HOWE: Legitimate questions

Standoff couple jailed, but CAS inquiry still needed

By Rick Howe
The Daily News
July 1st, 2005

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.

This judge has thick skin. Some of the vitriol thrown his way by VandenElsen, in particular, might be something you’d expect from a drill sergeant.

Finck received a 41/2-year sentence. VandenElsen was handed a 31/2-year jail term. Finck was convicted of child abduction and weapons charges. VandenElsen was convicted of child abduction and firing a gun at police.

Prosecutor Rick Woodburn called the sentence “good and proper.”

In court, Woodburn described VandenElsen as “irrational and violent.” He said Finck “does not believe the laws of our land apply to him.”

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.

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.

Yet somewhere in all of Finck and VandenElsen’s bluster is a legitimate issue with Children’s Aid. NDP MLA Maureen MacDonald recently described the organization as having “more power than the police,” but without much in the way of checks and balances.

That lack of accountability raises suspicions about why Children’s Aid found it necessary to take an apparently healthy baby girl from her parents.

No yearly review

It has been pointed out the Hamm government is ignoring the Nova Scotia Children and Family Services Act. The law requires a yearly review of children’s services. There hasn’t been one since 1999.

Community Services Minister David Morse has an excuse. He says he could find no one to sit on the committee. This is a feeble effort by a weak minister in response to a clear violation of the law. Two child-welfare activists have filed court papers against the government for negligence in enforcing the act.

A group of residents calling themselves the MCF Inquiry Committee came together this week to call on Justice Minister Michael Baker to order a public inquiry into the Finck-VandenElsen matter. Group members say they’re concerned by what they call “a lack of external oversight to ensure that the Family Court, Children’s Aid Society and Department of Community Services are acting in the best interests of the child.”

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. It’s what led to the standoff that raises concern.

The couple defended their actions as parents worried about losing a child to what they call a corrupt system.

Did Children’s Aid act in the best interests of this child? If we are to put our trust in a secretive agency that is supposed to protect children at risk, the questions raised about this case and others must be publicly addressed.

Does Children’s Aid adequately investigate allegations? There are cases where the agency has acted first, seized a child, and worried about the impact later. How many times has it been wrong?

Our faith can only be restored by an independent public inquiry.

rhowe@chumhalifax.com

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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YOUNGSON: In pursuit of David Morse

by Linda Youngson

I want to make some corrections to the an article that was written in the Halifax Herald on Thursday, June 23, 2005 by David Jackson:

"Party to sue to force review of Children's and Family Services Act/NDP: Lack of committee against provincial law/Party to sue to force review of Children's and Family Services Act"

It is Marilyn Dey and I who are taking the Minister of Children Services, David Morse,to court NOT Graham Steele. Graham Steele is our lawyer. Though I wish we were, we are not suing the Minister. But we are bringing this to court to force the Minister to obey the law of the land.

We are appreciative that the NDP party is backing this action in a practical way by giving us Graham Steele, NDP MLA, to be our lawyer, free of charge, BUT Marilyn, I, and a number of other women we are connected with have been chasing the NDP party for 2 years now to do something on this issue, as well as a number of other issues concerning Children's Service / Children's Aid (CS/CA).

We believe it is important that the public understand that we have been doing the research and the lobbying because we want people to understand that our research is credible, and we believe it is important that people hear what we have to say because there is so much more information that we have that the public needs to be aware of concerning the CS/CA.

A full year ago I wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the Halifax Herald demanding that the Minister put together this Advisory Committee as mandated by the law:

PRINTED IN HALIFAX HERALD, Friday June 25, 20004
Voice of the People

Frustration Mounts

We should all be concerned about the act of frustration that was demonstrated across the front pages during the recent Fink incident. There are many people in this province who are equally frustrated with Children’s Aid/ Children’s Services and the justice system that surrounds it. And the people of Nova Scotia are being denied a legal avenue of expression by our provincial government.

Section 88, subsection 1, of the Children and Family Services Act mandates the minister of Community Services to establish an advisory committee to review the act on an annual basis to report on the operation of the act, and whether the principles and the purposes of the act are being achieved. Section 88, subsection 2, mandates the inclusion on the committee of people who have had their children in care.

However, since 1990 there has only been three reviews: 1993, 1996, and 1999. Does the government intend to fan the fires of frustration by continuing to ignore its responsibility to establish this avenue of expression that is mandated by law?

Premier John Hamm and Community Services Minister David Morse: The law dictates that you re-establish these annual reviews, and I challenge you to establish a committee with members who will express the concerns they harbour about the Children and Family Services Act and its implementation.

Linda D Youngson , Dartmouth

It's been a long time waiting for the people of Nova Scotia to be aware of this one issue! But it is satisfying to know that so many people know this now.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Now we need to educate the people on ALL THE REST! ! !

LEFEBVRE: Response to Verdict and Sentence

Sentenced by the courts on June 29th,2005, Larry and Carline VandenElsen have received the following punishment:

- They lost their 5 month old baby girl
- The State has been unaccountable for the abduction of their baby girl
- Public character assassination
- Public shame for standing against the powers that be (let it teach us all a lesson, eh?)

4.5 years for Larry Finck and 3.5 years for Carline VandenElsen. Both were credited double time for time served, contrary to the abusive 1.5 time the Crown wanted to force on them. Larry will then serve 4.5 years less 26.5 months and Carline will serve 3.5 years less 200 days.

One thing this trial has not succeeded at doing is examine the reasons why Larry and Carline refused to hand over their baby. Why the RCMP tried to ram down their door in the middle of the night. The many irregularities CAS and the legal system have been responsible for, from the first court order while Mona-Clare was still in the womb, to the use of the RCMP anti-terrorist unit in the middle of the night, to the abuse of mental health assessments which the CAS sparkles families with like poisoned candies at Christmas.

What this trial has succeeded to do is throw discredit on the institution of "justice" in that province, and has helped bring out to the light the issue of the CAS and Family Court who, by their very self-preservation, continue to break up families using "mental health" as their weapon of choice.
Quote from Supreme Court Justice Robert Wright at sentencing: "Like Ms. VandenElsen, Mr. Finck appears to have little appreciation for the seriousness of his unlawful conduct or the danger he put his child in. Like Ms. VandenElsen, he blames everyone but himself."

It is very telling to me that NOWHERE is there ANY blame put on ANYONE outside of Larry and Carline for the turn of events that provoked them to hide with their baby. And we all know that the sequence of events that lead to the couple’s awareness of the clear and present danger has to do with the history of the CAS in violating their mandate (lip service) of protecting the children (except against agencies like the CAS), creating chaos and breaking families where it wasn’t needed.

How do we let an agency that has both a governmental and private status, use its own psychiatrists and lawyers to build up their own defense to support the fabricated removal of children in otherwise regular families? Who has never had any harm done to them in a family? Who can predict that a child placed in a foster home will NEVER have any harm done to them? The OPPOSITE is actually truer. So where does the CAS logic apply in this case? It doesn’t, because they haven’t operated logically.

At this point, scores of people from around Halifax and elsewhere, in Ontario as well, are coming out with their own horror stories of how their child has been methodically removed by the CAS and placed in a foster home or given in adoption. To ignore them is no longer possible. We cannot refuse to consider the future of this "mental health" angle as being the weapon of choice being use nowadays to forcibly take away from parents their children who suffer from mental health.

A public inquiry is the only way we will finally expose the inefficiency of the system they use, and expose the numerous abuses that will shock people. There is a systemic blindness to the real tragedies unnecessarily created by employees of a system who rely solely on the letter of the law to accomplish a task: provide candidates to a system that processes children.

Cynical? Far from it. It is a grim and undisputable reality.

Larry, Carline and Mona-Clare Finck have been victims of this confused system. The standoff stemmed from their refusal to abide by the CAS comedic claims to their infant. And now that the LAW has succeeded in forcing itself on those victims, we need to stand and denounce such atrocities against Canadian families. The deep shame that stigmatizes families who lose their children for reasons that are beyond them, the powerlessness before a system that maintains that rules have to be blindly applied, even if those rules clearly violate the very mandate they boast about: protecting children and keeping families together. It is clear that we assist at a social fraud.

The CAS has turned into a monstrous machine, and the longer we leave it to itself, unaccountable, the worst it will become. In that particular province, the obligatory annual review of the CAS and Child Protection Services has not been done since 1999. It is time we start asking questions. There's a big building being constructed in Stratford, ON for the CAS... WHY do they need a new million-dollar building?

Regards,

Andre Lefebvre
http://www.familyheadquarters.ca

BROOKS: Standoff duo get multi-year sentences

VandenElsen given 3 1/2 years, Finck 4 1/2 years in custody fight gone wrong

By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG / Staff Reporter

Over a year after the armed standoff that cost them their infant daughter and their freedom, Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck still don't fully understand what they've done, a judge says.

"Like Ms. VandenElsen, Mr. Finck appears to have little appreciation for the seriousness of his unlawful conduct or the danger he put his child in," Supreme Court Justice Robert Wright said Wednesday in sentencing the couple to prison time.

"Like Ms. VandenElsen, he blames everyone but himself."

After two days of hearings, Justice Wright sentenced Mr. Finck to 4 1/2 years in prison and Ms. VandenElsen to 3 1/2 years for their roles in the May 2004 standoff on Halifax's Shirley Street.

In contrast to their frequent outbursts at earlier court appearances, the couple showed little reaction to the ruling: Ms. VandenElsen was busy writing, while Mr. Finck sat back in his chair.

"They made deliberate plans to carry out what they did, and this is where they ended up," Crown Rick Woodburn said outside court after the ruling.

The Crown had asked for a five-year term for Mr. Finck for child abduction contrary to a court order. Mr. Woodburn based that on the circumstances and the fact Mr. Finck committed the Halifax offence while still on probation after serving two years for abducting his daughter, from a previous relationship, from her legal guardian in Ontario.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Finck had asked the judge for house arrest or time served, saying, "Anything further is excessive."

"Both are out of the question," replied the judge.

Justice Wright agreed Mr. Finck should serve more time than he did for the first abduction, but said the Crown's request was "a notch too far."

Mr. Finck received 3 1/2 years for abduction and a year for possessing a shotgun, to be served consecutively.

He also received six months for obstructing a police officer and two months for having an unregistered shotgun, to be served concurrently.

The judge accepted the Crown's proposal about Ms. VandenElsen and gave her 18 months for abduction and two years, to be served consecutively, for using a gun while committing a crime. She was sentenced to a year concurrent for threatening to assault a police officer with the shotgun, obstructing a police officer, having an unregistered shotgun and having a shotgun for a purpose dangerous to the public peace.

The judge gave the couple the customary double credit for the time they've already served. Mr. Finck, who's been in jail since his May 2004 arrest, will see 26 1/2 months shaved off his term, while 200 days will be cut from Ms. VandenElsen's. In the end, Mr. Finck will serve less time than his wife, who has been free most of the time while awaiting, and going to, trial.

He also issued mandatory firearms prohibition orders and a DNA order for Ms. VandenElsen.

The couple came to Nova Scotia from Stratford, Ont., in November 2003 when Ms. VandenElsen lost access to her triplets from a previous marriage after a lengthy custody battle.

She was already pregnant and feared child welfare workers would take the baby.

Ms. VandenElsen told the court they moved into the home of Mona Finck, Mr. Finck's mother, at 6161 Shirley St., to start their lives over. Mona Finck died of natural causes during the standoff.

"I have significant remorse for not terminating my pregnancy when my mother instincts told me that my unborn child would face grave peril," she said Wednesday.

The Children's Aid Society in Halifax applied to the court for supervision orders at the family home and psychological and parental assessments.

Given the reports about the couple and Mr. Finck's behaviour in family court, Justice Wright said, the court ordered the child placed in temporary care.

Ms. VandenElsen fled with the baby, and Mr. Finck continued to appear in court. He admitted during the criminal trial that he lied in family court - he did in fact know where his wife and baby were. They eventually came home, and the couple planned to leave the country.

When police found them at the Shirley Street home on May 19, 2004, the couple refused to let them in and barricaded the door. Pellets from a shotgun fired inside the home passed just inches from a police officer's head.

The emergency response team was called in and the longest standoff in Halifax history began.

Ms. VandenElsen repeated Wednesday that "Big Mona," her mother-in-law, fired the gun, but Justice Wright reminded her a jury convicted her of that offence.

The couple endangered their then-five-month-old baby, the judge said, when they carried her onto a porch overhang and displayed her to reporters and police. They used the standoff to further their "ridiculous theories" that various agencies - the courts, police and child protection agencies - are plotting to sell children to the childless.

Despite repeated warnings by police, "in an act of self-indulgence and outright recklessness," Mr. Finck was carrying a loaded shotgun when he came out of the house on the evening of May 21 with his wife and baby. The couple carried the body of his mother on a makeshift stretcher.

"It's indeed fortunate that no one got hurt," Justice Wright said.

As her sentencing submission, Ms. VandenElsen read from 10 pages of handwritten notes, which Justice Wright termed a "political statement."

She said police "unnecessarily created a massive public spectacle" through the standoff "to sensationalize and justify their earlier actions."

"It's a crime to keep me in jail," she read.

Facing a mandatory one-year sentence on the weapons charge, Ms. VandenElsen said the only remedy was to return all her children to her.

"I can't change who I am," she told the judge. "I understand I can't change the system."

Justice Wright said: "Ms. VandenElsen, it's never too late to turn your life around."

"I tried that and look where I am," she replied.

A handful of supporters attended the hearing Wednesday afternoon, including Mary MacDonald.

The Halifax woman, who knows Ms. VandenElsen "very casually," said the sentence was harsh.

"It will obviously cause her a great deal of grief," she said.

"I would have preferred that Ms. VandenElsen be reunited with her baby daughter rather than go to prison."

Another supporter, Halifax's Marilyn Dey, was displeased but not surprised by the sentence.

The woman, who's known Mr. Finck since his first court case in Ontario, wished the judge had spoken about the pair's emotions because the whole situation involved the apprehension of their child.

"The judge didn't even go there. There was no concern for what they were going through at the time."

Justice Wright noted the couple's "contemptuous conduct at trial," which he said "ranged from the belligerent to the bizarre."

Despite that behaviour, their lack of participation in preparation of a presentence report and their apparent disregard for assessments, he recommended they receive psychological counselling in prison.

"Their co-operation may appear to be a dim prospect at the moment," he said, "but it is still worth a try."

YOUNGSON: Can it get any more bizarre?

by Linda D Youngson
Halifax, NS


For five years now I have been watching Children’s Services / Children’s Aid and their antics in and out of court. The antics get more and more bizarre not less so.

Let me just run through a few prime characters right now: Justice Debra Smith, Minister of Community Services David Morse, Senior Director of Family and Children Services George Savoury, Minister of Justice Mr. Baker, the superintendent of the Correctional Facility in Dartmouth Sean Kelly, and Gen. George Armstrong Custer.

Continually , Justice Debra Smith set herself up as a self-proclaimed psychologist with her numerous declarations of Carline’s unstable mental state despite the fact that Carline had not submitted to any assessment. Since when did a position on the bench give one the right to diagnose parents and other assorted victims? The health care providers had better watch out! If this precedent is allowed to continue, the present health care providers may find their position in the family court system redundant and their lucrative contracts with the provincial government nonexistent.

I also saw Justice Smith doing the job of the crown prosecutors in Carlin and Larry’s criminal court case . Except that it was such a travesty of justice it would have been quite the comedy. The two crowns were stretched back on their chairs, legs fully extended, twirling around to lock heads every once in a while to exchange a comment or a chuckle between them as the justice raised the objections and basically did their job for them. What an easy way to make a buck . . .or 2 . . .or more , a whole lot more - So how much did those 2 get for all their trouble anyhow?

And please tell me how can it NOT be considered a conflict of interest when the same justice, Justice Debra Smith, who presided over Carline and Larry’s family court case, was also appointed to preside over the constitutional challenge court case brought forward by the same couple while the family court case was still before her? And please understand, it was apparent to all that the outcome of one case was directly related to the other.

And the poor Minister of Community Services - whose puppet are you anyway? A small article appeared in the paper declaring that for five years the Minister of Community Services, David Morse, has been unable to find anyone to “come out and play with him”- to be part of the committee he is mandated by law to set up on an annual basis to review the Children and Family Services Act (Some say he has not done this since 1999 but, in fact, it has been since 1993 that this committee reported back on the Children and Family Services Act, as mandated)

To add to this comedy, this news article stated that the minister suggested that if the NDP MLA Graham Steele “wants to do something constructive” that Steele should do his job for him and send people his way. How interesting that since the appearance of this article, Steele has been swamped by calls to his office by people clamoring to be on this committee. Sorry David, I guess you get picked last - again.

Then George Savoury, senior director of Family and Children Services says we do not need a committee on an annual basis - Is he saying here that he does not have to abide by the law? Section 88 of the Children and Family Services Act, clearly states that the Minister “shall” set up this committee on an “annual” basis. Since when does this government have the license to set themselves up above the law? How can the government go around accusing good parent of breaking the law when they habitually do so themselves? I assure you that it is more than section 88 of the Children and Family Services Act that is being ignored by this government.

Then Mr Baker, minister of justice, while practicing the duck and cover protective strategy, sent out a spokesperson , Richard Perry, to tell the media that “for all intents and purposes” a court case is an inquiry! Huh? What idiot appointed this man as our justice minister - a man who cannot tell a court case from an inquiry? Tell that to Gomery!

And since when did Sean Kelly , the superintendent of the Correctional Facility in Dartmouth pass the bar and become lawyer to Larry and Carline by stating to the media “The issue is in relation to not feeling it’s in their best interest at the time to speak to the media” I am well informed that both Carline and Larry desperately want to speak to the media and that all requested visits and communications with the media have been continually denied.

And also ask, when has it become acceptable behavior for the court security to ruff up self-representing parents? I, myself, witnessed this during a court appearance before Justice Smith. It was at the end of the day and totally unprovoked. While a number of court observers looked on in horror, a court security person tackled Carline pinning her between the wall and the floor. Justice Smith stopped to view this for a couple of seconds then, without saying a word, she turned on her heels and disappeared into her chamber.

And today, another most bizarre occurrence: all the stories concerning Carline and Larry during the past 2 days were pulled from the Halifax Chronicle Herald web site - replaced by a story concerning Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s last stand.

Is this prophetic or what? I hope so ! After ruthlessly killing innocent men, women, and children , Custer came to the end he deserved at the battle of the Little Bighorn.

May the ruthless system that is destroying the precious families in our province come to an abrupt end as well - replaced by a system that truly believes in families, the best interest of the child - and the LAW!


Linda D Youngson