HFX DAILY NEWS: Inquiry justified

Inquiry demand has justification
By The Daily News
The Daily News
June 28, 2005

The ripples from Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen’s battle against the courts and child-protections agencies continue to spread. The latest one could rock a few boats, even though the couple’s recently concluded trial over last year’s armed standoff had more than its share of turbulence.

Yesterday, a group called the MCF Inquiry Committee called for the public to persuade Justice Minister Michael Baker to call an inquiry to examine the circumstances behind the child-custody dispute.

The images from the standoff are indelible. Halifax residents will not soon forget the sight of police officers geared as though going to war. And the end of the incident, with Finck’s mother dead, the couple arrested and their baby daughter taken from them by force, was not HRM’s finest hour.

There are doubts over both Finck and VandenElsen’s stability and fitness as parents. And there are also concerns about the way child-protection services responded when they learned of VandenElsen’s pregnancy.

The group is concentrating on the latter concerns.

Why did child-protection officials in Ontario seek to apprehend the child so quickly?

Why was a Canada-wide alert issued for VandenElsen?

Why did the Children’s Aid Society here consider Finck and VandenElsen problem parents?

Why did Halifax Regional Police use robust force in their midnight attempt to apprehend the child?

These and other questions are relevant, regardless of the character and background of VandenElsen and Finck. The policies under which Children’s Aid operated apply to anyone. That is reason enough for an inquiry.

To emphasize its point, the committee chose to liken Finck and VandenElsen’s case to that of Donald Marshall.

That comparison is, at best, premature.

Marshall’s wrongful-conviction ordeal was a miscarriage of justice. In the Finck-VandenElsen case, that is yet to be determined. And it needs to be.