, alienated him from family and friends, he said, so as to satisfy her own egotistic and sexual desires. I was far too naive at the time to recognize her lies and manipulation. The judge agreed: The court is convinced that the accused used the victim to satisfy her own sexual needs, thus exploiting the victim’s naïveté, his lack of maturity, his dependence and his trust. Canadian law is clear that a minimum jail sentence must occur in sexual charges involving children, meaning those under age 16, the age of consent; when an adult is in a position of authority or trust, however, that age rises to 18. Yet a cultural double standard persists in attitudes toward and legal treatment of male and female teachers who sexually exploit students. Men routinely face jail time. Women do not. Sentencing in the Pontbriand case, as well as the two-year prison term given former Calgary school teacher Jennifer Mason in July for sexually exploiting a 16-year-old, recognize the severity of the crime. Yet they’re exceptions. In April [2014], Kim Gervais, a 37-year-old former elementary school teacher in Timmins, Ont., was given seven months in jail and two years of probation for abhorrent breach of trust after pleading guilty to three counts of sexual interference and one count of inviting for a sexual purpose involving four male students who were 12 and 13 at the time. Conditional sentences are common. In March, 59-year-old Deborah Marion Ralph, a former Langley, B.C., elementary school teacher, avoided jail after pleading guilty to sexual interference with a student who was 11 when a three-year relationship began in 1998; Ralph was 44. The Crown called for three years incarceration for egregious breach of trust. Ralph received 18 months house arrest, six months curfew and community service. The entrenched belief that men are propelled by lust, women by emotional need, shadowed Ralph’s case, as it does others involving female teachers. A psychiatrist for Ralph’s defence reported the former teacher suffered from teacher-lover syndrome, a clinical term dating to the late 1980s to describe teachers, usually female, who believe they’re in a consensual romantic relationship with students. Ralph’s feelings for the boy grew out of a desire to help others, the court heard; she equated her feelings with young love, and she connected with the boy better than she did with her husband of more than 20 years. Crown counsel David Simpkin presented a more nefarious scenario: [Ralph] appears to be bored, looking for some spice in her life and chose the victim, he said. She doesn’t appear to have any insight into the harm she has caused. Justice Selwyn Romilly was sympathetic to Ralph, concluding the grandmother didn’t pose a danger to the community and shows considerable remorse. When a male is a victim of a female, society doesn’t take it as seriously, says Robert Shoop, a professor of education law at Kansas State University and an internationally recognized expert on sexual harassment and abuse prevention in schools. A male having sex with a minor child is recognized as a horror, which of course it is, he says. But in cases where a female had sex with a minor boy, there have been many examples of judges saying, ‘Where’s the harm here? He bragged to his friends about it, how could he be hurt?’ Judges tend to reect community values, says Shoop, and generally [in the U.S.] judges are over 50 and male. One of those values, he says, is that women are powerless and need to be protected from sex-addled males, whatever their age. READ MORE: https://www.macleans.ca//female-teachers-the-sex-offender/ ::: 2019: Toronto teacher charged with sexual assault. A Toronto Catholic high school teacher has been charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in 2017. Mar 11, 2019, 11:30 PM. https://toronto.citynews.ca//toronto-teacher-charged-with/ https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1322889 ::: 2019: Teacher at Etobicoke school arrested in sexual assault investigation, Toronto police say. By Sherina Harris Staff Reporter. Toronto police have made an arrest in an ongoing sexual assault investigation conducted by the Child & Youth Advocacy Centre. A teacher allegedly sexually assaulted a female student on school property at Father John Redmond Secondary School in Etobicoke in December 2016. https://www.thestar.com//teacher-at-etobicoke-school-arres ::: 2017: Ontario teacher guilty of misconduct for talking about sex and putting her legs behind her head in class. 'If a slutty girl or a horny girl wants to have sex with you, you should fk her well and leave her in a wheelchair for two days,' Leanora Brown told her students https://nationalpost.com//ontario-teacher-guilty-of-miscon ::: 2018: How Ontario allows teachers who commit certain forms of sexual abuse to keep their licences. A grey area in the Protecting Students Act contributes to a system allowing abusive teachers to be transferred between Ontario schools. The provincial government cracked down on a similar loophole for doctors last year. Mitzie Hunter, who was recently shuffled from her post as Minister of Education, didn't answer questions about whether she'd call for amendments to the Protecting Students Act, saying instead that the government would "continue to work with all of our partners to improve ways to prioritize student safety." - Rick Madonik,Toronto Star https://www.thespec.com//8084327-how-ontario-allows-teach/ ::: Maybe sex education should be left to the extremely elderly to teach... https://www.thestar.com//teacher-at-etobicoke-school-arres "Shonin is a body cam for civilians." The team behind Shonin says the camera is designed to capture your side of the story, citing possible uses like documenting road rage, abuses of power, events and protests, threats, and assault. Shonin also notes several everyday situations where it could be used, like walking alone at night, or at home with a child protection social worker where the visible design of the camera itself might act as a deterrent. No reason the students couldn't or shouldn't wear them.. https://www.theverge.com//shonin-wearable-body-cam-civilia ::: 2011: Bad teachers: Ontario's secret list. By Kevin Donovan Staff Reporter. Here were some of the people licensed in Ontario to teach your children. A teacher who disciplined students by warning they would spend time with a pedophile and if the behaviour got worse it would be without vaseline. A high school teacher whose female students said he called them sluts, pole dancers, whore and commented that tongue studs were for oral sex. A teacher who shut Grade 8 students in a storage cupboard to discipline them. A teacher who repeatedly took photos of Grade 8 girls with his cellphone. A drunk teacher who sexually assaulted a store clerk. A teacher who stole money students deposited with her for school trips to Europe. A teacher who scared female Grade 6 students by drawing pictures depicting one girl’s death and tacking them to her dormitory window during a three-day outdoor education trip. A principal and vice-principal who did not report a child’s allegations of sexual abuse, as required by law. A gym teacher who frequently came late to school, smelled of booze and fell asleep in class. The identity of scores of bad teachers and dozens more each year is kept secret by the profession’s watchdog the Ontario College of Teachers. That’s because the watchdog a self-regulatory body granted them anonymity after the teacher pleaded guilty or no contest to certain allegations. Typically, the teachers received a reprimand or short suspension. In its investigation, the Star also found teachers who help students cheat on provincial EQAO tests; a teacher who ridiculed students’ religious beliefs; a teacher who repeatedly hit or manhandled students; a teacher who flirted with a Grade 7 girl, sending her what a judge ruled (though the teacher was acquitted of sexual assault and exploitation charges) were sexually charged text messages including lots of love and can’t stop thinking about you, I didn’t want you to leave today. In some cases, a summary is published on the watchdog’s website and in its quarterly newsletter, without the teacher’s name or school. Some of the cases particularly those dealing with incompetence are never published at all. Parents, these teachers could be in your school. The Star has found that three years ago the backlogged Ontario College of Teachers began making more and more of these secret deals. These are not the worst of the worst cases where a teacher was convicted of a criminal sexual assault on a student but they are still serious abuses of trust. The Star reports on the more serious cases Saturday and the teaching profession’s inability to reduce the attacks 12 years after retired judge Sydney Robins probed that problem. When it comes to keeping secret the names of some offenders, College Registrar Michael Salvatori said it is done if the teacher had a momentary lapse of judgment. Salvatori said that they make the decision in the public interest. Salvatori said College rules prevented him from commenting on any of the cases. After the Star raised this and other issues with the College this summer, it hired respected retired judge Patrick LeSage just before Labour Day to examine its disciplinary practices. One of LeSage’s jobs is to consider whether the College’s communication and publication practices prior to and following a hearing meet current standards of transparency. To determine how many teachers’ identities are kept secret, the Star first obtained all published decisions of teacher wrongdoing. Each year, the Ontario College of Teachers makes a finding of wrongdoing in about 90 cases. The Star obtained copies of all decisions that the College makes public on its website or in its magazine. The College said it publishes these decisions to educate members and show to the public that it is doing its job of protecting students. More and more, we found, problem teachers are shielded from the public. Of the 49 cases published in 2010, 35 did not identify the teacher. Of the 43 cases published in 2009, 20 did not identify the teacher. Of the 38 cases published in 2008, 5 did not identify the teacher. In most of these cases, the College also did not identify the school board and the school was never named. In addition, between 40 and 50 College cases per year are not published at all. The discipline decisions are made by committees comprised of teachers elected to the College’s governing council and members of the public. The college has three main committees that sit in judgment investigation, discipline and fitness to practise. Typically, a three-person panel has two teachers and one public member. The Star found that most teachers on the panels were previously members of a local bargaining unit of a teachers’ union. The panels hear cases, decide if punishment (anything from an admonishment to revocation of licence) is necessary and determine if the teacher’s name should be published. If Ryan Geekie was your son or daughter’s teacher you would not know that a very serious investigation was carried out into his conduct. You would have no way of knowing that a summary report the College published in April 2010 about a teacher who used profane language was related to 36-year-old Hamilton teacher Ryan Geekie. It took time but the Star was able to identify Geekie. We were then able to obtain a copy of the College’s original allegations and an agreed statement of facts between Geekie and the College. Reached by the Star’s Jesse McLean at his Hamilton apartment, Geekie said he was really tired and could not answer questions. Geekie was licensed by the College to teach in 2001. A well-known hockey goalie (Ontario Provincial Junior League) in the Hamilton area, Geekie attended McMaster University for his undergraduate degree and teachers college at Brock University. He became a high school English teacher at the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board. According to a school board investigation done in 2008, and allegations subsequently made by the College, Geekie was an abusive, lecherous teacher from 2003-2008 who: stuffed rolled paper balls down the shirts of female students called students retarded, hooker, pole dancers, slut and whore challenged a female student to a fist fight, then made a sexual suggestion that he would find something for her to do with her fists asked the class if an absent student’s mother had died of a sexually transmitted disease gave a female student extra marks for work she did not do told a female student with a tongue stud that they were for oral sex spoke in class about having sex in the back of his car, drank with students at parties, swore constantly in class and called people gay if he thought they were stupid, slapped female students on their buttocks with sticks or his hand, took showers with the boys hockey team and brushed a female student’s breast with his arm. The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic school board had heard complaints about Geekie over the years and they were dealt with at the school level, said board chair Pat Daly. In 2008, following an investigation into more serious allegations Geekie was put on paid home duty in February 2008. He was fired by the board just before the 2008-2009 school year began. Geekie did not respond to three interview requests. He is listed as a teacher in good standing in Ontario after serving a one-month suspension in 2010. It appears he has taken a break from teaching and is delivering mail. The case went to the College’s discipline committee and a deal was reached. Geekie pleaded no contest to a modified list of allegations (a perception among female students that he leered; that he questioned girls about their relationships; that he suggested female students stop talking about tongue studs as they were for oral sex; that he slapped the thigh of a female student with a metre stick; that he swore often and called students whore, retard, gay and ditsy). The committee said it published a summary of the case, keeping Geekie’s name secret, to demonstrate the transparency of the discipline process and as a general deterrent to teachers. The committee kept Geekie’s name secret due to the contents of two teacher evaluations it received (the College does not say what was in them). The committee also heard from lawyers on both sides that his actions were on the low end of the spectrum of problem teachers. Finally, the committee noted that Geekie is likely not to reoffend because he has been told to take a course on boundary issues. In a second case the Star was able to identify Peel District School Board teacher Massimo Tallarico, who was acquitted in 2009 of sexual assault and exploitation charges by a criminal court. The College’s own process found that he committed professional misconduct related to a female student in her Grade 7 and 8 years. According to the College, Tallarico, who hung up when the Star contacted him, engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student who was shy and introverted and suffered from a social anxiety disorder. He frequently emailed and instant messaged her, saying things like lots of love, miss you lots, I wish I could talk to you all the time, can’t stop thinking about you, I didn’t want you to leave today and I always love it when you come and talk to me. At his trial (two years before the College hearing), the judge called his communication with the girl which he initially denied to police flirty and even sexually charged. The judge said she could not find that any sexual touching occurred (the student alleged it had) but she chided Tallarico for his behaviour. She said he was seen as young and cool and he cultivated his image of being the most fun and popular teacher in the school. In his defence, Tallarico said his emails were innocuous and sent as a way to encourage a shy girl to communicate. The judge found that Tallarico’s online chatting with the girl did a grave disservice in her quest to become an adult. The teacher was reprimanded by the College and told to complete a course on appropriate boundaries. The discipline committee voted two to one not to name him. One committee member argued he should have been identified because publication of the findings and order without the member’s name amounts to suppression of information and raises questions in the minds of the public regarding the transparency of the process. One teacher the College did identify was a teacher whose only crime was to break their secrecy rules. James Black, a teacher and former discipline committee member, was publicly named by the College and suspended for two years because the College suspected he leaked information to the media. The committee suspected (but could not prove) that Black gave information to a CTV reporter in 2006 who was probing the College’s practice of allowing teachers convicted of sex crimes to be reinstated after their licence was revoked. The College claims Black leaked information to CTV News about a teacher convicted of sexual exploitation in 1990, who was jailed 15 months and later sought reinstatement. In 2009, the committee fined its former member, Black, $1,000, and suspended him for two years. The College ruled that Black was guilty of a serious breach of confidentiality which may have damaged the professional image of the College and its members. The need for a strong general deterrent is imperative in this matter. Black, reached by the Star, said he could not comment on his case. The teacher in the case that led to Black’s suspension, Rodney Palmer, was suspended in 1991 and reinstated in 2003 in a closed-door hearing. He taught for a time east of Toronto, then retired. Data analysis: Andrew Bailey Kevin Donovan can be reached at [email protected] or (416) 869-4425 https://www.thestar.com//bad_teachers_ontarios_secret_list ::: Re: Teachers entitled to due process, Letter Oct. 2. 2011. (if the right of the child comes before the right of the parent to due process and procedural protections why should teachers be treated differently?) As a retired Ontario teacher and onetime executive member of the local Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, I was underwhelmed by the letter from the three teachers federations regarding the Sept. 30 article Bad teachers, Ontario’s secret list. https://www.thestar.com//more_reaction_to_teachers_series. ::: 2011: Predator teachers: Students ruined by teacher sex assaults By Kevin Donovan Staff Reporter. Predator teachers have left a trail of wounded students across Ontario. Teachers, mostly male but some female, have sexually abused young people. Broken lives are the result. A Toronto Star investigation has found this is a serious problem that nobody not the teacher watchdog, school boards or teachers' unions has been able to curb. Star investigation Bad Teachers: Ontario’s Secret List Twelve years ago, retired Judge Sydney L. Robins took aim with Protecting Our Students, a provincial review that was supposed to be a road map to help the education system identify and prevent sexual assault by teachers. Sadly, a Star investigation has found the number of known sexual assaults has held steady or increased most years, and most importantly the severity of the attacks has increased. Grooming the term used to describe adults who charm, flatter and court children for months or years before the assault is a factor in many cases. There are many smart, hard-working teachers in Ontario's school system. The ones you are about to read about are not among them. One teacher repeatedly tried to have intercourse with a Grade 9 girl until he finally succeeded. Students say he gave A's for oral sex. Another teacher molested male students as young as 10 for more than a decade before he was recently stopped. The details of the cases many with multiple victims are disgusting. In addition to sexual assaults, some teachers have been caught making and possessing child pornography. This summer, in the course of an investigation that began in the spring, the Star raised numerous issues with the watchdog, the Ontario College of Teachers. Just before Labour Day, the College quietly announced it had hired retired Justice Patrick LeSage, one of Canada's most respected judges, to probe its disciplinary system and report back next May. Two students, one female, the other male, from Ontario schools hundreds of kilometres apart, used similar words to describe the effect of abuse on their life. You have taken so much from me, more than just my virginity, my soul, one of two female victims of Mark Baggio wrote to the teacher before his arrest. Baggio, 34, a former Windsor teacher and guidance counsellor was once a track star at the same school, part of the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board. The young student and another girl were groomed by Baggio beginning in Grade 7 at elementary school. The tall, bald-headed Baggio followed them to their high school and took a position teaching there. Beginning in Grade 9, he separately told both girls he would one day put a ring on your finger. Over the next four years, at the school, in his truck or at his home he made them give him oral sex and finally had intercourse with them. With one girl he tried numerous times before he was able to have sex with her. At Baggio's trial, evidence emerged that other teachers knew something odd was going on and apparently did nothing. During what is now known to be when one assault occurred, another teacher witnessed Baggio enter a storage room with the girl during a basketball tournament, then saw Baggio pop his head out before retreating back inside. The teacher did nothing at the time, according to his testimony at the trial. The girls swam in Baggio's pool and slept over. Other teachers at the school knew that Baggio, who taught religion and was a guidance counselor and coach, was frequently driving the girls home. When the police arrested Baggio he broke down and cried. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2005, appealed and was free on bail until the appeal was denied earlier this year. He began serving his sentence in January. The family of one victim is suing the school board alleging that it failed the protect her. The case will go to trial within a year. The school board has denied the allegation. In Peterborough, a former student spoke recently in court of the pain the now 58-year-old Alexander Clachers caused. They rob you of your soul, I guess. They leave you physically there but they murder your soul, said a young man who was one of many victims (most male but one female) of Clachers, a teacher at a technical school. The school principal in Peterborough was well aware young boys were hanging around Clachers' home, and knew Clachers was driving them places and that the teacher was frequently absent from his class, according to testimony at Clachers' trial. The young man, beginning at age 11, was molested repeatedly by Clachers, who taught him and lived nearby. During sleepovers at Clachers' home the boy, who was Clachers' student, would wake up to find Clachers molesting him, his mouth over the boy's penis. In Clachers' classroom, other young boys were grabbed and their genitals fondled over the years. Like Baggio, Clachers was sent to prison this year; Clachers was jailed 10 years for sexual assaults on seven students and was designated a long-term offender. Both were convicted of sexual assault and sexual exploitation, a charge used when someone in a position of power (a teacher over a student) sexually abuses a person. Both men are still listed as teachers because the College, which regulates and acts as a watchdog, has such a backlog of hearings that they will not deal with them for many months or even years. Just how many predators like Clachers and Baggio are in Ontario classrooms is impossible to know. Former Justice Robins, in his 2000 report, concluded the known cases (where someone was caught) were the tip of the iceberg. The College only rules on a teacher's professional fate after any court action ends. Since College hearings often take three, four or five years to be held from the date of the complaint it is impossible to determine annual trends based on the year the college delivers a ruling. The College's own data show that in 2010 it began investigating 48 serious sexual assault complaints and that number has been rising steadily over the past three years 28 in 2008, 44 in 2009 and 48 in 2010. Not all completed College cases could be obtained by the Star. Of just under 400 we could find over the past seven years, more than one-third dealt with sexual assault or pornography (a teacher being caught using school computers to access pornography and, in some cases, make child pornography). Many other College cases are not made public. There are also an unknown number of discipline actions at the local board level. The Star contacted several large school boards, including Toronto, Durham and Peel, but they could not say how many times teachers or principals had been disciplined. In the case of teacher sex crimes, what struck the Star was the seriousness of the cases and how many had multiple victims over years with missed opportunities to stop the teacher. One senior education official told the Star, on condition of anonymity, that pressures from teachers' unions have created a chill no teacher wants to rat another out. Principals, the source said, are sometimes scared to take action because everything is grieved these days. Here are a few recent cases. Antonio Raco In what teachers commonly refer to as passing the trash, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District Board moved this Grade 6 teacher between at least four schools from 1991 to 2005. College prosecutors allege his assaults on girls from Grades 6-8 included taking students into the supply room and groping them; pulling a student close and thrusting his pelvis against her from behind; playing a game he called Red Light, moving his hands all over a girl's body until he touched her vagina; touching their breasts and hugging them so he could feel their breasts; and sitting on the floor in gym class and pulling girls against his groin. Raco swore at students, threw desks and played favourites. When one parent complained he told all the students he was going to shun her daughter. He was also, the college alleges, a dreadful educator. One day, he told his young students never to share classroom discussions with parents: This is Raco's circle whatever happens in Raco's circle stays in Raco's circle. Raco, 53, was convicted of three counts of sexual assault in 2009 and sentenced to six months in jail. He is appealing his conviction. The College began a hearing two weeks ago but adjourned it because it was worried Raco (who was not in attendance) had not been properly notified. Another Windsor teacher (with the Greater Essex County District School Board), Thomas Powers, had a sexual relationship with one of his high school students. During one sexual encounter in the school he told her she would not have to write the final exam and her mark would go up. He was convicted of sexual exploitation, jailed six months and lost his teacher's licence. Terrence Lithgow This 54-year-old York Region high school gym teacher died in jail in 2009 (a coroner’s inquest ruled the cause of death was suicide) after both the criminal courts and the College found him guilty of abusing his position to gain a young girl's trust beginning in Grade 9 at Woodbridge's Father Bressani Catholic High School. It began with emails, drinking together and progressed to touching and finally intercourse on many occasions in the school, a park, a car and a hotel. Lithgow told her he loved her, gave her gifts, acted as her tutor and made her promise never to tell anyone about their activities. The courts sentenced Lithgow to 15 months in jail and the College took away his licence in 2008. Jeremy Raymond Pike An elementary teacher in Oshawa, Pike sexually assaulted eight young boys between the ages of two and 14 and made child pornography. Police raided his home and found DVDs and CDs showing the 36-year-old teacher engaged in fondling, masturbation, acts of fellatio and anal intercourse. Some of the boys were restrained during the attacks. Pike was licensed to teach primary students in 2002. The courts found he began his attacks in 2001 and they lasted until 2005. Pike was convicted of sexual interference and making and possessing child pornography. He was sent to prison for 14 years and his teaching licence was revoked. Scott James Keen The math teacher at West Humber Collegiate in Etobicoke had his licence revoked for a sexual assault in his classroom while he was alone with a 16-year-old student. A staff member walked in and reported Keen. In 2007, Keen pleaded guilty in criminal court to one count of sexual assault; the prosecutor withdrew the more serious charge of sexual exploitation. He was put on probation for three years. Scott Thomas Wells Hamilton teacher Scott Thomas Wells was grooming a student for his sexual gratification starting in Grade 9 at the Catholic high school where he taught religion and Canadian literature. Wells frequently had lunch with the girl and her friends, discussed oral sex and then invited her to babysit his two young children. The College found that beginning in Grade 12 he had sex with the girl in motel rooms, using the ruse that he was going to teach her to drive. The girl became pregnant, he married then divorced her. Wells, who was not charged criminally, was prosecuted by the College and its disciplinary panel revoked his licence in 2009 calling his behaviour reprehensible. In an interview, College registrar Michael Salvatori said he could not discuss any individual cases. The Star had hoped Salvatori would answer questions about whether students were let down by the College or the school boards in cases where it appeared better screening or earlier detection would have saved a lot of pain. We are confident we have processes in place to protect students, Salvatori said. We can always do better. Asked about cases where it appears a teacher did not warn authorities of unusual behaviour (Baggio is one), Salvatori said there are very few cases where (teachers or principals) do not carry out their duties. The College relies on boards of education to screen teachers with a thorough background check. The College requires a police check before the licence is approved; boards require a police check, as well. Salvatori said the College does speak to educational groups and parent groups from time to time about what the College does. The heart (of the College) is the public interest and safety of students, said Salvatori, who added the College is concerned about the welfare of students and ensuring teachers are well qualified and competent. School boards contacted by the Star typically would not give interviews and provided generic responses to questions, saying they follow all College rules about prompt notification of problem teachers. Data analysis by Andrew Bailey Kevin Donovan can be reached at [email protected] or (416) 869-4425 https://www.thestar.com//predator_teachers_students_ruined ::: 2011: Soft-porn writing teacher who targeted teens resigns from watchdog. The former head of the discipline committee of the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) is facing professional misconduct charges for his role in co-authoring a sexually explicit novel for teens. Jacques Tremblay resigned his position as chair of the OCT’s disciplinary committee, a position that involves overseeing sexual assault cases, in 2011 after his part in writing a soft porn novel titled The Sexteens and the Fake Goddess was exposed in a Toronto Star investigation. The book is a lurid tale of striptease, breast fondling, bum grabbing, orgasms, drugs and blackmail, reported the Star’s Kevin Donovan in the exposé. The cover of the book depicts the backs of a boy and a girl naked from the waist up looking at a silhouette of the CN Tower. The other authors of the book are identified as Tremblay’s wife, Marie-Ange Gagnon, and Frederic Tremblay. Following Jacques Tremblay’s resignation the OCT launched an investigation into the situation, although the teachers’ watchdog had earlier maintained that Tremblay’s writing did not have an impact on his ability to act in the public interest. Tremblay himself had argued that his book was entirely separate from his work at the College and service to the public, saying the book was meant to empower teenagers, to encourage them to be strong and resist or avoid peer pressure. However, in an article on his website Tremblay says the purpose of his novel is to help teens find their inner voice which will affect their future sex life because having higher self-esteem below the belt leads to better sex. He also warns teens that having negative attitudes about sex could have a direct impact on orgasm. https://mychristiandaily.com/teen-sex-novel-lands-former-o/ ::: Ontario’s top teacher watchdog has quit. Jacques Tremblay, who the Star reported was a writer of soft porn replete with questionable administrator-teacher-student conduct, resigned Tuesday. He was the chairperson for five years of the Ontario College of Teachers’ disciplinary panel, which sits in judgment on hundreds of teachers accused of misconduct. In the novel, main character Leila Montana is introduced as a young teen just starting high school. She is also joining a group called the Sexteens’ Select Society. As she awaits initiation into this mysterious alliance, the book describes her appearance as follows: Her half-open shirt divulges the roundness of her gorgeous bosom. Leila’s particularly short skirt exposes her barely fleshy buttocks. There are several other detailed references throughout the book about the bodies of Leila and other girls. Taking an oath to the mysterious society, Leila promises to develop my teenage life at my own rhythm inspired by the aphrodisiac cult, which is based on the power of love and the emancipation of my sexuality. On the day after the initiation, Leila wakes up and feels a new energy swelling within her. . . . Despite her efforts, however, Leila can’t remember what really happened. She is peaceful and undisturbed by this lapse of memory. Meanwhile, Leila feels a very light, but quite pleasant, tingling on her upper right buttock. (Nothing at all creepy about this is there and everything about this little scenario is perfectly normal, right?) ::: Date rape drugs facts: It’s Not Just Roofies Anymore. Date rape drugs are drugs used to assist in a sexual assault, which is any type of sexual activity a person does not agree to. These drugs can affect you very quickly and cause victims to become weak, confused, and even pass out. You may not remember what happened while you were drugged. The most common date rape drugs -- also called "club drugs" -- are flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), also called roofies; gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also called liquid ecstasy; and ketamine, also called Special K. These drugs may come as pills, liquids, or powders. Alcohol may also be considered a date rape drug because it affects judgment and behavior and can be used to help commit sexual assault. The club drug "ecstasy" (MDMA) has also been used to commit sexual assault. Protect yourself by not accepting drinks from others, not sharing drinks, watching your drink, and by avoiding creepy societies and having a non-drinking friend with you to make sure nothing happens. If you suspect you have been exposed to a date rape drug or have been sexually assaulted, call 911 and get to an emergency room immediately. Date rape drugs can also cause seizures and even death. Adverse Effects of Club Drugs Uncertainties about the sources, chemicals, and possible contaminants used to manufacture many club drugs make it extremely difficult to determine toxicity and associated medical consequences. Nonetheless, we do know that: Coma and seizures can occur following use of GHB. Combined use with other drugs such as alcohol can result in nausea and breathing difficulties. GHB and two of its precursors, gamma butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4 butanediol (BD), have been involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes, and deaths. Rohypnol may be lethal when mixed with alcohol and/or other CNS depressants. Ketamine, in high doses, can cause impaired motor function, high blood pressure, and potentially fatal respiratory problems. https://nationalpost.com//chairman-of-teachers-discipline- https://www.thestar.com//top_teacher_watchdog_who_wrote_po https://www.thespec.com//2221198-soft-porn-writing-teache/ ::: 2013: Project Spade child porn ring arrests by the numbers. In Canada: 40 teachers (no surprises here) 9 doctors and nurses (no surprises here) 32 volunteers (volunteers for who?) 6 law enforcement personnel (no surprises here) 9 faith leaders (priests and pastors) 3 foster parents (big surprise it wasn't more) Ontario: 50 Rest of Canada: 58 United States: 76 International: 164 https://www.macleans.ca//huge-child-porn-ring-busted-toro/ https://www.toronto.com//4219011-toronto-police-s-project/ https://www.cbsnews.com//almost-350-suspects-nabbed-in-hu/ https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video

Red Flags of Corruption in Organizational Culture. V 2.0 What does Ontario's children's aid society and known corrupt corporations have in common? Or a better question might be, what don't they have in common. A lot of dead children in unmarked graves. What kind of an organizational culture do corrupt companies tend to have? To answer this question, I conducted a study based on a review of academic literature as well as in-depth interviews with 23 prominent lawyers, investiga...Continue reading

What is the meaning of fire break? : a barrier of cleared or plowed land intended to check a forest or grass fire. MPP Randy Hillier charged after hosting anti-COVID-19 lockdown rally...Continue reading

2014: Province lifts publication ban on children in care (with photos) The provincial government on Wednesday overturned a publication ban that made it illegal to publish the names and pictures of children and teens who died while receiving child welfare services. Now, for the first time in nearly a decade, we can show you their faces. Some of these children were apprehended from their parents and died in foster care, kinship care or group homes; others were known to child we...Continue reading

2020: TORONTO -- Ontario's child welfare system will be redesigned to focus on prevention and early intervention, the provincial government said Wednesday. "Child welfare should not be the system that is feared," Dunlop said in a news conference. "No one should be scared to lose their children for speaking to a children's aid society." Associate Minister of Children and Women's Issues Jill Dunlop said the new strategy will also work to address the over-representation of Blac...Continue reading

2018: "Ontario’s child protection system fails children, again." By Star Editorial Board. Children should, at the very least, survive the attempts of Ontario’s child protection system to help them. What an incredibly low bar that is, Ontario’s child advocate noted. And how shocking that, yet again, Ontario has failed to meet it....Continue reading

12 Coronavirus Autopsy Cases. https://youtu.be/y6h8TIxeg1g

He's a complete moron, no different from Trump, he inspires the same kind of idiocy in his followers, like having his own mini super spreader events.. He should have been charged with endangering public health and spreading misinformation.. You know what's wrong with the covid virus? It's just not lethal enough.. Maybe if it was just a little more lethal they'd care about who dies.. My Mother had to move into a nursing home shortly after the pandemic hit and though covid didn...'t kill her she died a few months later of depression, not being able to be with her family.. Covid doesn't care about politics, doesn't care about money and doesn't care if you're tired of it.. Covid doesn't care and it's not going to go away because you don't feel it's fair.. Randy's followers need to grow the fuck up and start acting like mature responsible adults instead of bunch of whining babies.. The easiest way to put a fire out and keep it from spreading is to starve it of fuel, that's what masks and washing your hands does.. Starves it of fuel.. https://globalnews.ca//mpp-randy-hillier-charged-covid-19/ https://www.change.org/p/resign-randy-hillier-independent-m Anti-Jacketers Rally Outside Burlington Coat Factory To Protest Liberal Cold Weather Conspiracy https://www.theonion.com/anti-jacketers-rally-outside-burli https://globalnews.ca//mpp-randy-hillier-charged-covid-19/

2020: Complacency not an option when protecting kids and it's time for all of us to open our eyes and smell the coffee.. Every October, in honour of Child Abuse Prevention month, the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton takes part in a provincewide campaign to raise awareness about the important role that our local communities play in supporting vulnerable children, youth and families while completely ignoring all the children that have died or been harmed in care. ht...Continue reading

In case you missed it and before we can't share it anymore. Denham was fully acquitted in June 2020. Read more here, https://ottawacitizen.com//it-was-four-years-of-my-life-on

Pretty sad :(. So much for those who still refuse to believe this is for real and not a hoax, those anti maskers need to smarten up and realize this can strike ...anyone period and they are not immune to it, they claim their rights are being violated by these restriction but they don't seem to realize the rights of others who don't want to get this virus which is the majority need to be respected as well, this child did not have to die from this neither are those in Long Term Care homes or those under 60 years old, their rights to live was snatched away by a deadly virus and those victims family and friends have to deal with their lost and that is not exactly right to disrespect these people by not wearing a mask or not listening to health advice when it comes to this. See more

Remember War Bonds..? Why not Pandemic Bonds...? A war bond is a debt security issued by a government to finance military operations during times of war or conflict. Investment in War Bonds was made through an emotional appeal to patriotic citizens to lend the government money as these bonds offered a rate of return below the market rate. Apr 15, 2020. https://www.thebalance.com/what-are-war-bonds-how-much-are- ... https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-singh-calls-for-/

MAYBE IT'S TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO ACCESS A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHILD WELFARE EXPERT? See: Robert D. Hare, C.M. (born 1934 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is a researcher in the field of criminal psychology. He developed the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-Revised), used to assess cases of psychopathy. Hare advises the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) and consults for various British and North American prison services. He describe...Continue reading

2020: Internal report blasts Peel Children’s Aid Society for ‘gross inequities’ and ‘structural racism’ By Sara Mojtehedzadeh Black staff at Peel Children’s Aid Society are experiencing harm, trauma and negative outcomes as a result of a corporate culture committed to white supremacy, according to an internal report obtained by the Star....Continue reading

WHEN CRIME WON'T PAY THE SOCIETY WILL... "Lemay said the person behind the breach is likely a disgruntled client who was looking to embarrass us. Lemay says the report in question is not "typical" of the work FCSLLG does or the documentation it keeps. He also says the organization has no reason to believe any of its other clients had their personal information compromised....Continue reading

As I said too many times in the last 20 years or so, no matter the reasons why one maybe homeless, no one period deserves to die out there because they are hom...eless and because of incompetence dealing with a Government made crisis and too many of them have passed away in this city alone over the years since the homeless crisis began, time for our Governments to wake up and do what needs to be done to end this crisis and not with more multi years plans going nowhere to fix anything and time to stop coming up with more temporary solution doing nothing to fix anything as well. See more

"Lemay said the person behind the breach is likely a disgruntled client who was looking to embarrass us. Lemay says the report in question is not "typical" of the work FCSLLG does or the documentation it keeps. He also says the organization has no reason to believe any of its other clients had their personal information compromised. Identifying those who are involved with children’s aid is illegal under the Child and Family Services Act. Releasing this information carries a...Continue reading

Civilized Oppression and Moral Relations: Victims, Fallibility, and the Moral Community. Oppression can refer to an authoritarian regime controlling its citizen...s via state control of children, politics, the monetary system, media, and the military; denying people any meaningful human or civil rights; and terrorizing the populace through harsh, unjust punishment, and a hidden network of obsequious informants reporting to a vicious secret police force/children's aid societies. Oppression also refers to a less overtly malicious pattern of subjugation, although in many ways this social oppression represents a particularly insidious and ruthlessly effective form of manipulation and control. In this instance, the subordination and injustices do not afflict everyoneinstead it targets specific groups of people for restrictions, ridicule, and marginalization. No universally accepted term has yet emerged to describe this variety of oppression, although some scholars will parse the multiplicity of factors into a handful of categories, e.g., social (or sociocultural) oppression; institutional (or legal) oppression; and economic oppression of which the children's aid societies of Ontario fits into every category. - Silenced, discredited, stripped of powers of moral appeal, and deprived of the interpersonal conditions necessary for maintaining self-respect and labeled with an eligibility spectrum code then portrayed as being merely disgruntled, many people suffer from serious but subtle forms of oppression involving neither physical violence nor the use of law. In Civilized Oppression J.Harvey forcefully argues for the crucial role of morally distorted relationships in such oppression. While uncovering a set of underlying moral principles that account for the immorality of civilized oppression, Harvey's analyses provide frameworks for identifying morally problematic situations and relationships, criteria for evaluating them, and guidelines for appropriate responses. This book will be essential for both graduates and undergraduates in ethics, social theory, theory of justice, and feminist and race studies. This book discusses how civilized oppression (the oppression that involves neither violence nor the law) can be overcome by re-examining our participation in it. Moral community, solidarity and education are offered as vibrant strategies to overcome the hurt and marginalization that stem from civilized oppression. https://books.google.ca/books?id=idBqAAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y ::: "[A]buse of process (is) the intentional use of legal process for an improper purpose incompatible with the lawful function of the process by one with an ulterior motive in doing so, and with resulting damages." "In its broadest sense, abuse of process may be defined as misuse or perversion of regularly issued legal process for a purpose not justified by the nature of the process." ::: Abuse of power, in the form of "malfeasance in office" or "official misconduct," is the commission of an unlawful act, done in an official capacity, which affects the performance of official duties. ... Abuse of power can also mean a person using the power they have for their own personal gain. The act of using one's position of power in an abusive way. This can take many forms, such as taking advantage of someone, gaining access to information that shouldn't be accessible to the public, or just manipulating someone with the ability to punish them if they don't comply. Covert and overt abuse of power: Covert: covert means that something is hidden, in the case of power, it would mean that someone is concealing their abuse of power from the public/other service users/other care workers. Covert abuse of power can happen in any setting. ::: http://motheriskcommission.ca//Report-of-the-Motherisk-Com https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca//about/pubs/mot/ https://www.thestar.com//motherisk-tests-unfair-and-harmfu https://www.cbc.ca/n/health/motherrisk-commission-1.4552160 https://www.thestar.com//parents-lose-second-bid-to-launch https://www.cbc.ca//motherisk-tainted-tests-broken-families https://torontosun.com//mandel-victims-of-bad-science-at-m https://futurecontent.co/5-reasons-motherisk-scandal-shoul/ https://blog.cansfordlabs.co.uk/5-reasons-why-the-motherisk

It looks like Alberta's foster care system, has not changed its ways.

The adults: a psychiatrist, social worker, an unregistered Children’s Aid Society worker, three hospital mental health managers, a court psychotherapist, and a ...community services co-ordinator. The girl: 15, living on the streets, mentally ill, refusing treatment, addicted to crystal meth and cocaine, suffering from crack cornea, an ulceration of the eye from smoking or snorting cocaine. And working in the sex trade. What to do? Her parents were in the room with the eight other adults. They had an answer: keep her in the hospital and help her. She’ll die on the streets if you let her out, they warned Her parents contacted police, hospital officials, child welfare workers, psychiatrists, social workers, politicians and the media over and over again, always with the same question. Why can’t anyone help our daughter? The answer, experts say, rests in gaps in funding and policy for Ontario youth with the most serious mental illness, and in the gaps in support for teens at risk of being trafficked. https://lfpress.com//about-a-girl-one-familys-fight-for-he ::: 2019: A new study, published in Psychiatry Research, has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders. ... Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules. There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses. The main findings of the research were: Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses. Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events. Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need. The authors conclude that diagnostic labelling represents 'a disingenuous categorical system'. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas/2019//190708131152.htm https://neurosciencenews.com/meaningless-psychiatric-diagn/ https://www.psychologytoday.com//are-psychiatric-diagnoses https://sharpbrains.com//study-finds-psychiatric-diagnose/ https://www.studyfinds.org/study-psychiatric-diagnoses-are/ https://www.sciencealert.com/the-way-we-diagnose-psychiatri ::: 2007: Nearly half of children in Crown care are medicated. The researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clear majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis. A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street. "A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily." 'whole range of disorders' Nowhere is concern greater than in Ontario, where the provincial government recently appointed a panel of experts to develop standards of care for administering drugs to children in foster care, group homes and detention centres. The move was made after the high-profile case last year of a now-13-year-old boy in a group home outside Toronto came to light. The boy was saddled with four serious psychiatric diagnoses, including oppositional defiant disorder and Tourette's syndrome, and doused daily with a cocktail of psychotropic drugs before his grandparents came to his rescue. Now living with his grandparents, he is free of diagnoses and drugs. Marti McKay is the Toronto child psychologist who, when hired by the local CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians to the boy, discovered a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs. "There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses. "There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders." https://www.theglobeandmail.com//nearly-hal/article687480/ ::: 2014: Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes. In almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 48.6 per cent are on drugs, such as Ritalin, tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, according to a yearly survey conducted for the provincial government and the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). At ages 16 and 17, fully 57 per cent are on these medications. In group homes, the figure is even higher an average of 64 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent. The medication problem is huge, says Raymond Lemay, who retired this summer after 32 years as executive director of the Prescott-Russell children’s aid society. It’s catastrophic. We should be doing other things than medicating these kids, he says, adding his agency discourages the use of psychotropic drugs. Medication is inappropriate in many circumstances and will do these kids long-term damage. MEET THE PUSHERS... At the Brant CAS, drugs make up 52 per cent of expenditures on health insurance claims. The top five drugs prescribed and paid for by insurance are all used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including Concerta, Strattera and Adderall. https://www.thestar.com//use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_wi ::: How do child molesters gain access to their victims? Victim says a sex cult was run out of an Ontario foster home for years and Children’s Aid Society knew. An Ontario county Children’s Aid Society failed to detect or act on the systemic abuses of countless vulnerable children in several foster care homes over a span of 8 years. Global provides a quote from one of the victims demonstrating that neighbours wondered how Joe and Janet Holmes were able to receive and care for children. The same victim had her contact information distributed by her abusers to people in the town, who then sent her sexually inappropriate messages and contributed to her abuse. While both Joe and his wife Janet were sentenced to jail time in 2011 for their various, horrific abuses of children, they were far from the only ones. Global reports the last foster family to be convicted with the abuse of children in their care in the Prince Edward county system was in 2015. Bill Sweet, the executive director of the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society, was charged in 2018 with 10 counts of neglect, and 10 counts of failing to provide the necessities of life. His preliminary trial begins in July 2019, and his lawyer asserts that he will defend himself against the charges. https://thepostmillennial.com/a-sex-cult-was-run-out-of-an- https://globalnews.ca//teen-sexual-cult-ontario-foster-ho/ https://www.intelligencer.ca//3fd07287-3f2a-1755-7386-1c8c ::: 2010: Psychologist got degree from U.S. 'diploma mill' A psychologist with the Durham Children’s Aid Society has pleaded guilty to professional misconduct for misrepresenting himself and for making multiple unqualified diagnoses of mental illness. Gregory Carter, 63, appeared before the College of Psychologists of Ontario’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday. He and the college agreed on the terms of the penalty, which includes a three-month suspension, a recorded reprimand and one year of supervised practice under an approved practitioner. In his practice with the Children’s Aid Society, Mr. Carter’s expertise was used to determine child custody cases. https://nationalpost.com//psychologist-got-degree-from-u-s ::: 2016: Nov 24, 2016 - Although the Ontario Risk Assessment was a state of the art clinical tool at the... (if it was good enough to remove child with once, why isn't it good enough now?) The purpose of the Child Protection Standards in Ontario (dated February 2007) is to promote consistently high quality service delivery to children, youth and their families receiving child protection services from Children’s Aid Societies across the province. http://www.children.gov.on.ca//childprotectionstandards.as ::: 2019: Expert who gave more than 100 assessments in Ontario child protection cases lied about credentials for years, judge finds. https://www.thestar.com//expert-who-gave-more-than-100-ass ::: 2019: Ontario psychologist used ‘obsolete’ tests in expert opinion calling for parents to lose their kids, judge says. https://www.thestar.com//ontario-psychologist-used-obsolet ::: 2019: Province orders children’s aid societies to review credentials of experts used in child welfare cases https://www.thestar.com//province-orders-childrens-aid-soc ::: 2017: Motherisk hair test evidence tossed out of Colorado court 2 decades before questions raised in Canada A U.S. court laid out extensive problems with how hair-strand tests were being done at the Motherisk Drug Testing Lab at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto more than two decades before similar issues were uncovered in Canada. But the lab's work continued to be used in Canadian courts and relied upon in thousands of child protection cases, including ones in which children were permanently removed from their parents. From 1991 until 2015, Motherisk was performing what have now been determined to be unreliable and inadequate drug and alcohol tests on thousands of members of vulnerable families across Canada, with the results in some cases leading to child welfare decisions to separate children from their parents AND TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FILES BEING LEFT OPEN OR REOPENED AT WILL. https://www.cbc.ca//motherisk-colorado-court-case-1.4364862 ::: 2017: Motherisk tests 'felt like junk science,' says lawyer in Colorado case Colorado prosecutor Eva Wilson exposed flaws in Motherisk's testing methodology and analysis during a murder trial in 1993. https://youtu.be/WIJqYz91ceU ::: Confronting Motherisk co-founder Dr. Gideon Koren. Fifth Estate co-host Mark Kelley confronts Dr. Gideon Koren, the founder and former director of Motherisk, at a medical conference in Windsor, England this month. https://youtu.be/3POTUUN2tXU ::: 2018: What separation from parents does to children: ‘The effect is catastrophic’ This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents. Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and especially in young children wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain. The effect is catastrophic, said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this. Separating kids from parents a 'textbook strategy' of domestic abuse, experts say and causes irreversible, lifelong damage even when there is no other choice. Being separated from parents or having inconsistent living conditions for long periods of time can create changes in thoughts and behavior patterns, and an increase in challenging behavior and stress-related physical symptoms, such as sleep difficulty, nightmares, flashbacks, crying, and yelling says Amy van Schagen - California State University. The Science Is Unequivocal: Separating Families Is Harmful to Children In news stories and opinion pieces, psychological scientists are sharing evidence-based insight from decades of research demonstrating the harmful effects of separating parents and children. In an op-ed in USA Today, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (University of Delaware), Mary Dozier (University of Delaware), and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Temple University) write: Years of research are clear: Children need their parents to feel secure in the world, to explore and learn, and to grow strong emotionally. In a Washington Post op-ed, James Coan (University of Virginia) says: As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, I study how the brain transforms social connection into better mental and physical health. My research suggests that maintaining close ties to trusted loved ones is a vital buffer against the external stressors we all face. But not being an expert on how this affects children, I recently invited five internationally recognized developmental scientists to chat with me about the matter on a science podcast I host. As we discussed the border policy’s effect on the children ensnared by it, even I was surprised to learn just how damaging it is likely to be. Mia Smith-Bynum (University of Maryland) is quoted in The Cut: The science leads to the conclusion that the deprivation of caregiving produces a form of extreme suffering in children. Being separated from a parent isn’t just a trauma it breaks the relationship that helps children cope with other traumas. Forceful separation is particularly damaging, explains clinical psychologist Mia Smith-Bynum, a professor of family science at the University of Maryland, when parents feel there’s nothing in their power that can be done to get their child back. For all the dislocation, strangeness and pain of being separated forcibly from parents, many children can and do recover, said Mary Dozier, a professor of child development at the University of Delaware. Not all of them some kids never recover, Dr. Dozier said. But I’ve been amazed at how well kids can do after institutionalization if they’re able to have responsive and nurturing care afterward. The effects of that harm may evolve over time, says Antonio Puente, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington who specializes in cultural neuropsychology. What may begin as acute emotional distress could reemerge later in life as PTSD, behavioral issues and other signs of lasting neuropsychological damage, he says. A parent is really in many ways an extension of the child’s biology as that child is developing, Tottenham said. That adult who’s routinely been there provides this enormous stress-buffering effect on a child’s brain at a time when we haven’t yet developed that for ourselves. They’re really one organism, in a way. When the reliable buffering and guidance of a parent is suddenly withdrawn, the riot of learning that molds and shapes the brain can be short-circuited, she said. In a story from the BBC, Jack Shonkoff (Harvard University) discusses evidence related to long-term impacts: Jack P Shonkoff, director of the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, says it is incorrect to assume that some of the youngest children removed from their parents’ care will be too young to remember and therefore relatively unharmed. When that stress system stays activated for a significant period of time, it can have a wear and tear effect biologically. ::: 2017: New study suggests link between foster care system and youth homelessness. OTTAWA -- A first-of-its-kind study in Canada has painted a national picture of homeless youth and drawn a link to the foster care system that researchers say could be playing a more active role in keeping young people off the streets. The study found nearly three out of every five homeless youth were part of the child welfare system at some point in their lives, a rate almost 200 times greater than that of the general population. Of those with a history in the child welfare system, almost two of every five respondents eventually "aged out" of provincial or territorial care, losing access to the sort of support that could have kept them from becoming homeless, the study found. https://www.ctvnews.ca//new-study-suggests-link-between-fo ::: 2017: Stop dumping kids in care onto the street: Editorial. https://www.thestar.com//stop-dumping-kids-in-care-onto-th ::: 2017: Study urges federal, provincial governments to revamp foster care system to help address youth homelessness. https://www.thestar.com//groundbreaking-study-suggests-lin :::

2014: Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes. The researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clea...r majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis. Almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 48.6 percent are on drugs, such as Ritalin, tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, according to a yearly survey conducted for the provincial government and the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). At ages 16 and 17, fully 57 per cent are on these medications. In group homes, the figure is even higher an average of 64 percent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent. A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street. "A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily." The figures are found in Looking After Children in Ontario, a provincially mandated survey known as OnLAC. It collects data on the 7,000 children who have spent at least one year in care. After requests by the Star, the 2014 numbers were made public for the first time. Since the inquests into the deaths of a handful of troubled adolescents being forcibly restrained in group homes a few years ago - and the tougher regulations on the use of physical restraints that followed - she has observed a growing trend among group homes to turn to chemical restraints to control unruly behaviour. These children have trauma of sudden apprehensions and loss in their backgrounds and, as they grow older and foster parents can no longer tolerate their behaviour, they are moved to group homes operating on a culture of strict curfews and rules. Here, too often, troubled teenagers live in close quarters, staff turnover is rapid, police visits are not uncommon, and watching television is the usual pastime. "It's more about behaviour management than it is about intervening into mental health issues," Ms. Finlay said. Nowhere is concern greater than in Ontario, where the provincial government recently appointed a panel of experts to develop standards of care for administering drugs to children in foster care, group homes and detention centres. The move was made after the high-profile case last year of a now-13-year-old boy in a group home outside Toronto came to light. The boy was saddled with four serious psychiatric diagnoses, including oppositional defiant disorder and Tourette's syndrome, and doused daily with a cocktail of psychotropic drugs before his grandparents came to his rescue. Now living with his grandparents, he is free of diagnoses and drugs. Marti McKay is the Toronto child psychologist who, when hired by the local CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians to the boy, discovered a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs. "There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses. "There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders." The report from a government investigation into the case obtained by The Globe uncovered group home staff untrained in the use and side effects of the psychotropic drugs they were doling out; no requests from the psychiatrist to monitor the boy for problems, and little evidence of efforts to treat the boy's apparent mental-health issues other than with heavy-duty pharmaceuticals. With close to half of Crown wards on psychotropic medication, their numbers are more than triple the rate of drug prescriptions for psychiatric problems among children in general. With histories of apprehensions, abuse, neglect and loss, children in foster care often bear psychological scars unknown to most of their peers. But without a doting parent in their corner, they are open to hasty diagnoses and heavy-handed prescriptions. Oversight for administering the drugs and watching for side effects is left to often low-paid, inexperienced staff working in privately owned, loosely regulated group homes and to overburdened caseworkers legally bound to visit their charges only once every three months. Since the inquests into the deaths of just a "handful" of troubled adolescents being forcibly restrained in group homes a few years ago - and the tougher regulations on the use of physical restraints that followed - she has observed a growing trend among group homes to turn to chemical restraints to control unruly behaviour. These children have trauma and loss in their backgrounds and, as they grow older and foster parents can no longer tolerate their behaviour, they are moved to group homes operating on a culture of strict curfews and rules. Here, too often, troubled teenagers live in close quarters, staff turnover is rapid, police visits are not uncommon, and watching television is the usual pastime. With few specialists available, growing numbers of child-welfare workers are turning to family unqualified physicians, typically with next to no training in psychiatric disorders and no expertise in the new cutting-edge psychotropic drugs. 2007: https://www.thestar.com//use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_wi 2014: https://www.theglobeandmail.com//nearly-hal/article687480/ ::: THE NEW GATEWAY DRUGS... What’s worse is that the number of children prescribed dangerous drugs is on the rise. Doctors seem to prescribe medication without being concerned with the side-effects. Worldwide, 17 million children, some as young as five years old, are given a variety of different prescription drugs, including psychiatric drugs that are dangerous enough that regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia, and the US have issued warnings on the side effects that include suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior. According to Fight For Kids, an organization that educates parents worldwide on the facts about today’s widespread practice of labeling children mentally ill and drugging them with heavy, mind-altering, psychiatric drugs, says over 10 million children in the US are prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for alleged educational and behavioral problems. In fact, according to Foundation for a Drug-Free World, every day, 2,500 youth (12 to 17) will abuse a prescription pain reliever for the first time (4). Even more frightening, prescription medications like depressants, opioids and antidepressants cause more overdose deaths (45 percent) than illicit drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and amphetamines (39 percent) combined. Worldwide, prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death. https://dailyhealthpost.com/common-prescription-drugs/ Strange that an agency that is against any form of corporal punishment isn't against giving children to people that are so willing deny children their rights as they drug, restrain and label them "problem children." https://www.thestar.com//physical-restraint-common-in-toro ::: Red Flags of Corruption in Organizational Culture. V 2.0 What does Ontario's children's aid society and known corrupt corporations have in common? Or a better question might be, what don't they have in common. A lot of dead children in unmarked graves. What kind of an organizational culture do corrupt companies tend to have? To answer this question, I conducted a study based on a review of academic literature as well as in-depth interviews with 23 prominent lawyers, investigators, scholars, and policymakers with firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of dozens of corrupt firms. They highlighted a number of common traits often missed by standard compliance processes that might be red flags for organizational corruption. These traits don’t guarantee corruption within an organization, but they do point to the conditions in which it thrives. Corruption seems most likely in organizations where growth is a fetish, insecurity is rampant, and high performance goes unquestioned. One academic study that does focus on corruption through the lens of organizational behavior distinguishes between top-down corrupt organizations, where corruption is carried out by employees for the firm’s benefit, and bottom-up organizations of corrupt individuals, where wide-scale corruption is carried out by employees for their own benefit. In the real world, this distinction is not always easy to draw, however. Corruption may arise that benefits both the individual and the organization, such as a company with aggressive bonus structures that unwittingly incentivize employees to engage in corrupt practices to meet high targets. - SEE 2013: The memo notes that our volumes continue to be lower than our projections and this will result in less funding for our organization which directly impacts our current deficit and could impact our funding in future years. Therefore the month of March is very important and we need to make a collective effort to meet our newly discussed targets. https://www.thestar.com//in_leaked_memo_peel_cas_staff_ask - Another widely-referenced study discusses how corruption becomes normalized in organizations through three mutually reinforcing processes: institutionalization, rationalization, and socialization.4 During institutionalization, a corrupt decision or act becomes embedded in corporate structures and processes. No one should be surprised that agencies like Peel CAS are taking extreme steps to ensure they have the funding necessary to fulfill their legislated mandates to protect children, said Carrie Lynn Poole-Cotnam, Chair of the CUPE Ontario Social Services sector. https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc2283/ https://www.thestar.com//province_in_talks_with_peel_child During rationalization, self-serving ideologies develop that enable individuals to justify corrupt behavior. And finally, during socialization, embedded systems and norms induce new employees to tolerate corruption and view it as permissible. This model helps explain why individuals engage in corruption that would otherwise violate their internal moral framework. As the authors describe in a second article, One of the most intriguing findings of the white-collar crime literature is that corrupt individuals tend not to view themselves as corrupt. Another sociological study elaborates on the self-rationalizing ideologies of corrupt organizations, including denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, and an appeal to higher loyalties (such as loyalty to co-workers). Building off of this literature, my study found a highly consistent view of how a culture of corruption manifests within an organization. Corruption seems most likely in organizations where growth is a fetish, insecurity is rampant, and high performance goes unquestioned. Rules and processes put in place to promote integrity may be selectively enforced and easily evaded, as shown in many recent cases under anti-bribery statutes. The Growth Fetish When the Ends Justify the Means... READ LOTS MORE HERE: https://web.law.columbia.edu//what_do_corrupt_firms_have_i Abstract: Defining corruption as the exercise of public power for private, selfish ends, many theorists have argued that individuals can be corrupt even if their actions are legal. This essay explores the knotty question of when legal corporate action is corrupt. It argues that when corporations exercise public power, either through monopolistic control of a market or through campaign contributions and support of governmental actors, they are subject to the same responsibilities of anyone who exercises public power. Therefore, as a theoretical matter, we should call corporations corrupt when they exercise public power selfishly, in a way that puts their own interests over the public’s interests. Because they make legal corporate corruption less likely, global anticorruption campaigns should therefore emphasize antimonopoly laws and campaign finance laws. https://www.amacad.org//problem-monopolies-corporate-publi ::: 2018: "Ontario’s child protection system fails children, again." By Star Editorial Board. Children should, at the very least, survive the attempts of Ontario’s child protection system to help them. What an incredibly low bar that is, Ontario’s child advocate noted. And how shocking that, yet again, Ontario has failed to meet it. A new and rightly scathing report by Ontario’s coroner is calling on the provincial government to overhaul the child protection system that keeps failing children. https://www.thestar.com//ontarios-child-protection-system- https://www.thestar.com/news/cas.html 2020: Canada’s death investigation system needs an overhaul. https://healthydebate.ca/opinio/death_investigation_feb2020 2013: National review system needed to save lives: experts http://www.edmontonjournal.com//nationa/9216992/story.html ::: 2009: Why did 90 children die? TORONTO - Ontario's advocate for youth and children says it's unacceptable that 90 children known to child protection services died in 2007. Irwin Elman, who was appointed to the post last July, says the 2008 Coroner's report suggests most of these deaths were preventable. Sixteen deaths were accidental, nine were suicides, four were homicides, eight were from natural causes and 22 causes were undetermined. Another 17 deaths are still to be classified and 14 were not considered appropriate by the Coroner for investigation. Where the manner of death is known, 45 per cent of the children who died were under one year of age and 32 per cent were between 12 and 18. In his annual report, Elman says it could be argued that 90 deaths in a small number compared with the 26,260 cases at Children's Aid Societies, but he rejects that, saying the figure is "too high by any standard." Elman says in his report that "blaming some individuals is not helpful" and that society needs to say that it "cannot accept this." https://www.thestar.com//02/23/why_did_90_children_die.html https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ninety-kids-known-to-ont-child-s https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/90-kids-known-to-ontario-s-child- ::: 2013: A CHILD IN CARE IS A CHILD AT RISK. Between 2008/2012 natural causes was listed as the least likely way for a child in Ontario's care to die at 7% (only 15 children) out of the total deaths reviewed while "undetermined cause" was listed as the leading cause of death of children in Ontario's child protection system at 43% (92 children) of the total deaths reviewed over a four year period. The rest of the deaths were categorized as homicide, suicide and accidental. http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca///2013Report/PDRC_2013.html http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca//content/mcscs/images/19563 Undetermined means those 92 children had no pre-existing medical conditions and there was no rational reason for them to have died. ::: 2013: The inquest into Jeffrey Baldwin's death was supposed to shed light on the child welfare system and prevent more needless child deaths. Baldwin's inquest jury made 103 recommendations. http://www.cbc.ca//inquest-into-boy-s-death-to-shed-light- Watch: Failing Jeffrey -Aired April 12 2006 on the fifth estate. https://youtu.be/-jF2p_dAYFA ::: 2016: Nearly six months after the inquest into the death of Katelynn Sampson began, jurors delivered another 173 recommendations. https://beta.theglobeandmail.com//inquest/article29798749/ THAT'S 276 OFFICIAL REASONS FOR CONCERN ABOUT CHILDREN IN ONTARIO'S CARE. HOW MANY REASONS FOR CONCERN DOES THE SOCIETY NEED TO INSERT THEMSELVES INTO THE LIFE OF A CHILD? JUST ONE.. ::: 2019: Psychotherapist Philip Chard talks about holier-than-thou types, who judge themselves by their intentions by others by their actions. https://shepherdexpress.com//the-many-ways-of-being-holie/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas/2017//170711220512.htm ::: 2016: A psychologist explains the top factor con artists use to choose their victims. The chosen: Con artists choose you very carefully. They are only interested in those people who can be turned around to believe in them without question, who can be manipulated to believe in their illusions. They don't merely seek out the greedy or the weak or the stupid. Not at all. They seek out the needy. They sniff and snuffle around until they find someone who has an unfulfilled desire that even you yourself may be unaware of until the carrot is dangled in front of your face. Con artists will stalk anyone whose weaknesses or strengths can be used to advantage. Scan through the character traits below, and you will see the con artist's menu. As far as he is concerned any character trait can be exploited and manipulated once your needs have been established. No one is immune. Character traits: Pride, Ego, Anxiety, Ignorance, Ageing, Youth, Dreams, Security, Insecurity, Fear, Greed, Loneliness, Popularity, Assumed knowledge, Success, Failure, Illness, Self-Confidence, Desperation, Vulnerability, Ambition, Laziness, Wisdom, Hateful, Loving, any trait will do. Scam victims: Yuppies, Volunteers, Attorneys, Wannabes, Stars, Do-gooders, Malcontents, Authority Figures, Politicians, Law Enforcement Officers, Single Moms, Students, Officials, Bankers, Sports Figures, Professors, Psychologists, Scientists, Psychologists, Blue Collar Workers, Unemployed, Doctors, Nurses, Physically Challenged, Elders, Children, Corporate Executives, Insurance Agents, Accountants, Real Estate Agents, ... You name it! Right from the start: From the very moment a con artist targets you, his entire arsenal of psychological manipulation is brought into play. You are moved from a position of control to one of no control over anything at all. The con artist moves into the position of supreme power, regardless of how powerful you may be in real life. How can this be? Because you are the only character in the play who hasn't a clue as to what is really happening. No one has given you a script to follow. The only choice given you is to react to what the other players are saying and doing. Reality is gone, you just doesn't know it - your real world has been completely and effectively replaced with that of the con artist and his cronies. Smoke and mirrors. You know the game is over when he starts using fear tactics to keep you off balance: how scammers stay out of jail http://www.fraudaid.com/ba/why_scammers_dont_go_to_jail.htm http://www.fraudaid.com/b/victims_con_artists_look_for.htm. "There's one thing in particular that makes anyone, intelligent or not, a good victim," she told Business Insider. "And that isn't a personality trait. It's not a demographic trait. It's a situational kind of thing: Where are you at this point in your life? People who are going through life transitions become more emotionally vulnerable and con artists can spot that." These can be negative: The victim can be experiencing the sadness of a divorce, getting fired, or the death of a loved one. These can be positive: The victim can be experiencing the joy of a new marriage, a job promotion, or the birth of a child. What's common among all these is that they are periods of upheaval. Con artists, as predators, love to pounce on these opportunities of emotional vulnerability. During these periods, "we become a little bit uncomfortable because humans don't really like uncertainty and ambiguity," Konnikova said. "We like things to kind of be meaningful. Everyone really wants black and white answers. It's really hard to deal with when everything is kind of shifting around you." "Con artists can spot that and they can take advantage of it because what they sell is meaning and certainty. They're going to tell you the story that makes sense, that actually makes you say, 'Ok, now I have something that makes sense in this particular moment in my life.'" https://www.businessinsider.com/psychologist-explains-how-c ::: Harmful Impacts is the title of the Motherisk commission's report written by the Honourable Judith C. Beaman after two years of study. After reading it, harmful seems almost to be putting it lightly. Out of the over 16 000 tests the commission only examined 56 cases of the flawed Motherisk tests, administered by the Motherisk lab between 2005 and 2015 and were determined to have a substantial impact on the decisions of child protection agencies to keep files open or led to children being permanently removed from their families. WHAT ARE THE HARMFUL IMPACTS? 2018: What separation from parents does to children: ‘The effect is catastrophic’ This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents. Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and especially in young children wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain. The effect is catastrophic, said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this. Separating kids from parents a 'textbook strategy' of domestic abuse, experts say and causes irreversible, lifelong damage even when there seems to be no other choice. Being separated from parents or having inconsistent living conditions for long periods of time can create changes in thoughts and behavior patterns, and an increase in challenging behavior and stress-related physical symptoms, such as sleep difficulty, nightmares, flashbacks, crying, and yelling says Amy van Schagen - California State University. The Science Is Unequivocal: Separating Families Is Harmful to Children In news stories and opinion pieces, psychological scientists are sharing evidence-based insight from decades of research demonstrating the harmful effects of separating parents and children. In an op-ed in USA Today, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (University of Delaware), Mary Dozier (University of Delaware), and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Temple University) write: Years of research are clear: Children need their parents to feel secure in the world, to explore and learn, and to grow strong emotionally. In a Washington Post op-ed, James Coan (University of Virginia) says: As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, I study how the brain transforms social connection into better mental and physical health. My research suggests that maintaining close ties to trusted loved ones is a vital buffer against the external stressors we all face. But not being an expert on how this affects children, I recently invited five internationally recognized developmental scientists to chat with me about the matter on a science podcast I host. As we discussed the border policy’s effect on the children ensnared by it, even I was surprised to learn just how damaging it is likely to be. Mia Smith-Bynum (University of Maryland) is quoted in The Cut: The science leads to the conclusion that the deprivation of caregiving produces a form of extreme suffering in children. Being separated from a parent isn’t just a trauma it breaks the relationship that helps children cope with other traumas. Forceful separation is particularly damaging, explains clinical psychologist Mia Smith-Bynum, a professor of family science at the University of Maryland, when parents feel there’s nothing in their power that can be done to get their child back. For all the dislocation, strangeness and pain of being separated forcibly from parents, many children can and do recover, said Mary Dozier, a professor of child development at the University of Delaware. Not all of them some kids never recover, Dr. Dozier said. But I’ve been amazed at how well kids can do after institutionalization if they’re able to have responsive and nurturing care afterward. The effects of that harm may evolve over time, says Antonio Puente, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington who specializes in cultural neuropsychology. What may begin as acute emotional distress could re emerge later in life as PTSD, behavioral issues and other signs of lasting neuropsychological damage, he says. A parent is really in many ways an extension of the child’s biology as that child is developing, Tottenham said. That adult who’s routinely been there provides this enormous stress-buffering effect on a child’s brain at a time when we haven’t yet developed that for ourselves. They’re really one organism, in a way. When the reliable buffering and guidance of a parent is suddenly withdrawn, the riot of learning that molds and shapes the brain can be short-circuited, she said. In a story from the BBC, Jack Shonkoff (Harvard University) discusses evidence related to long-term impacts: Jack P Shonkoff, director of the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, says it is incorrect to assume that some of the youngest children removed from their parents’ care will be too young to remember and therefore relatively unharmed. When that stress system stays activated for a significant period of time, it can have a wear and tear effect biologically. ::: 2020: A shocking report details how Ontario’s most vulnerable youths are shuttled from child protection to the justice system. Ontario’s most vulnerable youths are being retraumatized by child protection and justice systems that set them up to fail and leave them languishing for months in pretrial detention, according to researchers who tracked kids in the care of foster parents and group homes. The research team co-led by Judge Brian Scully of the Ontario Court of Justice and Ryerson professor Judy Finlay followed youths in care who were also involved with the justice system, including 28 youths in Toronto. During the project’s two-year period, the Toronto youths spent an average of 138 days in detention awaiting trial, due to systemic barriers that make obtaining bail difficult and reoffending easy. Nine of the 28 youths spent one to six months in pretrial detention; eight spent more than six months. The longest pretrial detention suffered by one youth was 455 days served in two stints, including one of 401 consecutive days. The youth was already in detention for an unknown amount of time before researchers began their tracking. Project researcher Jessica Salerno followed the youth, whom she referred to with the pronoun they. She co-ordinated conferences with key players involved in the case and witnessed a system that broke the youth’s spirit. Towards the end, they were really sad, Salerno says in an interview. They just didn’t care anymore They didn’t care about life and they didn’t care what happened to them. Researchers found the challenge was especially acute for Indigenous or Black youths sent to group homes far from their communities, where their culture isn’t reflected. Another researcher on the team identified the long-detained youth as a Black male. Sixteen of the 28 Toronto youths (57 per cent) were Black. That’s higher than the overrepresentation seen in Children’s Aid Society of Toronto data. Black youth represent just 13.6 per cent of city residents under 18. The Black youths spent longer in pretrial detention than any other racial or ethnic group tracked 200 days, on average. White youths spent an average of 75 days; Indigenous youth spent about 40 days. The project also found that Black youth incurred more severe charges, on average, than other groups. Many of the Black youth the project engaged with experienced the classic ‘child-welfare-to-prison pipeline,’ says a report issued by the research team, which partly blames the longer detention on institutional anti-Black racism and colonialism within the child welfare and youth justice systems. Researchers call the children and teens they followed cross-over youth, because they start in the child protection system and end up in the youth justice one. They witnessed what numerous reports have criticized for creating that pipeline: group home staff untrained to deal with traumatized youth; youths charged for acting out their trauma; children’s aid societies refusing to act as sureties; lawyers insensitive to the struggles youths face in the child protection system; and unreasonable bail conditions that inevitably get broken, thereby triggering further charges. Once they’re in the justice system, they go deeper and deeper into it, says Finlay, a professor at Ryerson’s School of Child and Youth Care. She was Ontario’s child advocate from 1991 to 2007, an office Premier Doug Ford’s government abolished. In a statement to the Star, Jill Dunlop, associate minister of children and women’s issues, said the government is deep into a process of reviewing and modernizing child welfare. The work includes looking holistically at the different systems children and youth may interact with, including the intersection between child welfare and youth justice systems. The goal is to divert them from criminal behaviour through education and prevention programs, she added. Any time a child in care is remanded to custody, we see it as a failure, Dunlop said, adding that reforms by the previous Liberal government resulted in a 78 per cent reduction in youths admitted to custody and detention, to an average of 150 a year. She did not say how many of those are cross-over youth. The researchers set up pilot projects at four sites Toronto, Belleville, Thunder Bay and Brantford funded by the federal and Ontario governments, and the Laidlaw Foundation. Along with tracking youths, researchers held case management conferences with key groups, including police, Crown attorneys, judges, children’s aid workers and group home staff. The goal was to have everyone change the practices that funnel youths in care deep into the justice system. Most of the data in the team’s 208-page report, Cross-Over Youth Project: Navigating Quicksand, comes from 48 youths 12 to 17 years old tracked in the Toronto and Belleville pilot projects. Most of them 64 per cent had ended up in care not because they needed protection, but because they didn’t get along with their parents. That highlights the need for early intervention to resolve conflicts and keep families intact, the report notes. https://www.thestar.com//a-shocking-report-details-how-ont ::: 2019-2020 OMBUDSMAN'S FIRST ANNUAL REPORT: DEATH AND SERIOUS BODILY HARM.. Children’s aid societies and licensed residential service providers are legally required to inform the Ombudsman’s Office within 48 hours of any death or serious bodily harm of any child who has sought or received services from a children’s aid society within the past 12 months. Because they must be filed within 2 days of the incident, these reports may involve preliminary information and not findings of investigations by the police, child protection authorities or the coroner. From May 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, we received 1,663 reports about 1,433 incidents (some reports were duplicates, from multiple agencies reporting the same incident). These reports related to 122 deaths and 1,473 cases of serious bodily harm (defined as any situation where a young person requires treatment beyond basic first aid, including for physical, sexual or emotional harm). The Ombudsman will report in more detail on our analysis of these statistics in future reports. TOP CASE TOPICS 1,458 Children’s aid societies 240 Youth justice centres 139 Residential licensees 26 Secure treatment https://www.ombudsman.on.ca//annua/2019-2020-annual-report ::: 2017: Youth homelessness linked to foster care system in new study. The study, to be released Wednesday, found nearly three out of every five homeless youth were part of the child welfare system at some point in their lives, a rate almost 200 times greater than that of the general population. Of those with a history in the child welfare system, almost two of every five respondents eventually "aged out" of provincial or territorial care, losing access to the sort of support that could have kept them from becoming homeless, the study found. https://www.cbc.ca//h/homeless-youth-foster-care-1.4240121 Clustering of opioid prescribing and opioid-related mortality among family physicians in Ontario https://www.cfp.ca/content/57/3/e92.short https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com//s13011-017 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org//e82bb2740f8800bae7fef696 https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3207.full ::: 2016: Report shines light on poverty’s role on kids in CAS system. The effect of provincial policies on struggling families was especially apparent in the late 1990s, when the Conservative government slashed welfare payments and social service funding while at the same time, it introduced in child protection the notion of maltreatment by omission, including not having enough food in the home and this after giving the society what amounted to an unlimited funding scheme. The number of children taken into care spiked as did their funding. https://youtu.be/CG6PT3Hw568 The ministry has been pretty clear with us that advocacy is not part of our mandate, Goodman said speaking for the society. It’s not like they’re asking for the (poverty) data. They’re not. Goodman then when on to suggest the silence suited the government more than the silence suited the society's funding goals. https://www.thestar.com//report-shines-light-on-povertys-r ::: 2020: TORONTO -- Ontario's child welfare system will be redesigned to focus on prevention and early intervention, the provincial government said Wednesday. "Child welfare should not be the system that is feared," Dunlop said in a news conference. "No one should be scared to lose their children for speaking to a children's aid society." Associate Minister of Children and Women's Issues Jill Dunlop said the new strategy will also work to address the over-representation of Black and Indigenous families in the children's aid system. She said children and youth in care experience worse outcomes than those in a family setting, including lower graduation rates, a higher risk of homelessness and more involvement with the justice system. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-plans-to-redesign-child- ::: NOT ALL SOCIAL WORKERS ARE CREATED EQUAL. 2009: Ontario CAS caseworkers come armed with vaster powers than any police officer investigating crime and shrouded in secrecy. It is an immense authority easily abused, without vigilant restraint. https://www.cbc.ca//diploma-mills-marketplace-fake-degrees Whether we wanted it or not, knew it or not, over time, the work of child-welfare organizations has become parenting by the state and the imposition of their value system on other people, says Marty McKay, a clinical psychologist who has worked on abuse cases in the U.S and Canada. Provincial agencies have the power to intervene when children are considered at risk of abuse or neglect even if none has actually occurred. http://www.nationalpost.com/children+society+w//story.html ::: You can hear former MPP Frank Klees say in a video linked below the very reason the social worker act was introduced and became law in 1998 was to regulate the "children's aid societies" and they ignored that.. FORMER ONTARIO MPP FRANK KLEES EXPLAINS "A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE." I'M NOT A SOCIAL WORKER, I'M A CHILD PROTECTION WORKER! https://youtu.be/SA1YyWO0RTQ Two decades later... Without the deterrents professional regulation provides what prevents child protection social workers from being or becoming a danger to children and their families? The union representing child protection social workers is firmly opposed to oversight from a professional college and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, which regulates and funds child protection, is so far staying out of it. The report Towards Regulation notes that the clearest path forward would be for the provincial government to -again- legislate the necessity of professional regulation, which would be an appallingly heavy-handed move according to OACAS/Cupe. http://joincupe2190.ca//Professional-regulation-at-childre The Special Investigations Unit is the civilian oversight agency responsible for investigating circumstances involving police (but not unregulated CAS workers with law enforcement powers even the police don't have) that have resulted in a death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault of a civilian in Ontario, Canada. https://www.siu.on.ca/en/index.php ::: Former Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian wrote: I am disheartened by the complete lack of action to ensure transparency and accountability by these organizations that received significant public funding. As part of the modernization of the Acts, I call on the government to finally address this glaring omission and ensure that Children’s Aid Societies are added to the list of institutions covered. The only oversight for the province’s children’s aid agencies comes from Ontario’s Ministry of Children and Youth Services. "As the law stands now clients of the Ontario Children's Aid Society are routinely denied a timely (often heavily censored) file disclosure before the court begins making life altering decisions and the clients can not request files/disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act nor can censored information reviewed by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario or the federal counter-part." In her 2004 annual report, which was released on June 22, 2005, the Commissioner called for amendments that would bring virtually all organizations that are primarily funded by government dollars under FOI for the purposes of transparency and accountability: This would include the various children’s aid agencies in the Province of Ontario. Many parents and families complain about how difficult it is, if not impossible, to obtain information from children’s aid agencies. Many citizens complain that CAS agencies appear to operate under a veil of secrecy. Unlicensed and untrained CAS workers are making decisions which are literally destroying families, yet there is little or no accountability for their actions short of a lawsuit long after the damage is done.. Hundreds of organizations that are recipients of large transfer payments from the government are not subject to the provincial or municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Acts, said the Commissioner, which means they are not subject to public scrutiny. Among the examples she cites are hospitals and Children’s Aid Societies. Openness and transparency of all publicly funded bodies is essential they should be publicly accountable. In my 2004, 2009, and 2012 Annual Reports I recommended that Children’s Aid Societies, which provide services for some of our most vulnerable citizens children and youth in government care, be brought under FIPPA. I am disheartened by the complete lack of action to ensure transparency and accountability by these organizations that received significant public funding. As part of the modernization of the Acts, I call on the government to finally address this glaring omission and ensure that Children’s Aid Societies are added to the list of institutions covered. In her annual report for 2013 released on June 17 there is just one paragraph on children's aid on page 12: The Information and Privacy Commissioner is appointed by and reports to the Ontario Legislative Assembly, and is independent of the government of the day. The Commissioner's mandate includes overseeing the access and privacy provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and the Personal Health Information Protection Act, and commenting on other access and privacy issues. 2020 UPDATE: CAS NOW REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TO FOI REQUESTS THE SAME AS ANY OTHER GOVERNMENT FUNDED AND CONTROLLED AGENCY SHOULD BE. http://www.theglobeandmail.com//beef-up-in/article1120573/ http://www.newswire.ca//commissioner-cavoukian-calls-on-go IT'S NOT ABOUT THE STANDARDS, OR LEGISLATION, OR THE BUREAUCRACY - IT'S ABOUT ETHICS AND APPLICATION. IF YOUR GOING TO FIX WHAT'S WRONG WITH CHILD PROTECTION - START AT THE BEGINNING. IT'S NOT THE SYSTEM THAT LACKS ETHICS, MORALS AND ACCOUNTABILITY OR ACTS IN BAD FAITH - IT THE PEOPLE ENTRUSTED TO OVERSEE THE SYSTEM THAT LACK THOSE THINGS. IT'S NOT BAD SYSTEM THAT MAKES GOOD WORKERS BAD - IT'S BAD WORKERS THAT MAKE A SYSTEM THAT'S NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD, BAD. ::: 2019: Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Investigation Report: Johnson Children’s Services Inc. (Thunder Bay) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The decision to investigate Johnson Children’s Services (JCS) homes in Thunder Bay was sparked by a call from one of their employees, who believed the foster care staff who worked there were poorly trained and ill-equipped to meet the complex needs of the children in their care. While she was mostly concerned about the safety of the children, the whistleblower also identified problems with the physical condition of the homes. The subsequent investigation conducted by Investigators from the Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth substantiated these concerns. The findings in this report are based on interviews with 28 individuals including: staff and management of JCS, youth who lived during the relevant time period, representatives from the Ministry, representatives from the placing Children’s Aid Societies, and professionals from the community. Investigators also obtained documents from JCS, the three involved Children’s Aid Societies, the Thunder Bay Police Service, and community professionals. (article continues at length) https://cwrp.ca//files/public/jcsinvestigationreporten.pdf ::: 2019: Shocking conditions at now shuttered Thunder Bay foster homes detailed in child advocate’s final report. https://www.thestar.com//shocking-conditions-at-now-shutte ::: 2019: Former child advocate's investigation finds deplorable conditions at now-closed Thunder Bay foster homes. https://www.cbc.ca//irwin-elman-report-thunder-bay-1.51181 ::: 2017: Ontario won't say where high needs youth were moved after Thunder Bay, Ont. group homes shut down. https://www.cbc.ca//thunder-b/group-homes-closed-1.4162049 ::: 2003: A group-home agency that has housed some of Ontario's most disturbed teenagers for more than a decade is under investigation by police after an official report alleged poor conditions, inadequate supervision and sexual impropriety by staff. The Peterborough Lakefield Police Service has watched Mitchell Group Homes, which runs 21 group homes in the Peterborough area, for months. In December, an investigation by Ontario's Office of Child and Family Service Advocacy into the private, for-profit company's affairs revealed a litany of serious allegations: slack supervision of an untrained staff, filth and ill repair in some of the houses, whitewashed incident reports, the placement of known predators in homes with abuse victims and sexual improprieties by workers. Sources say the houses were dirty, holes in the walls were left unrepaired, youngsters were sleeping on mattresses on the floor and residents spent most of their time watching television because they had no programs. Some children were in unlicensed homes, and ratios of staff to residents in contracts signed with children's aid societies were being violated. Since the advocate's report, CAS bodies have increased monitoring of the group homes. The Children's Aid Society of Toronto, the agency's biggest customer with 21 children in its care until recently, sends a worker to inspect the group homes at least once a week. "If we felt the safety of the kids was not secure, we would not have left them there. Absolutely not," said Mary McConville, executive director with the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto. "By the same token, we want to see the problems resolved." Mitchell Group Homes grew quickly as it tapped into a booming market of providing homes for troubled children. Children's aid societies had 17,463 children in their care as of last September, a 55-per-cent jump from five years earlier, when the Ontario government began an overhaul of the child-welfare system that lowered the bar for taking youngsters into care. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//ontario-g/article4127323/ ::: 2015: Teen’s death raises questions about secrecy surrounding kids in care. It is stunning to me how these children... are rendered invisible while they are alive and invisible in their death, said Irwin Elman, Ontario’s former and last advocate for children and youth. Between 90 and 120 children and youth connected to children’s aid die every year. https://www.thestar.com//teens-death-raises-questions-abou ::: 2015: Shedding light on the troubles facing kids in group homes. The Star obtained the reports in a freedom of information request and compiled them according to the type of serious event that occurred something the ministry does not do. They note everything from medication errors to emotional meltdowns to deaths. Restraints were used in more than one-third of 1,200 serious occurrence reports filed in 2013 by group homes and residential treatment centres in the city, according to a Star analysis. At one treatment facility, 43 of the 119 serious occurrence reports filed to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services include a youth being physically restrained and injected by a registered nurse with a drug, presumably a sedative. (How is a society that's against spanking isn't against tying children to their beds and drugging them?) The language used by some group homes evokes an institutional setting rather than a nurturing environment. When children go missing, they are AWOL. In one instance in which a child acted out in front of peers, he was described as a negative contagion. Often, the reasons for behaviour are not noted. Children are in a poor space and are counselled not to make poor choices. Blame is always placed on the child. Their stories are briefly told in 1,200 Toronto reports describing serious occurrences filed to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services in 2013. Most involve children and youth in publicly funded, privately operated group homes. https://www.thestar.com//kids-in-toronto-group-homes-can-b ::: 2016: The ministry doesn’t know how many children are being cared for in Ontario’s 389 licensed group homes. It’s working on a system that will eventually allow it to collect the information. At the end of September 2017, the group homes had 2,914 beds, almost one-third of them operated by private, for-profit companies. The rest are run by non-profit agencies such as children’s aid societies. Another 2,005 beds were in foster homes run by companies, where the limit is four kids to a home. A growing number of kids are also being placed in unlicensed homes with live-in staff. You know your system is based on the flimsiest of foundations when you have absolutely no standards on who can do this work, adds Gharabaghi, director of Ryerson University’s school of child and youth care. https://www.mykawartha.com//7974974-kids-are-going-throug/ https://www.mcgill.ca//report-calls-better-oversight-resid ::: OACAS: The duty to report. It is not necessary to be certain that a child is or may be in need of protection to make a report to a children’s aid society. Reasonable grounds refers to the information that an average person, using normal and honest judgment, would need in order to decide to report. This standard has been recognized by courts in Ontario as establishing a lower funding friendly non profit corporate threshold for opening files and billing the taxpayers. http://www.oacas.org/childrens-aid-child-pr/duty-to-report/ The Special Investigations Unit is the civilian oversight agency responsible for investigating circumstances involving police (but not unregulated CAS workers with law enforcement powers even the police don't have) that have resulted in a death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault of a civilian in Ontario, Canada. https://www.siu.on.ca/en/index.php ::: 2016: Frontline worker Nancy Simone, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local representing 275 workers at the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, argues child protection workers already have levels of secret all internal corporate oversight that include unqualified unregistered workplace supervisors with decades of on the job experience, family courts that reverse the burden of proof, public coroners’ inquests bypassed by internal reports and annual case audits by the ministry (whatever that means). Our work is already regulated to death. (Children are dying in care and they're the ones being regulated to death?) https://www.waterloochronicle.ca//6437856-children-s-aid-/ https://www.ctvnews.ca//ontario-coroner-s-report-highlight http://thecaribbeancamera.com/training-for-childrens-aid-s/ https://www.thestar.com//coroners-panel-calls-for-overhaul https://www.thestar.com//childrens-aid-societies-launch-ma ::: MAYBE IT'S TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO ACCESS A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHILD WELFARE EXPERT? See: Robert D. Hare, C.M. (born 1934 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is a researcher in the field of criminal psychology. He developed the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-Revised), used to assess cases of psychopathy. Hare advises the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) and consults for various British and North American prison services. He describes psychopaths as 'social predators', while pointing out that most don't commit murder. One philosophical review described it as having a high moral tone yet tending towards sensationalism and graphic anecdotes, and as providing a useful summary of the assessment of psychopathy but ultimately avoiding the difficult questions regarding internal contradictions in the concept or how it should be classified. Hare received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology at University of Western Ontario (1963). He is professor emeritus of the University of British Columbia where his studies center on psychopathology and psychophysiology. He was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada on December 30, 2010. Hare wrote a popular science bestseller published in 1993 entitled Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (reissued 1999). http://www.psychology-criminalbehavior-law.com//hare-psyc/ ::: https://www.cbc.ca//h/homeless-youth-foster-care-1.4240121

2016: Regulation of child protection workers by Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers: CUPE responds: Please send or adapt any of the following letters to the Executive Director of your CAS. DRAFT Letter 2 I Feel Like A professional.....Continue reading

Just like Ontario's child protection social workers, sexual predators seek to determine if the child has a stable home life, or if the family is facing challeng...es like divorce, foster care, poverty, illness, drugs, homelessness, etc. Children lacking stability at home are at higher risk for for abuse or neglect, as there is usually easy access to the child and opportunities for the workers to apprehend more funding. Child molesters like Ontario's unregistered corporate CAS workers will target kids who are loners, or who look troubled or neglected. Youngsters who smoke, vape or use drugs and alcohol are seen as risk-seekers lacking adequate supervision, and therefore easy targets. Single parents are often targeted, as they are more likely to need help with parenting duties and vulnerable to offers to babysit and/or drive kids to school, practices, lessons and other activities. DOES IT SEEM ODD TO YOU THE CAS AND CHILD PREDATORS HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON, THEY HAVE THE SAME MODUS OPERANDI, SEEKING THE SAME INFORMATIONS ABOUT THEIR VICTIMS, BUT IN THE CASE OF THE CAS THEY NEED YOU TO GIVE THEM AN EXCUSE FIRST..." While some sexual abuse is purely opportunistic, most children are groomed and lured into situations where they are vulnerable to abuse. Common grooming strategies include: Befriending parents, particularly single parents, to gain access to their children. Offering babysitting services to busy parents or guardians. Taking jobs and participating in community events that involve children. Becoming a guardian or foster parent. Attending sporting events for children. Offering to coach children's sports. Volunteering in youth organizations. Offering to chaperone overnight trips. Loitering in places children frequent - playgrounds, parks, malls, game arcades, sports fields, etc. Befriending youngsters on social media (TikTok, Ask.fm, YouTube, Kik, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.) and online gaming platforms. Best practice for implementing and sustaining sexual violence prevention in child-serving organizations (schools, clubs, faith-based organizations, sports) include: Have organizational Policies & Procedures in place to help protect children, employees and the institution. Train all teachers, staff and volunteers on recognizing grooming and reporting abuse by other teachers or other professionals who work closely with children. Educate parents/guardians/community-at-large. Implement developmentally-appropriate classroom-based awareness and prevention education and activities for students. https://childluresprevention.com/resources/molester-profile/ ::: How do child molesters gain access to their victims? Victim says a sex cult was run out of an Ontario foster home for years and Children’s Aid Society knew. An Ontario county Children’s Aid Society failed to detect or act on the systemic abuses of countless vulnerable children in several foster care homes over a span of 8 years. Global provides a quote from one of the victims demonstrating that neighbours wondered how Joe and Janet Holmes were able to receive and care for children. The same victim had her contact information distributed by her abusers to people in the town, who then sent her sexually inappropriate messages and contributed to her abuse. While both Joe and his wife Janet were sentenced to jail time in 2011 for their various, horrific abuses of children, they were far from the only ones. Global reports the last foster family to be convicted with the abuse of children in their care in the Prince Edward county system was in 2015. Bill Sweet, the executive director of the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society, was charged in 2018 with 10 counts of neglect, and 10 counts of failing to provide the necessities of life. His preliminary trial begins in July 2019, and his lawyer asserts that he will defend himself against the charges. https://thepostmillennial.com/a-sex-cult-was-run-out-of-an- https://globalnews.ca//teen-sexual-cult-ontario-foster-ho/ https://www.intelligencer.ca//3fd07287-3f2a-1755-7386-1c8c. ::: 2016: Report shines light on poverty’s role on kids in CAS system. The effect of provincial policies on struggling families was especially apparent in the late 1990s, when the Conservative government slashed welfare payments and social service funding. At the same time, it introduced in child protection the notion of maltreatment by omission, including not having enough food in the home. The number of children taken into care spiked Goodman credited the report with revealing the elephant in the room. Children’s aid societies have long witnessed the grinding effect of poverty on families but have rarely spoken out about it or pressured policy makers as legal aid hasn't paid lawyers to defend their clients rights in the family courts. (see Motherisk Report) We’re able to tell a story of maltreatment, but we have not done a very good job in telling a story about poverty, Goodman said, referring to Ontario’s 47 privately run children’s aid societies. (and the CAS only gets funding when they find something to be concerned about. She suggests silence suited the provincial government , in particular the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, which regulates child protection and funds societies with $1.5 billion annually more than it did CAS funding goals. The ministry has been pretty clear with us that advocacy is not part of our mandate, Goodman said. It’s not like they’re asking for the (poverty) data. They’re not. https://www.thestar.com//report-shines-light-on-povertys-r https://www.actioncanadashr.org/un-experts-gravely-concerne A document called Yes, You Can. Dispelling the Myths About Sharing Information with Children’s Aid Societies was jointly released by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the Ontario Provincial Advocate. The document, targeted at professionals who work with children, is a critical reminder that a call to Children’s Aid is not a privacy violation when it concerns the safety of a child. In fact, professionals who work with children have a special responsibility, as stated in the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, to protect the safety and well-being of children. http://www.oacas.org/childrens-aid-child-pr/duty-to-report/ Child molesters can be anyone - family members, relatives, neighbors, coaches, teachers, preachers, friends, children's peers, etc.. Knowing this - and knowing that adults cannot be with children every moment of every day - it is essential to put systems in place to help protect children. https://torontosun.com//liberals-cant-deny-levins-role-wit https://www.macleans.ca//the-politics-behind-ontarios-sex/ https://www.ctvnews.ca//five-things-to-know-about-ontario- ::: DISPELLING THE MYTHS ABOUT SHARING INFORMATION WITH CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETIES. DOES THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY DO ANYTHING TO ENSURE PROFESSIONALS WHO REPORT "CONCERNS" ABOUT OUR CHILDREN DON'T HAVE FINDINGS OF MISCONDUCT, NEGLIGENCE OR INCOMPETENCE ON THEIR PROFESSIONAL RECORDS? Unless you work for the mandate impaired children's aid society in Ontario, child molesters come from all economic backgrounds, geographic areas and include every ethnicity, race and creed. 2013: Project Spade arrests by the numbers... Ontario: 40 teachers, 9 doctors and nurses, 32 nondescript volunteers, 6 law enforcement personnel, 9 faith leaders, 3 foster parents. (and who likes to use volunteers more than the CAS?) https://www.macleans.ca//huge-child-porn-ring-busted-toro/ https://www.toronto.com//4219011-toronto-police-s-project/ https://www.cbsnews.com//almost-350-suspects-nabbed-in-hu/ ::: The sole characteristic all child molesters share is having thoughts about being sexual with children, and acting on those thoughts. These individuals actively seek access to children and the opportunity to be alone with them. Also, contrary to "Stranger Danger" warnings, child molesters are rarely strangers; at least 90% of sexually abused children are abused by someone the child and/or family knows, someone in the child's immediate or extended family, or someone close to the family. https://www.actioncanadashr.org/un-experts-gravely-concerne ::: 2011: Soft-porn writing teacher resigns from watchdog. The former head of the discipline committee of the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) is facing professional misconduct charges for his role in co-authoring a sexually explicit novel for teens. Jacques Tremblay resigned his position as chair of the OCT’s disciplinary committee, a position that involves overseeing sexual assault cases, in 2011 after his part in writing a soft porn novel titled The Sexteens and the Fake Goddess was exposed in a Toronto Star investigation. The book is a lurid tale of striptease, breast fondling, bum grabbing, orgasms, drugs and blackmail, reported the Star’s Kevin Donovan in the exposé. The cover of the book depicts the backs of a boy and a girl naked from the waist up looking at a silhouette of the CN Tower. The other authors of the book are identified as Tremblay’s wife, Marie-Ange Gagnon, and Frederic Tremblay. Following Jacques Tremblay’s resignation the OCT launched an investigation into the situation, although the teachers’ watchdog had earlier maintained that Tremblay’s writing did not have an impact on his ability to act in the public interest. Tremblay himself had argued that his book was entirely separate from his work at the College and service to the public, saying the book was meant to empower teenagers, to encourage them to be strong and resist or avoid peer pressure. However, in an article on his website Tremblay says the purpose of his novel is to help teens find their inner voice which will affect their future sex life because having higher self-esteem below the belt leads to better sex. He also warns teens that having negative attitudes about sex could have a direct impact on orgasm. https://mychristiandaily.com/teen-sex-novel-lands-former-o/ ::: Ontario’s top teacher watchdog has quit. Jacques Tremblay, who the Star reported was a writer of soft porn replete with questionable administrator-teacher-student conduct, resigned Tuesday. He was the chairperson for five years of the Ontario College of Teachers’ disciplinary panel, which sits in judgment on hundreds of teachers accused of misconduct. In the novel, main character Leila Montana is introduced as a young teen just starting high school. She is also joining a group called the Sexteens’ Select Society. As she awaits initiation into this mysterious alliance, the book describes her appearance as follows: Her half-open shirt divulges the roundness of her gorgeous bosom. Leila’s particularly short skirt exposes her barely fleshy buttocks. There are several other detailed references throughout the book about the bodies of Leila and other girls. Taking an oath to the mysterious society, Leila promises to develop my teenage life at my own rhythm inspired by the aphrodisiac cult, which is based on the power of love and the emancipation of my sexuality. On the day after the initiation, Leila wakes up and feels a new energy swelling within her. . . . Despite her efforts, however, Leila can’t remember what really happened. She is peaceful and undisturbed by this lapse of memory. Meanwhile, Leila feels a very light, but quite pleasant, tingling on her upper right buttock. (Nothing at all creepy about this is there and everything about this little scenario is perfectly normal, right?) https://www.thestar.com//top_teacher_watchdog_who_wrote_po ::: Date rape drugs facts: It’s Not Just Roofies Anymore. Date rape drugs are drugs used to assist in a sexual assault, which is any type of sexual activity a person does not agree to. These drugs can affect you very quickly and cause victims to become weak, confused, and even pass out. You may not remember what happened while you were drugged. The most common date rape drugs -- also called "club drugs" -- are flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), also called roofies; gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also called liquid ecstasy; and ketamine, also called Special K. These drugs may come as pills, liquids, or powders. Alcohol may also be considered a date rape drug because it affects judgment and behavior and can be used to help commit sexual assault. The club drug "ecstasy" (MDMA) has also been used to commit sexual assault. Protect yourself by not accepting drinks from others, not sharing drinks, watching your drink, and by avoiding creepy societies and having a non-drinking friend with you to make sure nothing happens. If you suspect you have been exposed to a date rape drug or have been sexually assaulted, call 911 and get to an emergency room immediately. Date rape drugs can also cause seizures and even death. Adverse Effects of Club Drugs Uncertainties about the sources, chemicals, and possible contaminants used to manufacture many club drugs make it extremely difficult to determine toxicity and associated medical consequences. Nonetheless, we do know that: Coma and seizures can occur following use of GHB. Combined use with other drugs such as alcohol can result in nausea and breathing difficulties. GHB and two of its precursors, gamma butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4 butanediol (BD), have been involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes, and deaths. Rohypnol may be lethal when mixed with alcohol and/or other CNS depressants. Ketamine, in high doses, can cause impaired motor function, high blood pressure, and potentially fatal respiratory problems. https://nationalpost.com//chairman-of-teachers-discipline- https://www.thestar.com//top_teacher_watchdog_who_wrote_po https://www.thespec.com//2221198-soft-porn-writing-teache/ https://www.nytimes.com///pedophiles-online-sex-abuse.html https://www.psychiatrictimes.com//psychopathology-and-pers https://www.thoughtco.com/profile-of-pedophile-and-common-c https://www.health.harvard.edu/n/pessimism-about-pedophilia https://www.merckmanuals.com//sexuality-and-sex/pedophilia https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi https://www.kgw.com//two-child-sex-offenders/283-434885477 https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/149214NCJRS.pdf https://childluresprevention.com/resources/molester-profile/ ::: Could you spot a pedophile? SOME child molesters jump out of bushes and molest your child on the way home from school. But more likely, he is your friendly neighbor or attentive shopkeeper. He or she could be a charming relative or the son or daughter of a friend who is all too willing to babysit your children. The pedophile in your midst may be the schoolteacher, the bus driver, the youth worker or the lay preacher at your church. Child-related workers: While pedophiles can work anywhere, they do find ways to be around children as often as possible. It may not be their principal profession, such as a teacher or priest, but a voluntary or weekend position as a sports coach, camp counsellor, school bus driver, daycare worker, Boy Scout leader, church or secular youth worker can provide the contact with children they need. Some well-known pedophiles have placed themselves as teachers or leaders of artistic bodies such as dance and music schools, where they have surrounded themselves with adoring and aspiring performers. Andrew Manners was a convicted pedophile who had committed offences against minors in Queensland in 1998. He was on parole and prohibited from working with children when he surfaced in 2002. Manners turned up as a fill-in teacher at his mother's Scottish dance school, where he was spotted by an observant parole officer. Former performing arts schoolteacher, Peter Gerard Boys, was also a band leader of the musical troupe the Marching Koalas in the NSW Hunter Valley region when, aged in his 40s, he began having a sexual relationship with four of his students. He was convicted and sentenced to eight child sex offences against girls aged 10-16 years, and on his release from prison is believed to have subsequently married one of the girls who had come of age during his incarceration. Watch out for teacher adoration beyond the bounds of a normal crush, accompanied by "secret" phone calls and special individual attention. The every-man: When looking out for a child sex offender, don't be fooled by a person's appearance, outward respectability or importance in the community. Pedophiles are almost always men, more often married adult males and they work in a very wide range of occupations, from unskilled work up to corporate executives. What to look out for is someone who relates better to children than to adults, and has either very few adult friends or whose friends might also be sex offenders. Signs to watch for: pedophiles usually prefer children in one specific age group, such as infants and toddlers, children between six and ten years old, or "tweens" and young teenagers up to the age of 16. Pedophiles can be bisexual but more commonly will prefer children or the one gender, males or females. https://www.news.com.au///a0502e8c3edd265972204ce6fb435982 ::: 2020: Ontario school board found 'vicariously liable' in sexual abuse case. A former music teacher at I.E. Weldon Secondary School in Lindsay, Ont., has been found liable of sexual abuse of a student in the 1980s, and the Trillium Lakeland District School Board has been found 'vicariously liable' in a recent court decision. (WARNING: This story contains details of sexual assault that some readers may find upsetting) A judge has found a school board in Ontario "vicariously liable" for the historical sexual abuse of a student at the hands of her teacher, in a decision that could set precedent for many other civil cases that blame school administrations for the abusive actions of teachers or other staff. In his June 30 ruling, Justice David Salmers found the co-defendants, the former teacher and the Trillium Lakelands District School Board in Lindsay, Ont., were liable for sexual abuse that took place in the 1980s, ordering them to jointly pay more than $500,000 in damages. "I believe it's a landmark decision because it establishes clearly that a school board in a public school setting, or a school in a private school setting, has to pay damages for sexual misconduct and violence against a student by one of its teachers," said Elizabeth Grace, a partner at Lerners, who represented the woman who was sexually abused. https://www.cbc.ca//ontario-school-board-case-precedent-vi. ::: 2020: Ontario high school teacher charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation. TORONTO -- Peel Regional Police say a teacher has been charged following a sexual assault investigation involving a student. https://www.sexualabuselawyer.ca/resources/news-media/page/2 Police allege the suspect from a Mississauga high school was in a relationship with a 17-year-old girl that began in 2016. Investigators say Robert Brandstetter of Guelph, Ont., is charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation. The 51-year-old was held for a bail hearing and appeared Tuesday in Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-high-school-teacher-char PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT OF A SEXUAL NATURE - PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY It was originally titled Professional Misconduct Related to Sexual Abuse and Sexual Misconduct in 2002 and has been updated to reflect amendments to the College’s legislation. This advisory applies to all Ontario Certified Teachers (OCTs) including teachers, consultants, vice-principals, principals, supervisory officers, directors of education, those working in non-school-board positions, College members in private and independent schools, and those in positions requiring a certificate of qualification. Read this document in conjunction with College advice on the use of social and electronic media, the duty to report child abuse, bullying, safety in learning environments, and supporting students’ mental health. https://www.oct.ca//professional-misconduct-of-a-sexual-na ::: 2020: OPP officer charged with 3 counts of sexual assault, choking. OPP report that they have charged one of their own officers in the East region with three counts each of sexual assault and choking. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Professional Standards Bureau (PSB) has arrested and charged an off duty OPP member in relation to a domestic incident. https://www.insideottawavalley.com//9850802-opp-officer-c/ ::: 2020: Toronto doctor gets no professional penalty for sex assault on 16-year-old after panel finds he was ‘struggling to express’ gay identity. https://www.thestar.com//toronto-doctor-gets-no-profession ::: 2019: Fugitive Ottawa lawyer arrested on sex crime charges. A disgraced Ottawa lawyer turned fugitive wanted for sex crimes against the child of a former client is now in custody after more than five years on the lam. John David Coon, a one-time criminal defence and family lawyer, abruptly stopped practising law late in 2013 amid an Ottawa police sexual assault investigation. In July of that year, Ottawa cops had started probing an alleged assault on a child. https://ottawacitizen.com//fugitive-ottawa-lawyer-arrested https://www.jellineklaw.com/current-cases.html https://www.cbc.ca//human-trafficking-investigation-york-r ::: Why bad teachers don’t get fired in Ontario. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//why-bad-t/article4249405/ ::: 2011 - Bad teachers: Ontario's secret list. Here are some of the people licensed in Ontario to teach your children. A teacher who disciplined students by warning they would spend time with a pedophile and if the behaviour got worse it would be without vaseline. https://www.cbc.ca//diploma-mills-marketplace-fake-degrees A high school teacher whose female students said he called them sluts, pole dancers, whore and commented that tongue studs were for oral sex. A teacher who shut Grade 8 students in a storage cupboard to discipline them. A teacher who repeatedly took photos of Grade 8 girls with his cellphone. A drunk teacher who sexually assaulted a store clerk. A teacher who stole money students deposited with her for school trips to Europe. A teacher who scared female Grade 6 students by drawing pictures depicting one girl’s death and tacking them to her dormitory window during a three-day outdoor education trip. https://www.thestar.com//bad_teachers_ontarios_secret_list Can you stop a paedophile before they've abused a child? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-35981490 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31114106 Preying on Children: The Emerging Psychology of Pedophiles https://www.nytimes.com///pedophiles-online-sex-abuse.html ::: THE SEXTEENS: FULL OF GRADE 9 ORGASMS, ASS GRABBING AND DRUGS.. The co-author is teacher Jacques Tremblay, one of the most important education officials in Ontario. 2011. https://www.cambridgetimes.ca//4627435-ontario-teacher-wa/ https://www.cbc.ca//jacques-tremblay-racy-teen-novel-autho https://www.thestar.com//top_teacher_watchdog_who_wrote_po ::: Bad teachers: Ontario's secret list. By Kevin Donovan Staff Reporter Thu., Sept. 29, 2011. Here are some of the people licensed in Ontario to teach your children. A teacher who disciplined students by warning they would spend time with a pedophile and if the behaviour got worse it would be without vaseline. https://www.thestar.com//bad_teachers_ontarios_secret_list ::: MAYBE IT'S TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO ACCESS A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHILD WELFARE EXPERT? See: Robert D. Hare, C.M. (born 1934 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is a researcher in the field of criminal psychology. He developed the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-Revised), used to assess cases of psychopathy. Hare advises the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) and consults for various British and North American prison services. He describes psychopaths as 'social predators', while pointing out that most don't commit murder. One philosophical review described it as having a high moral tone yet tending towards sensationalism and graphic anecdotes, and as providing a useful summary of the assessment of psychopathy but ultimately avoiding the difficult questions regarding internal contradictions in the concept or how it should be classified. Hare received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology at University of Western Ontario (1963). He is professor emeritus of the University of British Columbia where his studies center on psychopathology and psychophysiology. He was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada on December 30, 2010. Hare wrote a popular science bestseller published in 1993 entitled Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (reissued 1999). http://www.psychology-criminalbehavior-law.com//hare-psyc/ :::