LEFEBVRE: response to Rick Howe

Legitimate questions

Standoff couple jailed, but CAS inquiry still needed

By Rick Howe
The Daily News

Dear Mr Howe,

I read with interest your article posted on July 1st in the Daily News. It raised a few questions and a few hair on the back of my neck, and so I thought best to write you about it. There are many things I could address, but I will try to keep this fairly short and point to what triggered my reactions.

I am just unsure if you truly are the type of person who would speak kindly of the decision of the judge in the Finck's case, or if you truly are genuinely unable to clearly distinguish the social landspace you live in. It may be that your own level of disbelief hasn't reach the maturity of Carline and Larry, as well as the thousands of Canadians to whom it is getting harder and harder to lie to.

I can appreciate that the people of the media are everywhere intimidated by the court system and the threat of ludicrous law-suits, and forced by duty to abide by court orders and injunctions, many of which are simply strategies from the political authorities to benefit from malinformation. So we get news stories and comments that are mostly devoid of much substance. Are we witnessing a new MacCarthy era taking shape in Canada? It would appear so. Better have snap-shots reports to feed the newscasts machines daily, than in-depth coverage done by deep and free-thinkers.

However, I do know you have spent a considerable number of hours on your radio show listening to people on both sides of the issue regarding the abduction of Mona-Clare Finck. And much has been said about the personalities of the Fincks, and nothing about the personalities of the members of the CAS who are responsible for pursuing Mona-Clare, and the RCMP officers who have used taser guns twice on Carline while she was already subdued, hand-cuffed and on the ground.

Your article this Friday, although publicly siding with Carline and Larry for the need of a public inquiry, comes a bit too late, and still tip-toes around the facts, trying to give credit to the comedic trial conducted in a Nova Scotia criminal court. Is it fear I sense in your too-carefully selected words? Do you feel you need to give credit to the judge and the prosecutor, in order to win the right to blame then "the system?" And to publicly discredit the parents in order to offer a vicarious appeasement of conscience to those whose silence has a Pilate-like quality?

The Fincks have tried to say in so many different ways that a public inquiry needs to be conducted in the horrific way Mona-Clare has been abducted from her family by the CAS. But much of their drama has been turned into a blur because of their strong personalities. Carline's Starvation Campaign has awaken many to the seriousness of their ordeal and the fate of Mona-Clare. These parents have fought with everything they could to warn us about the CAS dangerous political power, yet, they have been publicly punished.

You wrote: "Judge Wright said the couple shows no remorse for their actions, and no appreciation of the danger they put their infant daughter in. He called their behaviour bizarre and belligerent, though he insisted he did not take that into account in his sentencing decision."

Judge Wright needs to consider the context in which the CAS is guilty of putting the parents. And not consider this context as irrelevant. Of course this would mean to admit publicly that Larry and Carline have every right and reason to be angry at the CAS for forcibly stealing their infant from them, with the help of the RCMP. Patriot Act, anyone?

"The judge also said the couple’s allegations of a conspiracy between the government, children’s services and the justice system to sell babies on the black market are ridiculous."

Well, if the judge says so! He must KNOW! Of course, he does, but he decides to not believe what we are telling him. We, the regular people, are not naive and ignorant of these things. We, the victims, the ones without means to engage in lenghty and heartless court proceedings to seek justice and force a reform of the "rights" enjoyed by the CAS in this country, we know what's going on. The tragedy of the Butter Box Babies continues to this day.

We have to contend with the powers that be and the ridiculous of the political class which as a whole, has a very hard time to do anything inspired by passion while they are in office. They have the opinions we tell them to have. They will defend the points of view we ask them to. So they won't do much to uphold justice, to defend the poor and the needy. Unless it leads to political gain. Unless they are told to. So what happens when money is the driving force of politics? We get the Canada we have, which brags about it's international status, while children and families are abused by some of the most powerful organizations in Canada: the Children's Aid Societies. Where are the worthy leaders that will lead this country out of the dark ages of the present darkness of political corruption?

You wrote: "The justice system took it fairly easy on Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck. Perhaps their silence as Justice Robert Wright passed sentence was the couple’s acknowledgment of his patience. During their trial, they hurled bitter and often outrageous comments at him."

I could not believe you actually live with such a naive state of mind. Let me offer another view.

The Justice system took it unfairly harshly on Mona-Clare, Mona, Carline and Larry. Their baby was wanted even before birth. Then they were pursued by the CAS to submit to a mental assessment, which often times becomes the weapon of tool to discredit and shame the parents whose children the CAS is targeting.

Mona-Clare Finck was protected by her parents against the abusive ways of the CAS, and thousands, including yourself, are starting to agree with this position publicly. In Canada, it is a crime to resist an apprehension order. It does not matter if this order is ludicrous. It will damage the biological families at deep emotional and psychological levels. The social scars and the shame that then plague the parents are very cruel.

Mona-Clare was violently severed from her parents. Her grandmother died of a heart attack in the same house she was besieged in, and at anytime the police could have run through the house with a bulldozer, gas, rifles, etc. They were preparing to do so.

The CAS alledged that the child could potentially be harmed in the future. Why? We all get hurt in life, we all get harmed by our parents and families in some way. When did it ever become the responsability of the State to regulate the uniformity of our family education and daily life? Well, the CAS was right: Mona-Clare has suffered deep damage. The CAS, in their arrogance and unwillingness (or inability) to self-regulate, and because of the criminal lack of accountability to the Ministry of Child and Family Services and the Nova Scotia government, the CAS created itself the conditions necessary to justify "legally" the abduction of Mona-Clare.

Carline VandenElsen has written a book with a very prophetic title: "America's Most Wanted Mother - Who Has REALLY Abducted the Triplets". This time again, the answer to this question resounds as clearly as ever: not the parents. By reason of necessity, Larry and Carline Finck had to hide their daughter from a system that is deliberately trying to hide one of the greatest scandal in Canada's history, abusing unsuspecting parents and placing their babies in the grueling groove of foster homes and adoption, cutting them from their own roots and history. What kind of Canada is this producing?

This trial was such a mockery of justice. I would like to paraphrase the comment you directed to the CAS, but apply it to the Justice system in this case: "There are cases where the judicial system has pursued conviction first, sentenced the "guilty," and not even worried about the impact later. How many times has it been wrong?"

In Ontario, as I am sure elsewhere, the police is used (helps out, actually) in some cases in order to secure entry to homes without needing a warrant. This corruption is happening today, in Canada, and while people spend their time calling us paranoid and delusional, the truth is even more horrible. Children placed in foster home are at higher risk of being molested, physically abused. Who does not wonder about the rise of child pornography and the incidence of higher cases being artifically created by the CAS? Are they too being used by another dark wing of our society?

What happened in Halifax, that the RCMP would provide a full anti-terrorist team to the CAS in order to unilaterally and without question, abduct a baby from her family? What kind of professional and political relationships does the CAS benefit from and how high do these connections run?

"This judge has thick skin" continues Mr Howe. "Some of the vitriol thrown his way by VandenElsen, in particular, might be something you’d expect from a drill sergeant." OK. But why did it happen? We are not told what the judge said before being verbally addressed in "such a way" by Carline or Larry... We are not told of the abusive procedures used by the CAS that the defendants tried to expose all along the trial, only to be told to keep quiet and let the otherwise respectable court be desecrated by a judge with a seemingly very focused political agenda. Excluding much of anything that would speak of the human drama before him, he insited on judging only points of law based on charges stemming from he standoff. In a criminal case, the accused can evoke self-defense and be heard. In their case, self-defense wasn't even considered.

I strongly suspect Carline tried to get the judge to think outside of his own personal narrow agenda and was trying to direct his attention to a more clear and present danger: the CAS's impunity and the dangers that those past 6 years without annual reviews and unaccountability have created for the very security of the population of Canada. And pointing to the other actors around the CAS, both Larry and Carline tried to do us a service by directing our attention to the deterioration of accountability and the perversions that surely stem from abuse of power, wich if left unaddressed, leads to arrogance in high places and greater crimes against the population they are supposed to protect.

Back to the legitimacy of the trial, there were grounds for a mistrial when a juror violated secrecy and spoke to outsiders about the case. But the judge allowed the juror back in court and kept going as if nothing wrong had happened. For other reasons as well, a mistrial would have only been a fair outcome to expect in this trial. A context should have been established for the actions of the parents, and would have turned the spotlight on the CAS and the RCMP and probably call their own actions into question, more clearly establishing the responsability of the authorities and helped correct a serious social threat.

The Fincks case simply reveals the depth of corruption, collusion and shady political alliances that the CAS, the Family Court and law enforcement enjoy in our country. Not by clear conspiracy, but through the stagnation of the process of accountability, a violation of legal obligations that leads to much criminal activities in the misuse of power and the abuse of special rights given to the CAS for the protection of children and the maintenance of the family unit in Canada.

Judge Wright said the couple shows no remorse for their actions, and no appreciation of the danger they put their infant daughter in. He called their behaviour bizarre and belligerent, though he insisted he did not take that into account in his sentencing decision. (Why did he need to say this? It obviously contradicts what he has said earlier about the parents).

"The judge also said the couple’s allegations of a conspiracy between the government, children’s services and the justice system to sell babies on the black market are ridiculous." The prosecutor actually didn't represent "the people" against the Fincks. But the CAS against the people. And the court found the CAS not guilty by association. And anyone resisting them becomes de facto a criminal.

Somewhere in all of Finck and VandenElsen’s blustery flow of informations they shared with us, data they have gathered through personal experiences and much research, there is a legitimate issue with Children’s Aid.

NDP MLA Maureen MacDonald is not the only one that can be found to have said that the CAS is having "more power than the police". That lack of accountability raises suspicions about why Children’s Aid found it necessary to take an apparently healthy baby girl from her parents. As for Mr Woodburn, he missed the obvious: Larry Finck DOES believe the laws of our land should apply to EVERYBODY, including the CAS.

Mr Howe, at the conclusion of your article, you are asking the right questions, but we already know the answers. These questions have been asked for years by Larry and Carline. And their recent experience only shows that they are far from crazy. It's our system which is crazy for condeming these parents and patting itself on the back for doing so... while more children are going to be targeted and abducted from their families by the CAS, with the help of the police, and the covering of the Family Court. It doesn't take a university degree to see this clearly. It only takes common sense.

Finally, what a horrible proposition: "Barricading themselves inside Finck’s mother’s home and firing a gun at police were not the wisest decisions Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen ever made. The justice system has meted out appropriate punishment for those transgressions." Appropriate punishment is not a term that can be used in this case. What happens when a political system turns against its population? It attracts the ire of the international community, and no amount of pleading can ever change the wrong they do and call it right. And the punishment toward those who confront such systems is called "crime against humanity." We have here the bad seeds of a totalitarian regime being watered through the spouts of ignorance and incompetence, favoritism and elitism, apathy and malinformation.

"The couple defended their actions as parents worried about losing a child to what they call a corrupt system." In this they were right. But that defense was taken away from them.

History teaches us. Will Nova Scotia rise to the challenge of being a leader in the correction of the Children's Aid Society? A lawyer I know calls them "Children's Abduction Society."

Regards,

Andre Lefebvre
Stratford, ON
"Just a guy talking"

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For the love of our families
http://www.familyheadquarters.ca
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