KIMBER: Open Letter to Justice Minister Baker

Open Letter to Justice Minister Michael Baker
By Stephen Kimber

Dear Mr. Baker,

You said last week it is “inappropriate” for you to comment on calls for a public inquiry into the May 2004 seizure of then five-month-old Mona Clare Finck by the Children’s Aid Society, both because her parents are awaiting sentencing on their criminal convictions in the matter and because the issue of the now-toddler’s permanent custody is still before the courts.

That’s strange, Mr. Baker.

When does the inappropriate become appropriate for you?

On Nov. 10, 2004, for example, you announced, with much fanfare, that there will be “a full, independent and public inquiry” into the circumstances surrounding the death of Theresa McEvoy. You made this announcement less than a month after a teenager was charged with causing her death during a joyride in a stolen car. You announced this inquiry before the courts had dealt with those charges and a full seven months, in fact, before the boy’s sentencing hearing — which only begins this week — had taken place.

Appropriate?

This wasn’t even the first, or only, time you’d decided it was “appropriate” for you to talk this particular case in public while it was before the courts. On Nov. 1, you criticized your own officials’ handling of the case and said it was “extremely unfortunate” the boy hadn’t been kept in jail while awaiting trial on other charges. On Nov. 4, you publicly expressed “sympathies” to the McEvoy family and promised you would “carefully review and consider” their request for a judicial inquiry. You even announced you would be going to Ottawa to lobby for legal changes to make it easier to keep young offenders behind bars.

Was that inappropriate?

You tell me.

In the Finck-VandenElsen case, you say that, “based on the information we have at the present time, the Department of Justice does not feel that a public inquiry is warranted.” Unless there is new information, you said, there would be no inquiry.

I have no new information, Mr. Baker, but I do have some old questions. Perhaps, since you feel the public knows everything we need to know about how this case was handled, you’d like to answer them for me:

1) What was the legal basis for seizing the baby from her parents? Which of the 14 criteria specified in the Family and Children’s Services Act justified this action? Did the court consider, as the Act requires, “the best interest of the child” and “the importance for the child’s development of a positive relationship with a parent or guardian and a secure place as a member of a family,” or was it swayed by irrelevant arguments about the personal behaviour and attitudes of the parents that were unrelated to their capabilities as parents?

2) What witnesses were called and what evidence was presented at the January 2004 hearing when the initial apprehension order was granted in order to satisfy the court there were “reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the child may be in need of protective services”? Did the proceedings demonstrate, as the Act requires, “a real danger [to the child] that is apparent on the evidence”?

3) Was the doctor who delivered the baby and met with the parents before and after the baby’s birth called to testify at this hearing? Was the judge informed that the Children’s Aid Society had interviewed the doctor the week before the hearing to ask if she had any concerns about “either parent, re: mental health,” and that she’d answered: “No, no concerns”? Were the doctor’s notes — “Both parents appropriate with baby, caring, loving” — introduced as evidence? Were those notes considered by the judge before making her decision?

4) Has your department — as it was so quick to do in the McEvoy case — launched an internal review of how this case was handled by your officials? By the Family Court? By Children’s Aid? If so, what was the nature of those inquiries? What were the results?

5) Has your department received a copy of the internal review by the Halifax Regional Police into its handling of this case? Will it be made public? Will there be an independent review to determine how and by whom the decision to use overwhelming force — battering ram, submachine guns — to carry out the apprehension order and whether this level of force was appropriate in this case?

I have other questions as well. About Children’s Aid’s role, more generally, in child custody cases. And about the checks and balances in place, in the law and in practice, to ensure that our Children and Family Services Act lives up to its lofty promise of acting in “the best interests of a child.”

But I’ll wait for your answer to these initial questions before I pose them.

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Stephen Kimber
Stephen.Kimber@ukings.ns.ca