NewsRoomWatch

Carline's account of the Standoff

2005-09-07T04:51:00.000-04:00

The standoff

Big Mona, Larry, and I are at the table after a pot of coffee is made. Mona won’t go back to bed as Larry suggests, she’s too wired, "those bastards! They’re not coming in here to take that baby." I hadn’t been around when Chantelle was brutally taken by the authorities, but from what I understand Mona was devastated. More so because she felt helpless. Now, it’s as though she has no intention of letting anyone take another child away, this one her namesake grandchild. And certainly not exactly like the last time - for no good, decent, or legal reason.

Before the coffee, she ordered Larry to make sure the doors and windows were secure. I helped him carry a sheet of plywood from the basement, which is used to wedge between the front and foyer doors. The rest of the time, I don’t know what I’m doing in a situation that surely isn’t happening. It can’t be. The phone rings but I pay no attention to it, or to Mona who’s telling us to ignore it. I’m hardly able to listen to Big Mona who’s got enough to say, and Larry who’s making enough noise, reminding me this night is for real. And all the while, our beautiful baby is sleeping peacefully in her bed … maybe for the last time.

The phone isn’t ringing anymore. The activity outside has stopped. The coffee pot is empty. It’s close to 3 o’clock. There isn’t anything we can accomplish by losing any more sleep and working ourselves up. Larry had said this earlier, that they were gone and wouldn’t be back until morning. He was upstairs already but knew he wouldn’t be sleeping. How could he, when another baby’s life was at risk again.

Mona and I, but mostly Mona, busies herself with putting things away, perhaps thinking that tidying up would make a difference. She speaks quietly, and sometimes to herself. I can’t quite make out if she is praying - she’s done both on occasion when I was around, and whenever Little Mona was being talked or thought or worried about.

She tells me to check the front door as we are leaving the kitchen. I know Larry would have be thorough but I also know Mona wanted me to feel safe just as much as she did. The little nightlight in the kitchen remains on, which gives enough light to walk down the hallway to the front of the house. The door leading into the foyer is shut, which I had expected, and opening it I see that the front door is thoroughly braced with plywood as I had also expected. Perhaps more for Big Mona’s satisfaction, I descend the one stair into the foyer, but have to open the door wide and step close to the hinged side because the end of the sheet of plywood is positioned against the back of the step. I make my way to ensure the front door is indeed fastened, shut well, guarding not against escape, but rather against entry.

It sounds like an explosion the first time and its nearness sends me reeling. When it hits the front door again and then again the glass shatters. By this time I’ve tripped on the step leading into the hallway and the newel post on the stair landing catches my fall. As though in fast-forward and in slow motion I attempt to get hold of myself and of what’s happening.

The tumultuous assaults are against the door - the assailants are trying to break it down. It’s when I’m turn around and only a second on my feet that I see Big Mona, she’s standing not two feet away, with uncle Wills gun aimed at the front door. Shock does not immobilize. My hand reach for Mona’s and I think it’s the weight of my quick and thrust like movement that makes her lose her balance. But the clamoring commotion on the outside, the end to the violent pounding on the front door and the heavy scatterings of several beet descending from the porch tells me that Big Mona was serious when she said she wasn’t letting anyone in to steal our baby. I don’t know if it’s the pounding in my head or the pounding in my heart, but I feel like it’s never going to go away. Mona-Clare. What is to become of you?

Larry’s back downstairs. He sits Big Mona in Albert’s chair in the living room trying to calm her - she insists she isn’t finished yet. She’s shaking, her sentences are broken and she’s going off in angry words. We’re all feeling it - it’s raw and instinctual fear. Larry tries to make light of the situation, telling her at least she knew to aim over their heads, but Mona, unlaughing, says it wasn’t’ her intention to aim high.

I don’t recall making the second pot of coffee or if I was the one who made it but it’s almost empty and it’s almost dawn, and it’s almost time for Mona-Clare’s day to begin, but it isn’t the time to understand her days with us are about to end. I go to my baby take her in my arms embrace her with all my mother emotion. When she awakens I put her to my breast and she suckles with hunger. She draws her feet up like a little monkey and I cup them and hold them against my womb. It’s as though we both can’t get enough of each other.

After my tears I hum to the tune of a Gloria and William Gaither song but sing the verse that really counts:

‘How sweet to hold a new-born baby

and feel the pride and joy he gives;

but greater still the calm assurance.

This child can face uncertain days

Because He lives...

Because He lives I can face tomorrow

Because He lives all fear is gone,

Because I know He holds the future;

and life is worth the living

Just because He lives’

Little Mona is full and Big Mona is waiting for her. She’s ashen, there are tiny beads of sweat around her brow and she’s wiped her eyes and blown her nose several times already, but she still expects her ‘baby’ in bed with her. Mona stays under the covers and I get on the other side of the bed with Mona-Clare, and Dolly and Friend between us. By the time Mass has started on TV Big Mona is asleep. Little Mona and I move into Larry’s and my bed, because he’s upstairs and awake and the three of us need to be together.

The police have cut the phone lines. They’ve disconnected our communications with everyone except for them. So every time we pick up the phone it automatically rings Halifax Police. Our lawyer Amy Roburn, whom we telephoned earlier, trying to figure out what to do, can no longer advise us. We can’t talk to family members or anyone else eager and anxious to assist in resolving matters.

Big Mona’s schedule is off - she stays in bed. Her energy is low after the most fitful night of her life. Larry’s been keeping watch on things, what’s going on outside and I’m wasting my time and energy with Tom Marten, who calls himself a negotiator, but both he and I know he’s been called in to antagonize. One call after another he’s got absolutely nothing to say except that the only way things are getting resolved is if we hand our baby to the Children’s Aid Society of Halifax and Larry and I surrender ourselves to the police.

They know about Big Mona’s health - knew months ago already, when Larry had written the letter on her behalf advising the authorities to quit harassing her with those constant, never ending deliveries of documents. Marten wouldn’t say who authorized the attack on her by attacking her home in the middle of the night. And now adding insult to injury Marten asks, "How’s old Mona doing?"

Every once in a while I think he cares or at least I think he should, when he asks what else is going on inside the house. I give him an assessment of things but Larry’s assessment was right when he said the cops already know what’s going on because they probably have a throw phone (listening device) attached to the house somewhere since the early hours of the ‘stand off’, which is how it gets sensationalized across Canada. And as before, the press is purposefully ridiculous.

I’m furious when Larry turns on Mona’s new kitchen television - the one we bought her a week ago - a Mother’s Day present. Who said anything about Larry firing a gun!? The media is feeding the public exactly what the police want everyone to think - that a crazy man had started shooting at police. No mention of what really happened and how the police and Children’s Aid instigated the whole affair. Just that they arrived to enforce an apprehension order.

We wouldn’t know ourselves until later that we were followed to Wal-Mart the evening before, that the police had us and the house under surveillance, watching us through the window with high powered binoculars. The media doesn’t report that the authorities knew Mona-Clare and I had returned to 6161 Shirley St. days ago already, and that they didn’t bother to knock at the door at any decent or respectable hour when they could have or should have - there was no 911 call, and the police had absolutely no indication Mona -Clare’s life was in peril, which was the only legal excuse they could have used to come in the middle of the night.

And there was no report of their attempt to gain entry into Mona’s home by breaking down the door with a battering ram, while armed with machine guns.

Big Mona wants to keep Marten busy on the phone. I’m not interested in talking with him because I don’t get anywhere, and many times he just upsets me, especially when he tries to do amateur psychology on me. Maybe I’m the one who has it wrong - maybe it’s Marten’s role to needle, provoke, to be useless, to get a reaction from us, to do anything but resolve matters peacefully and quickly, to justify crossing lines already, to keep the stand off alive so Ronnie robot can stay on the force because they used it /him once. I tell Marten to send some apples over with Ronnie so I can make some apple sauce for Mona-Clare.

I’m quite serious however, when I want to know what’s going on with Children’s Aid, what the heck they have besides Smith’s criminal court order to justify wanting to steal our baby. I don’t bother wasting my time telling Marten that court orders and blind obedience were not enough to excuse horrific crimes in times of war. I can tell his mentality - I don’t think he’s equipped to appreciate how genocides were and can still be effected.

I want Mona-Clare secured with family before I have any intention of leaving the house. When Marten says it would take five days to get the order, I inform him he’s full of it - consent can be done in five minutes, just like the apprehension order. I also know there are enough family members that can and will take our baby, and the law says when parents aren’t available, extended family must first be considered. Besides, statistics show the majority of children in foster care are abused.

The police have now blown the situation to gross proportions. Entire streets are cordoned off, schools are closed, and neighbors are evacuated or ordered to say in their basements. Police are armed with machine guns, wear heavy armor and helmets and they’re everywhere - on the streets, on the corners, in the backyards, in front of TV cameras, snipers in windows, plus police dogs, congregations of reporters, dozens of police cars, and hundreds of bystanders compose a scene that is beyond reason.

Yet throughout this inflated affair it is not explained how at least one woman is able to stroll the entire length of Shirley St., right in front of the 6161 three-ring circus. And all of this because a mother and father possess a natural and primal need to nurture and raise their offspring and our Canadian government, in a so-called progressive society, will not respect this dying breed.

Larry and I watch the news reports and the only accounts that remotely resemble reality is when Dr. David Menslink makes an appearance on ATV. A mother distraught, he says, loving her baby too much to give her up. The fired shot, a warning to stay away. All other accounts: folly to fool the fool worthies.

To disclose the truth is an absolute horror. A societal nightmare with incredibly disturbing implication, alas ignorance is not bliss. It only allows those responsible for such an atrocity to get away with it. But who bares onus if the truth is bared? Feigned child protection agencies who steal the babies from good and loving parents? Lawyers and judges preparing the paper work? Ceausescu for giving Canadian government lessons? Or the Canadian people for allowing such gross criminality to continue.

I know the police want to keep the stand off alive, but I would not know that which Big Mona wants to keep from me. She’s dying. She and Larry are doing most of the talking while I’m not around. She was particularly anxious to have Wayne come to the house, to have a talk about his role as executor. I know Mona’s worked up and sickly with stress, who wouldn’t be? But I do not fully understand, maybe because my mind and heart refuse to believe.

I continue to tend to her as a nursemaid. I make porridge and toasts for Mona. I bring her soup, I draw her bath, help with her puffers, administer her meds, and comb her hair. I’m on the phone with Marten demanding that Dr. Fay come to the house to attend, but he advises yet again, no one will be allowed in the house - not even Mona’s doctor - even when Dr. Fay says he has absolutely no fear of coming over.

The police will however allow him to speak with Big Mona over the phone and she tells him she’s ill but she will not leave the house. She knows she won’t be going to hospital - it’ll be an interrogation room.

Larry is quiet a lot of the time. Once in a while he’ll talk to Marten but he knows it’s a wasted effort. Maybe he’s in working shock, like me, giving the impression that no much is going on, but if you allow yourself to think too much about what’s really going on, function turns dysfunctional. We’re hardly eating. We need sleep. Marten assures me that they won’t attempt another attack like they did the first night, but he doesn’t tell me that what they have planned instead is the use of a front end loader and gas bombs once they get clearance. Get a good night’s sleep, he says.

Little Mona is being a little angel. She smiles, laughs, and puts her hands all over my face when I coo. I nibble on her ear, massage her scalp, play with her toes. Her extra suckling is nourishing me, probably more than it is her. Mona-Clare in my arms, Mona-Clare gnawing on Rabbit. Mona-Clare learning to crawl, Mona-Clare beginning to laugh. She keeps growing. She brings me peace, reminds me of who I am. When I’m not feeling sorry for myself, I’m feeling so lucky to be her mother.

Three times, after I’ve made Big Mona comfortable, I go to Little Mona’s room where I find her and Larry. He’s on his back on the floor and Mona-Clare is on his chest, on her tummy with her legs and feet kicking about expressing her energy, happy and nurtured. I lay beside Larry, trying to breathe the scene as much and as long as I can. ‘Let you father and mother be glad, and let her who bore you rejoice.’ Proverbs 23:25

Thursday afternoon. We’re all in Big Mona’s room. It’s the second time she’s ever been verbally upset with me - the first was last summer, when I was pregnant and told her I was thinking of terminating because of my fears of an unrelenting system. It’s after she sees a photo of Ronnie robot in a copy of the Chronicle Herald, which Ronnie robot had delivered, and after she learns what the authorities have done, how they’ve targeted her son yet again. "Why in hell did you try and stop me!" I’m speechless because I know she’s serious and even more so because I still can’t believe she was serious the other night. I can’t even say I’m sorry.

Hours later, I tell Mona-Clare how sorry I am for her even though she doesn’t understand. She’s busy splashing around the kitchen sink. She looks at her feet that are under the water while I put a warm wet washcloth over her hair. She keeps at her playful business while I’m trying to keep myself together. My infant daughter in a democracy. She can be sure of nothing, not an interpretation of the law nor a correct assessment of the danger she faces, nor liberty, security or life.

Little Mona smells pretty and she gleams, and I take her upstairs to Big Mona, who will not get out of bed except to go to the toilet. She doesn’t eat or watch Touched By an Angel or read her Bible. But she welcomes her granddaughter and talks to her, asks Mona-Clare if she’s had a good day, asks her where her big mouse went to. Big Mona and I say little to each other while Mona-Clare suckles before sleep. I ask her how she’s feeling and she tells me she’ll be better tomorrow. I leave the two Monas to find out what Larry’s up to. I want us to be held for a little while.

In the kitchen we tell each other we have to cook the pork chops, which were purchased when the Monas and I went to the Atlantic Superstore on Tuesday. Larry’s sure something’s being planned - they’re not going to let this go on - it’s a long weekend coming up - but what exactly, it’s hard to say. I think they’ll need to keep the Monas in mind - an infant child and an elderly woman. "Are you kidding?" he says, "they don’t give a damn about them - look what they did the other night!" It’s not the pork chop and beer that leaves a sick feeling in my stomach. It’s Larry telling me they’re coming after him because he’s cost the system too much money and he knows too much, and they know Larry’s no giving up and I believe every word he says.

Larry tells me he can’t sleep but I tell him he has to lay down and try. I go into big Mona’s room and waken my baby for some more suckling. While I change her diaper Big Mona awakens and now the three of us are laying on her bed. She takes Mona-Clare’s hand in her and says "I’m really going to miss you." I’m still not getting it. "Oh Mona, stop it."

The two Monas are asleep. Little Mona has burrowed in Big Mona’s neck. I take a picture because it’s a beautiful sight. I would not know that this evening was their last.

May 21- Tom Marten’s at if first thing in the morning, still saying anything but something that might assist in resolving matters. No, Mona’s doctor is not allowed, her family - not allowed, Mona-Clare to family members - no. No priest, no taking Mona to her church, nothing. Children’s Aid gets our baby and we go into police custody. End of negotiations.

But I am not so naive to think that Mona-Clare is merely a sales transaction about to happen. She’s the monkey wrench in the middle of a system plot to keep the corruption in family law hidden. The system’s enactment of Mona-Clare’s kidnapping, for reasons beyond control. A move to portray me as an unfit mother, necessary leverage for the Crown in my upcoming re-trial in Ontario for taking my children against court order. Otherwise my attendance with nursing baby might expose the criminal acts in Family Court that took my triplet children. How can I be a capable mother of my fourth but not my first three?

And Larry. Only living parent to a native daughter who was taken from him by criminal acts taking place during his own court proceedings. Nothing whatsoever to do with parental fitness or even a custody dispute. His girl, worth more to Indian Affairs if she is living on a reserve. And finally Larry and I will never be left alone after his success in having four lawyers criminally charged, and after I was exonerated for taking the law into my own hands after showing it to be a detriment to my children. The system, at any cost, will maintain a family law industry, the livelihood of too many lawyers at the expense of too many children.

No matter, the entire situation leaves my family in utter ruin. Now they’ve taken my 79 year old mother-in-law. She’s had enough; she doesn’t want to be witness to what might happen to the last of her grandchildren. Her son’s had the emotional snot knocked out of him. When he couldn’t stop the abuse and kidnapping of his daughter, Chantelle, even though he’s never let anyone know it. But a mother knows. She carries the burden too. And now, before police brutal force, she is too frail to overcome.

Mona-Clare is changed and nursed and nurtured. Then Larry plays with her for a bit, then puts her down for a nap, and goes downstairs.

‘The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy’ John 10:10

Big Mona doesn’t want her morning coffee but she will take my hand to the washroom. While I’m tending upstairs, Larry’s downstairs on the phone with the negotiators, getting nowhere. Mona’s request to be taken to the church is denied. By this time we’re sure police are waiting for Mona to die so they can take the next step which we suspect is a move to take Larry, one way or another, dead or barely alive. Larry’s already shown how good he is at stinking out the corruption, and there are too many who are too nervous to want him sniffing around anymore

No matter if Mona-Clare’s nap is longer than usual because God extended it Himself. I’m able to concentrate on Big Mona whom I now know is dying. I bathe her, speaking to her softly. " You’re going to Albert, Mona. But I’m sorry it had to be like this." I’m washing her as she watches me. "Larry’s a good man, one of the sturdiest men I know and no matter what anyone thinks or believes, Larry’s heart is in the right place and as his mother I believe you have God’s blessing to be proud of your son." My arm brushes against her hand and she squeezes. Her mouth is turned, a smile. I look at her and I will take her last request to my grave, " Don’t let them take our baby."

Propping pillows, arranging the blankets, kissing Mona goodbye. I don’t cry when I go downstairs to tell Larry, I can only cry when he does about an hour later. My love for Larry was partly grounded by his relationship with his mother. His commitment to Mother love and his unfailing respect and admiration for Mona will be one of Larry’s greatest gifts to me. He's looking out the back porch window. When I hear he’s sad to tears I hold him from behind and very firmly when I tell him how much I love him.

I can hardly contain myself. I get on the phone demanding to get the arrangements legalized, so that Maureen or Jackie have temporary custody of Mona-Clare before we leave the house. We have no choice. Larry and I have to get Mona out of the house, soon. Larry’s talking about some law about harboring a dead body which deadens me even more. He fashions a make-shift stretcher while I’m upstairs. Changing Mona, nursing Mona-Clare, taking a quick shower, just going through the motions. Then my baby squeals, reminds me that I’m still needed. I fill the tub and take her for a swim.

Larry’s outside on the second floor, purposely in view, half-expecting to get shot. 10 minutes later I hand him Mona-Clare and now I’m out there too. Here I am. Here’s my baby- my beautiful healthy baby. In my arms, at my breast. An image normally respected, bringing joy, representing life. Shoot me! I have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of except for those who are watching in judgment, blinded by perversity, by immunity, stunted by ignorance. My suffering is hard but it’s nothing compared to the affliction of our next generations.

Larry and I have the discussion again. He thinks the police will let us get Mona to the church. I’m not sure. I want to believe but the alternative continues to drive my fear. It’s late in the day and Mona’s been deceased for several hours. We don’t have a choice. We’re not leaving Mona on the sidewalk. We know the SWAT-like team is waiting, waiting for Larry, and I know they’d like to bring him down in the house, most likely in the night when no one’s watching, just like before, and I won’t let those bastards take my husband that way. Halifax police, no man should have to endure this just because he wants to protect his family, wants to see the end of the abuse of all those children.

Halifax police have anything but finality in mind; they want Larry and me to remain in the house. One call after another, " Don’t come out of the house! Don’t come out of the house!" Even when we have to end the situation and tell the police we’re going to the church they will not allow us to. "Stay in the house!" " Stay in the house!" "You can’t leave the house!" Tom Marten makes it very clear it’s orchestration, not negotiation.

While I’m preparing Mona-Clare, Larry is saying goodbye to his mother, gathering the wreath with Albert’s picture in the middle, Big Mona’s Bible, and her little St. Anne statue with baby Virgin Mary in her arms, placing them with Mona on her stretcher. He covers her with Albert’s special blanket. We talk about the rifle. Do we take it- who takes it- will it even be in offensive or defensive position- will it be loaded. We talk about potential moves by the police, their reputation, their type to shoot first and put the story together later. In the end Larry takes it, loaded, defensive position. He'll leave it at the church doors.

Larry also takes the knapsack with a few toiletries, a few things for Mona-Clare, Rabbit hanging out the back. I put my baby in the 'Snugli', at my bosom. My hands are free to take the front of Mona’s stretcher. Just before we leave, I kiss Larry, tell him he did the best he could, and that I love him all the more for it. There's a lifetime of things I'd like to tell Mona-Clare but I realize there is little hope for a lifetime.

Support Meeting in Halifax

2005-08-30T02:20:00.000-04:00

The Halifax group for an inquirey into what's happened to The Fincks is meeting again on Wed., August 31 at 7pm at
The North End Community Health Care Center
2165 Gottigen St., Halifax.

Take Care-God Bless-Shelley.

ALICE MILLER: Shattering Effects of Child Abuse

2005-08-30T01:49:00.000-04:00

The Newly Recognized, Shattering Effects of Child Abuse

[Translated from the German by Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum]
[Alice Miller is a Swiss psychoanalyst. Her books include The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child, Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries, and For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and Roots of Violence.]

For some years now there has been proof that the devastating effects of the traumatization of children take their inevitable toll on society. This knowledge concerns every single one of us, and--if disseminated widely enough--should lead to fundamental changes in society, above all to a halt in the blind escalation of violence. The following points are intended to amplify my meaning:

1. All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection.

2. For their development children need the respect and protection of adults who take them seriously, love them, and honestly help them to become oriented in the world.

3. When these vital needs are frustrated and children are instead abused for the sake of adults' needs by being exploited, beaten, punished, take advantage of, manipulated, neglected, or deceived without the intervention of any witness, then their integrity will be lastingly impaired.

4. The normal reactions to such injury should be anger and pain; since children in this hurtful kind of environment, however, are forbidden to express their anger and since it would be unbearable to experience their pain all alone, they are compelled to suppress their feelings, repress all memory of the trauma, and idealize those guilty of the abuse. Later they will have no memory of what was done to them.

5. Disassociated from the original cause, their feelings of anger, helplessness, despair, longing, anxiety, and pain will find expression in destructive acts against others (criminal behavior, mass murder) or against themselves (drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, psychic disorders, suicide).

6. If those people become parents, they will then often direct acts of revenge for their mistreatment in childhood against their own children, whom they use as scapegoats. Child abuse is still sanctioned--indeed, held in high regard--in our society as long as it is defined as child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat their children in order to escape from emotions stemming from how they were treated by their own parents.

7. If mistreated children are not to become criminals or mentally ill, it is essential that at least once in their life they come in contact with a person who knows without any doubt that the environment, not the helpless battered child is at fault. In this regard, knowledge or ignorance. on the part of society can be instrumental in either saving or destroying a life. Here lies the great opportunity for relatives, social workers, therapists, teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, officials, and nurses to support the child and to believe her or him.

8. Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great-grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who invent stories and attack their innocent parents or desire them sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility.

9. For some years now, it has been possible to prove, thanks to the use of new therapeutic methods, that repressed traumatic experiences in childhood are stored up in the body and, although remaining unconscious, exert their influence even in adulthood. In addition, electronic testing of the fetus has revealed a fact previously unknown to most adults: a child responds to and learns both tenderness and cruelty from the very beginning.

10. In the light of this new knowledge, even the most absurd behavior reveals its formerly hidden logic once the traumatic experiences of childhood no longer must remain shrouded in darkness.

11. Our sensitization to the cruelty with which children are treated, until now commonly denied, and to the consequences of such treatment will as a matter of course bring to an end the perpetuation of violence from generation to generation.

12. People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be--both in their youth and adulthood--intelligent, responsive, empathetic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to hurt otherss or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves but not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwiss than to respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience and because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from the beginning. Such people will be incapable of understanding why earlier generations had to build up a gigantic war industry in order to feel at ease and safe in this world. Since it will not have to be their unconscious life-task to ward off intimidation experienced at a very early age, they will be able to deal with attempts at intimidation in their adult life more rationally and more creatively.

STINSON: WHOSE CHILD IS IT ANYWAY?

2005-08-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

WHOSE CHILD IS IT ANYWAY?

The case of a Halifax couple who have been ordered to never see their young daughter again has raised troubling questions about Nova Scotia's child welfare system.

National Post Tuesday, August 2, 2005
Page: A7
Section: Canada
Byline: Scott Stinson
Source: National Post

In the early hours of May 19, 2004, heavily armed officers of the RCMP Emergency Response Team descended on a home on a quiet Halifax street. Four people were inside, and none of them planned to come out. Sixty-seven hours later, two of the home's occupants were under arrest, one was dead of an apparent heart attack, and the fourth resident – a five-month-old girl -- was in the care of the local Children's Aid Society.

The standoff was only the beginning of the problems for the husband and wife taken away in handcuffs on that night 14 months ago. They were sentenced last month to lengthy prison terms for their roles in the confrontation with police -- in which a blast from a shotgun sent pellets over the heads of the RCMP officers -- and their daughter has since been placed in the permanent care of the Halifax CAS. Child apprehensions in this country are nothing new, but some Haligonians -- including university professors, lawyers, and the local Elizabeth Fry Society -- say the case raises troubling questions about Nova Scotia's child welfare system. They want a public inquiry to explain what compelled the CAS to seize a child from the care of its own parents and why the police arrived bearing semi-automatic weapons and a battering ram to do so.

The province, critics say, took the baby girl from her parents not because of what they did but because of who they are. The 43-year-old mother and 51-year-old father -- who may not be named in order to protect the child's identity -- share an unusual bond beyond their marriage. Both have lost acrimonious custody disputes from previous marriages and both were charged with abducting those children from their legal guardians.

The mother was briefly an international fugitive in October, 2000, when she packed her seven-year-old triplets in the trunk of her car and drove them across the Ontario border into the United States and eventually to Acapulco, Mexico. Their history with the child welfare system has caused the couple to distrust authorities with an intensity that borders on the pathological, as even some of their supporters acknowledge. During criminal trials that ended in May, the couple insisted they were victims of a vast government conspiracy to remove children from low-income families and place them with
wealthy benefactors. They fired their lawyers and represented themselves in court, which local reports said led to frequent outbursts from the defendants, who levied wild accusations at witnesses, lawyers and judges.

Ray Kuszelewski knows first-hand the difficulties of dealing with the father. He represented the man in the early stages of the criminal proceedings, before being fired when he refused to use his client's defence to promote the conspiracy theory. Mr. Kuszelewski says that despite his former client's abrasive, combative nature, the man has a point. ''Regardless of [the father and mother] and their statements and their beliefs ... there are still issues that need to be addressed," he says. Mr. Kuszelewski, one of eight Haligonians on a committee that is pushing for a public inquiry into the Halifax CAS, says there has never been a proper explanation for why Children's Aid had an order to put the couple's child under supervisory care before she had even been born. (The mother fled Halifax with the newborn in January, 2004, when she learned of the custody order and returned a month later under a Canada-wide warrant for her arrest.)

The lawyer notes that the father lost a fight to raise his other daughter, now an adolescent, whom he wanted to remove from an Ontario native reserve after her mother died, while the mother lost her children in a dispute with her former husband. ''But this is a child of that couple, of two people who had problems individually of a different sort,'' Mr. Kuszelewski says. ''Any rational person would say these things are not the same [as their problems in the past]. ''How is it that some Ontario issue in the past is enough to trigger a call for an unborn child, which trumps all the other cases in Halifax to the point where the child is 20 days old and is already before the court?''

Stephen Kimber, a journalism professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax and another member of the newly formed committee, says he sees this case as a simple issue: ''What was the reason for taking this kid? Unless they can come up with a better reason than '[the couple] were involved in a custody battle and they challenged authority,' then I don't think they have much of a case.'' Mr. Kimber says if the Halifax CAS, which declined a request for comment on the case and the calls for a public inquiry, could show that the man and woman ''were a danger to their child, then that's a different thing, but
they haven't shown that.'' The Nova Scotia Supreme Court saw things differently, ruling late last month that the two were ''consumed with their perception of a corrupt family
justice system,'' that they were unable to act in the best interests of their child and that she ''would be at substantial risk of physical and emotional harm if returned to her parents' care.''

Mr. Kuszelewski says there is no doubt the couple were confrontational and difficult from the moment they learned the CAS wanted a role in the care of their child, which as he says was the point ''when the whole thing went off the rails.'' ''What happened in the standoff, and the shooting of the gun and all that stuff is terrible and there is legitimate reason why you can't let that go,'' Mr. Kimber says, ''but if it all keeps coming back to the question of why did [CAS] do this in the first place, if they can't justify that, then
it seems to me you have a problem.'' Michael Baker, the Conservative Justice Minister, has said he will not hold an inquiry into the case or the CAS, which says it will not discuss its reasons for action due to privacy laws.

Mr. Kimber suggests that many people in Nova Scotia are ''appalled'' by the series of events that began with the Halifax standoff, but he thinks it will take pressure from opposition politicians to convince the Tories to hold an inquiry. ''Because of what happened in the standoff, and the gun being fired, and because of [the couple's] personalities, there seems to be a lack of desire to get deeply into this by the NDP or Liberals,'' he says. ''I think they'd just prefer it goes away.'' There are hints, however, that the government will feel some pressure to provide answers to the questions Mr. Kimber and his associates are asking.

Graham Steele, an NDP member of the provincial legislature, has gone to court to force the government to appoint an advisory committee to review legislation governing the child welfare system. Mr. Steele says the Child and Family Services Act requires the review be carried out annually, but it hasn't been conducted since 1999. He says his court action is not directly related to this case, but that the furor it created ''threw a spotlight'' on the lack of oversight in the child welfare system.

The Halifax chapter of the Elizabeth Fry Society, while also choosing not to directly address the complaints raised by the mother, said recently it supports a CAS inquiry to explain what it sees as a sharp jump in the number of children taken into state care in the past couple of years. Donna Phillips, executive director of the non-profit organization that supports women in conflict with the law, said her staff has seen ''a huge increase in the number of women who are losing their children, particularly involving women with mental illness.''

Ms. Phillips said the society's outreach co-ordinator estimates 35% of her clients ''are involved with CAS trying to get their children back,'' up from only 5% two years ago. Mr. Steele says the statements from Elizabeth Fry will add to pressure on the government to give some of the questions surrounding Children's Aid a full public airing. ''The fact that a very well-regarded and serious organization is calling for the same thing makes it that much harder for the department to dismiss it as a few paranoid crackpots.'' The mother and father vow to continue their fight. She claims to be on a hunger strike while in prison, where she is serving a 3 1/2-year sentence. Her husband was sentenced to 4 1/2 years, but both have appealed their convictions. They are also appealing the court order that said they would never see their daughter again. They continue to represent themselves in court.

=-=-=-=-=
NOTE from NewsRoomWatch:

Just wanted to point to the fact that Carline didn't pack her kids in the trunk and drove off to Mexico. Border crossings were done that way, as well as times when it would be more likely to be spotted in big cities, the chidlren rehearsed how they would do that, they were eager and it was an adventure for them. They were always free to tell their mom to go back to Canada. Which they didn't.

Contrary to what the custodial father said to the press, they didn't spend 4 weeks of horror! They LOVED IT! Who then REALLY abducted the children?

LEFEBVRE: Michael Baker, unaware or unconcerned?

2005-07-19T12:26:00.000-04:00

----- Original Message -----
From: Hon. Michael Baker
To: andrelefebvre@
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: MORE iNFORMATION is available in the case of Mona-ClareFinck

Dear Mr. Lefebvre:

Thank you for your e-mail about the child custody issue.

The family matter you referred to and related criminal matters, have both been addressed in Nova Scotia courts. I am satisfied that matters were dealt with appropriately and I am of the view that there is no public interest in a further inquiry.

The best interests of the child are paramount and the actions of child protection authorities are examined carefully by the Supreme Court, as is required by our legislation. The legal process for child protection is described at www.gov.ns.ca/coms/families/pdf/child_welfare_brochure.pdf.

Thank you for taking the time to share your views.

Michael G. Baker, Q.C.

-------

Dear Mr Baker,

I appreciate you took the time to personally write back.

It is very unfortunate however that you seem to be unaware of the importance of this request. More and more people are completely agreeing that a public inquiry is the only mean we have to serve the public interest as too many questions remain unanswered even after the trial. Which focused on criminal charges stemming from the standoff and not on the content of a court order that certainly has never been proven valid.

What happened to the Fincks had nothing to do with the proper administration of justice, although you expressed satisfaction at the outcome. It does not matter what Carline and Larry were like in court, so much as why they were driven to such extremes in order to resist such order and try to defend themselves against alleged abuse of power on the part of the CAS. So many more similar cases exist today to make us all wonder why you are not stepping in to make changes. And restore justice to the Fincks. Why continue to defend a system that failed them? Why not correct the wrongs? Isn't what justice is about?

There exist another level of injustice that is shocking the population and it concerns directly the circumstances that forced the Fincks to run from a CAS court order, and the excessive use of force to get the baby anyways. The use of a taser gun on a suspect already in custody, a handcuffed woman, is also very disturbing. Some people have some explaining to do.

As you yourself should know through your own experience with the Lunenburg CAS, there has been many instances of abuse of power on the part of CAS, as well as lack of passion in being involved in serious cases of child molestation, leaving children in criminal hands because of very poor judgment on the part of CAS workers. Or was it because of sheer corruption or favoritism?

Parents need to be able to trust. And right now, the CAS has lost that trust. And restoring it can only be done publicly. There is a dark history of Nova Scotia in terms of child abuse by government agencies or orphanages. Our slogan: never again.

This is such a situation. The public nowadays is VERY informed, and many are doing very extensive investigative work, sharing information over the web and connecting the dots. If this situation was legally sound, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

You are basically telling us you are implicitely trusting the whole chain of command that was activated in Nova Scotia from the CAS all the way through the trial and the sentencing. If this is the case, then don't think that you realize how hurtful this is going to be for your Ministry as well as the exercise of justice in Canada. This has a deep impact on the ability of the population to trust the political and legal institutions of our country.

If we, citizens, know enough of the truth to rally thousands of other citizens in support of a public inquiry, then we have to wonder what it is you're trying to do by denying this one. It is well-known inside and outside of Nova Scotia that there is protectionism within the legal and law enforcement system. We are acquainted with the existence of rules governing child protection and have also read public documents revealing that these rules have been violated by CAS workers in some cases.

Consider seriously the odds, Mr Baker. Either you participate in a cover-up, either you open the door to further reform the CAS. There are thousands of victims of the CAS in Nova Scotia.

Further, the insistence of your office to refuse a public inquiry could be seen as very suspicious when considered in light of your history with the CAS. No offense, Mr Baker. Justice does not mean righteousness.

I plead with you, before God and the Queen, to consider again the consequences of a denial of a public inquiry in the Fincks case. Their case is not unique as you know. Why would insurance companies refuse to cover the CAS ...

http://www.grahamsteele.ca/media2003a.html#anchor21634

We need to see some kind of deterrent for sloppy work in the case of agencies who are endowed of civil and criminal power for the protection of our children. Because of your past history, you are obvioulsy the last person who could convince anyone that he is ignorant of those cases of abuse.

We take into consideration the fact that since 1999, there as been no annual reviews of the Child Protection Services in Nova Scotia. That too is of grave consequences.

Mona-Clare Finck has been damaged not by her parents, as was the reason invoked to take her away, but by the CAS actions. And compounded by subsequent interventions by other instances based on that basic error.

Make history: grant a public inquiry. If not for justice sake, at least do it because it makes a whole lot of sense politically and socially. Finally reform the CAS in a way that would ensure the true protection of the children, and not mean the decimation of families.

Thanks for taking time to read despite your busy schedule,

Regards,

Andre Lefebvre

LEFEBVRE: Amnesty International and TASER GUNS

2005-07-19T12:03:00.000-04:00

When Carline VandenElsen was "arrested," her baby was cut free from her snugli with a combat knife by a police officer, the mother then was hand-cuffed and put face down on the ground. THEN, even though she was no threat and already in custody, the police tasered her twice.

This is police brutality and further support our request for a public inquiry in the actions of the CAS and the police on May 19, 2004, which resulted in a conviction for both parents who were trying to defend themselves against abuse of power on the part of the CAS and the Halifax police.

Who then should be charged and sentenced? The parents or those who were supposed to serve and protect the child and the parents? The real criminals are not necessarly those who are behind bars today, their baby girl in limbo between foster homes.

Excessive and lethal force?

USA / Canada: Pattern of abuse -- suspend use of taser guns

November 30, 2004

More than 70 people in the USA and Canada have died since 2001, after being electro-shocked with taser guns. While coroners have generally attributed cause of death to factors such as drug intoxication, in at least five cases they have found the taser played a role.

"Tasers have been used by police officers against unruly schoolchildren; unarmed mentally disturbed or intoxicated individuals; suspects fleeing minor crime scenes and people who argue with police or fail to comply immediately with a command," said Amnesty International today as it launched two new reports examining the use of taser guns in the USA and Canada.

Evidence suggests that, far from being restricted to narrowly-defined circumstances in order to avoid lethal force, tasers have become the most prevalent force tool in some police departments. More than 5,000 law enforcement and correctional agencies in 49 US states are currently reported to be deploying or testing taser equipment, with the take-up rate continuing to grow. In Canada approximately 60 police departments have been issued with tasers.

Despite being widely deployed, there has been no rigorous, independent and impartial study into the use and effects of tasers, particularly in the case of people suffering from heart disease, or under the influence of drugs.

"Many experts believe taser shocks may exacerbate a risk of heart failure in people who are under the influence of drugs or suffer underlying health problems such as heart disease, risk factors present in many of the cases we examined," said Amnesty International.

Tasers have been purchased by the US army, including for use in Iraq. The US Air Force is reported to deploy tasers aboard aircraft carrying suspected al-Qa’ida members to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. While few details have been provided about the use of tasers by US military forces, one of the units deploying them in Iraq in 2003 was the 800th Military Police Brigade, accused of grave abuses in Abu Ghraib prison.

Amnesty International’s concerns about deaths and ill-treatment involving police use of tasers
November 30, 2004

Deaths in custody (Canada)

Within the last fifteen months, nine people have died after being shocked with a taser by law enforcement officials in Canada. More than 60 people have died in the USA after being hit with police tasers in the past three years. While coroners have usually attributed the deaths to other factors, such as drug intoxication, some medical professionals believe taser shocks may exacerbate a risk of heart failure in cases where people are agitated or under the influence of drugs, or have underlying health problems. Furthermore, in at least five recent US cases, coroners have found the taser directly contributed to the deaths, along with other factors such as drug intoxication and heart disease.

The rising death toll heightens Amnesty International’s concerns about the potential health risks involved in taser use. While the manufacturers claim the electrical output of tasers is far below the threshold that would trigger cardiac ventricular fibrillation (severe disturbance of the heart rhythm), there remains a lack of rigorous, independent research into the medical effects of such weapons.

While there is a limited amount of literature describing the clinical experience of earlier tasers, there has been virtually no independent, medical literature published to date on the effects of the more powerful M26 or X26 tasers currently deployed in the USA and Canada. The only medical studies prior to the marketing of these new generation taser models were tests on animals commissioned by the company; none of these studies has been peer reviewed by independent medical experts. Meanwhile, a number of medical experts have continued to raise concern that tasers may have adverse effects on certain vulnerable groups, including those under the influence of certain recreational drugs – often the very people who have come into contact with police tasers. Further information on health concerns relating to tasers, and studies or reports conducted to date, is contained in Amnesty International’s report on police taser use in the USA, published in conjunction with this report.(6)

Amnesty International is further concerned that many of the nine men who died in Canada were subjected to high levels of force, including other restraint procedures in addition to the electro-shocks. These procedures include hogtying, chest compressions and pepper spray, all of which can dangerously restrict breathing especially when combined with other force. While autopsies are still pending in some cases, Amnesty International is concerned that these restraints may also have been a contributory factor in some deaths.

In six of the nine cases reviewed, the deceased appear to have been coerced into restraint positions which have been associated with deaths in custody from "positional asphyxia". Such positions include being held face-down on the ground with weight or pressure applied to the chest. [Note: this is exactly what happened to Carline VandenElsen. She was already cuffed, face down on the ground with her hands in front of her when the police officer tasered her. Not once, but twice].

Individuals who are obese, have underlying heart disease and/or who are severely agitated or intoxicated from drugs or alcohol are believed to be at increased risk from such procedures.

In at least five cases, the deceased were placed in a "hogtie" or "hobble restraint", with their wrists or elbows bound behind them to their shackled ankles. This form of restraint is believed to be a particularly dangerous and potentially life threatening procedure, especially if the subject is in a prone position.(7) Standard-setting bodies discourage the use of hogtying and urge that law enforcement officers avoid holding anyone in restraints, even handcuffs, in a face-down position.(8) While some US departments have banned hogtying Amnesty International is disturbed that police departments in Canada still authorize such procedures.

Several of the deceased were pepper sprayed before being tasered. Pepper spray, which acts on the mucus membranes and respiratory system, can further restrict breathing and has been associated with in-custody deaths in the USA and Canada. Amnesty International is concerned that use of multiple restraint techniques, including pepper spray, might increase the risk of respiratory failure.(9) In two cases (see below), an unarmed suspect died after being pepper-sprayed, electro-shocked and restrained.

Positional asphyxia was listed as a direct cause of death in one of the cases examined, and use of restraints was noted as a contributory factor in another. In other cases, however, restraint was not listed as a causal or contributory factor even though death or loss of consciousness appears to have occurred very shortly after the use of restraints.

Experts have noted that multiple factors may play a role in deaths where restraints have been applied, particularly if other risk factors are involved. Amnesty International believes that all the cases require further evaluation. They also underscore the need for clear protocols and training for law enforcement officers on use of restraints and how to avoid excessive or dangerous force when dealing with people with mental health problems and/or acute behavioural disturbance.

LEFEBVRE: Stay in proceedings in Ontario

2005-07-12T18:36:00.000-04:00

Well, there was a court appearance today leading to the staying of the upcoming trial for Carline in Stratford. She will not face a new trial in Ontario next week.

[ Here is a copy of the Crown's Submission, July 12, 2005:

The Crown, upon the authority of Criminal Code 579(1) and having been delegated the authority under that section by the Attorney General of Ontario, is directing that these proceedings against Carline Antonia vendenElsen be stayed. The Crown concludes that it is no longer in the public interest to continue this prosecution. The reasons for the Crown's taking this position are these:

1. Craig Merkley and his 3 children, Peter, Olivia and Gray are the victims of the accused's conduct that resulted in these criminal charges. Mr. Merkley has consulted with the Crown respecting consideration of whether or not these charges should proceed. His position is that he and his children were victimized by the accused when she abducted his children. They were victimized by the accused in her conducting the first trial. He does not want them to be victimized yet again by her conduct in the course of another trial. The triplets were abducted in the year 2000 when they were 7 years old. Now, in the year 2005, they are age 12. Craig Merkely considers that the impact upon them in this trial of their mother in Stratford would be negative to the extreme.

2. The accused, is presently serving a substantial sentence for serious violence and abduction offences committed in Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia offences were committed after the Stratford abduction. Accordingly, in the Crown's view, the likely outcome, uin the event of a finding of guilt on the Stratford charges, cannot be a dramatic increase in the custodial sentenmce that the accused in now serving. Also, in view of the sentence imposed in Nova Scotia, the continued prosecution of these Stratford charges for the purpose of the need for deterrence is significantly diminished.

3. The legal issue raised in the first Stratford trial was the nature of the defence of necessity in the context of the child abduction by a parent. the Crown took that issue to the Ontario Court of Appeal. The issue was resolved in favour of the Crown position. Accordingly, no new trial is required for the purpose of resolving the legal issue of necessity; it has been settled.]

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A few points jumped at me, but I will take a day to regroup before committing to anything here.

Regards,

Andre Lefebvre

=----=0=----=
For the love of our families
http://www.familyheadquarters.ca
Thoughts, Articles, Links, Real-Life Stories, Free book
=----=0=----=

NS insurers refuse to cover child welfare agencies

2005-07-12T01:27:00.000-04:00

NS insurers refuse to cover child welfare agencies - Child & Family
Community Action
June 16, 2003

HALIFAX -- Nova Scotia insurers are pulling out of insuring child welfare services and the provincial government has been forced to step in as insurer. One agency is facing 20 child abuse lawsuits, five child welfare agencies are not able to purchase liability insurance.

The provincial government is now providing coverage for the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children and four Children's Aid Societies after insurers cancelled or refused to renew their policies. Other agencies in the province face similar rejections as their current policies end.

The government became the insurer because the directors and staff would have been open to lawsuits. It is prepared to indemnify the agencies while it searches to find a permanent solution to the problem.

The 20 lawsuits arose out of the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children, a former orphanage that now provides services to at-risk teens. Former residents have alleged physical, mental and sexual abuse.

The Children's Aid Societies in Halifax, Colchester, Queens and Lunenburg are also experiencing difficulties in obtaining liability insurance.

Kimber: Justice Minister should know better ...

2005-07-11T12:24:00.000-04:00

Justice Minister should know better when it comes to Children's Aid

By Stephen Kimber
The Daily News
Sunday, July 10, 2005

Justice Minister Michael Baker is no stranger to controversies over child protection in Nova Scotia.

Which may explain his reluctance to call a public inquiry into last year's Family Court decision to order the Halifax Children's Aid Society to seize the daughter of Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen, despite a lack of evidence the infant was at risk.

Baker, a South Shore lawyer before becoming an MLA, served a good-works apprenticeship in the decade or so before he was first elected to the legislature in 1998.

He was vice-chairman of the Lunenburg County Regional Housing Authority, president of the Lunenburg Academy Foundation and - from 1992 to 1995 - a member of the board of Family and Children's Services of Lunenburg County (FCS), "a non-profit child-welfare agency dedicated to the protection of children from abuse and neglect."

In 1994, the Liberal government of the day appointed two Ontario social workers to conduct an independent review of the operations of that same Lunenburg FCS - the equivalent of Halifax's Children's Aid Society - following two shocking incidents in which FCS officials appeared to be the ones perpetrating the abuse and neglect.

In the first case, a five-week-old baby was shaken to death in 1993, three weeks after child-protection workers had received warnings the baby was being abused.

In the second, workers at the agency had ignored complaints that children, in what the agency proudly described as a "very good" foster home, were being sexually abused. FCS actually continued to place children - 20 in all - with the family, even after learning of the allegations. It wasn't until five years after the first complaints that the foster father was finally found guilty - no thanks to FCS - of sexually abusing four youngsters in his care.

In truth, the review of the Lunenburg FCS only happened - three years after the guilty verdict - because Debra Stevens refused to go away.

A single mother who'd been talked into turning her two sons over to children's services in 1985, Stevens became suspicious about the foster home into which her two sons had been adopted, and refused to stop asking questions.

The Family and Children's Services Agency initially ignored her complaints, or dismissed her as a "nuisance" - remind you of anyone, Mr. Minister? - and described her as a "social climber (who) went into a song and dance about being a single parent." The first social worker she dealt with reported that "Hopefully, (Stevens) got the message, as it was obvious that she appeared guilty."

Guilty of what? Caring about her children?

The outside reviewers the province finally appointed to look into what had gone wrong in that and the shaken-baby case concluded - in the words of a simple but telling precis offered by then-community services minister Jim Smith - "the system failed Debra and her family."

Incredibly, when Stevens tried to regain custody of her youngest son after the sexual-abuse charges were laid, FCS opposed the move, dispatching its own lawyers and four witnesses to the hearing to fight to keep the child with the wife of the man who'd abused her children (who was then out on bail).

Supreme Court Justice Walter Goodfellow not only awarded custody back to Stevens, but he also demolished the FCS's claim the woman hadn't known the children were being abused by her husband: "If in fact she did not know, ignorance of such conduct could only be by willful blindness or negligence."

What does all of this have to do with Michael Baker now?

To be fair to Baker, he only joined the board after the courts had convicted the foster father, but that was still a full three years before the province - not the FCS - launched its review.

Knowing what he knows about what went on in Lunenburg, Baker should realize just how fallible children's services can be.

The Finck-VandenElsen case, of course, represents the flip side of what happened in Lunenburg. Instead of under-reacting to allegations of real abuse, the Halifax Children's Aid Society stands accused of over-reacting to vague concerns from Ontario Children's Aid and erroneous information from a not-disinterested ex-husband.

While that may put into clearer perspective the real-life dilemma child-protection workers face every day in trying to determine when a child is at real risk - something even those of us criticizing Children's Aid need to acknowledge - it also strengthens the argument that we need a public inquiry to find out what went wrong in the Finck-VandenElsen case, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Let's hope it doesn't take another three years this time.

Stephen.Kimber@ukings.ns.ca

Get Carline's book for FREE

2005-07-08T20:24:00.000-04:00

Carline VandenElsen has asked me to make her book available for free. Beside shipping and handling charges ($5 USD will ship anywhere in North America),
you can get the book for the asking. Pay via Paypal using any credit card. If you don't have a credit card, write us and we'll let you know how to forward
payment.

This book will hopefully help you connect the dots... get to know Carline, the mother. Read about the battle for her children, read about how compliance to
the rules can be used by others to steal from you what is most precious.

DEY: Update on Court hearing today

2005-07-07T14:07:00.000-04:00

Just got back from the court. L and C were not present; they were contacted by phone, each on a separate line. Today, J.MacDonald (newly appointed Chief Justice) mostly set guidelines and dates for the next stage. Larry was representing Carline. Twice MacDonald cut Larry off. There is a struggle about what material/documents will be allowed in for the Appeal. Whelton wants to start from the November ruling by J.Smith, Larry wants to start from the beginning with the originating notice. CAS wants to avoid the issue of what started all of this and start somewhere in the middle. The next date for the court is July 28. It's going to be a big time drag out.

The lawyer for the Attorney General/Minister for Community Services is trying to get the Minister off the case?? I don't know how the Minister of Community Services can not be party to this. From what I see in the Family Court there seems to be some kind of struggle as to who is the authority here, Children's Aid/Children's Services or the Minister of Community Services. The cases in the family Court yesterday were Minister of Community Services V. the parties whereas, before they were CAS V. the parties. I think something is going on.

The judge refused to make a ruling that L and C be allowed communication with each other with regard to the court matters, instead left it up to the institution authorities. Larry's aim is to get it through the N.S. courts an then take it to the Supreme court of Canada. MacDonald could have passes it on today but, instead he is willing to drag it through the court here. Could be another six months at least. Part of what they want to do is keep Mona Clare in limbo and that way they have control over C. and L. Also, there is a perpetual problem of getting transcripts and documents to both L. and C.

One other thing, the judge wants to appoint an amicus curiae again in spite of the objections of both L. and C. If they have a court appointed amicus, L.and C then lose some amount of control. There is a greater chance of losing control over getting in things they want, or keeping out things that they want.

Marilyn Dey

Breaking NEWS

2005-07-07T00:43:00.000-04:00

Thursday July 7th, in the morning, there is scheduled a court case to appeal the apprehension of Mona Clare. It is believed that Larry intends to ask for a decision from the court to take the case directly to the Supreme Court of Canada rather than have the court here make a ruling.

DEMAND A PUBLIC INQUIRY

2005-07-06T13:12:00.000-04:00

Write, call, fax the Nova Scotia Justice Minister Michael Baker and request a public inquiry: Address: 5151 Terminal Rd., Halifax, N.S. B3J 2L6, phone 902-424-4044 or e-mail bakermg@gov.ns.ca or michaelbakermla@ns.sympatico.ca .

STEPHENSON: McEvoy inquiry not just about justice

2005-07-06T13:05:00.000-04:00

(Weblog Note: Food for thought when we think about PUBLIC INQUIRY. Our motivation might very well be about JUSTICE, however is JUSTICE a politically-correct term to use when approaching those who grant those requests? It can be argued that it is not. Sadly.)

By MARILLA STEPHENSON/Commentary
The Halifax Herald Limited
Wednesday, July 6, 2005

THE INQUIRY into the death of Halifax teaching assistant Theresa McEvoy could end up shining light well beyond the workings of our youth justice system.

So it should, if the evidence leads matters in that direction.

The mandate granted to inquiry commissioner Justice Merlin Nunn contains a "basket clause" that could also permit an examination of the response of the Department of Community Services, says Hugh Wright, the lawyer for the McEvoy family.

McEvoy died last October when the car she was driving was struck by a stolen vehicle. A 16-year-old boy, who had been released from custody in relation to other charges just two days before the accident, is facing charges in the tragedy.

"What steps were taken by social services officials and others to respond to someone who is clearly a young person at risk, before the events of September and October occurred, because warning signs were out for quite a long time," Wright said in an interview.

"The mother, for example, has said that she did seek help for the young person, so we think it's relevant to get into that and see - was there a response, what was it, was it appropriate and that sort of thing."

The squirming that is already going on in the justice community could spread to Community Services, should Justice Nunn decide to examine the social services response. An internal review by the Justice Department has already been critical of the role played by two Crown attorneys.

Wright says the McEvoy family is pleased with the mandate and was consulted by the Justice Department during its development.

"The terms of reference in their final form reflect what we're looking for. Justice Nunn can use his discretion to look at what he deems necessary. So the ultimate shape of his mandate is up to him.

"The basket clause also avoids debate of whether something is or isn't in the terms of reference."

The family has also responded positively to the choice of Justice Nunn, a Harvard University-educated, energetic veteran of the court system. The Sydney native was appointed to the trial division of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in 1982 after 22 years of practising law in Halifax.

The now semi-retired justice has also served as the province's conflicts commissioner since 1997.

Justice Nunn does not have the power, under the province's public inquiry legislation, to hold individuals responsible or lay blame, but will release a public report that is expected to include recommendations.

"We thought he was an excellent choice," said Wright. "He's been a longtime justice with the Supreme Court. He has a reputation as a guy who gets down to work and gets the job done."

This is a good thing, because come fall, when the inquiry is expected to get underway, Justice Nunn will be called upon to delve into the complex details of the teen's release from court in Windsor two days before McEvoy's death, despite the fact he was facing 26 charges.

In January, the boy pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death and causing death while evading police. He recently applied to withdraw his pleas. Time has been set aside on July 20 for a hearing on that request.

The roles played by various justice system officials will be probed, and the findings could prove painful for some of the individuals involved.

And if the performance of our social services network finds itself in the spotlight, this will be a good thing.

We must be careful not to presume where the inquiry will go and, even when young people are involved, maintain the principle of personal responsibility for one's actions.

It is also clear that Justice Nunn's primary responsibility is to review the release of the young person and the procedures and practices surrounding that release. That said, if the family of this teen sought help from our social services network and it was not forthcoming, Nova Scotians deserve to know it.

The McEvoy family clearly has specific concerns about the role of social services in this case.

Whenever questions arise about specific cases and social services responses and decisions, confidentiality requirements typically prevent the details from becoming public.

This is meant to protect the public, but when individuals are unhappy with the outcomes, these requirements also have the potential to shield poor decisions - or, perhaps more likely, an underfunded, overburdened social services system.

Nothing wrong with shedding a little light on that.

KIMBER: Potholes litter path to public inquiry

2005-07-04T11:55:00.000-04:00

By Stephen Kimber
The Daily News
July 4th, 2005

It’s been an interesting week on the other side of the media trenches.
I’ve recently become a member of a community group pushing for a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the seizure of the infant child of Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen. I usually steer clear of joining such groups, partly because I already have a pulpit for my views, partly because I want to maintain my independence and partly — if I am to be honest — because I hate meetings.

But I’d become frustrated only writing about this particular case. Since the May 2004 highly publicized 67-hour standoff between Finck and VandenElsen and a heavily armed police swat team, I’ve written a half-dozen columns outlining my concerns about the role the Children’s Aid Society and Family Court played in taking this child from its parents, and about the massive use of police force to do it.

Each column generated e-mails, letters and phone calls, many from ordinary readers with no direct connection to the case or personal histories with Children’s Aid, most supporting my call for a public inquiry and many asking what they could do to help make an inquiry happen.

My only suggestion — that they write their MLA — seemed lame and unlikely to have much effect without an organized campaign behind it.

So when I got a call a few weeks ago from author Heather Laskey, a resident of the neighbourhood where the standoff took place, inviting me to a meeting she and some others were holding to discuss what they could do to right what they too saw as a wrong, I quickly agreed.

Last week, we — now known as the MCF Inquiry Committee (MCF is how the infant is described in court documents) — called a news conference to explain why a public inquiry is needed and to announce the committee’s plans to insert an advertisement in the next day’s Halifax Chronicle-Herald. The ad would outline the case for a public inquiry and encourage readers to write Justice Minister Michael Baker demanding one.

Just before the news conference, however, a Herald official called to say the paper wouldn’t run our ad without editorial changes (reasonable ones, in fact, to which we quickly agreed), and unless — as well as paying upfront for the ad — each member of the committee signed a letter to “indemnify and hold harmless The Halifax Herald Ltd., its officers and individuals acting on its behalf from any claims or causes of action” that might result from the ad.

That unusual request — when was the last time any newspaper asked Sobeys officials to sign a waiver absolving the paper of legal responsibility for the contents of their ads? — isn’t really so unusual in this very unusual case.

Ever since the standoff, in fact, media outlets have been grappling with a difficult dilemma: what can they legally publish or broadcast?

On the one hand, this is a child-custody case, and there are very clear rules in place that prohibit publishing any information that might reveal the identities of children involved in such cases.

On the other hand, the standoff — shotgun fired, police emergency response teams, snipers on roofs, neighbourhood evacuated — was a major news event that could not be understood without writing about the custody issue that triggered it all.

To complicate matters, the story raised a number of important questions of legitimate public interest. Were Children’s Aid and Family Court really acting in “the best interests of the child” when they took the five-month-old from her parents, or were they vindictively punishing two admittedly difficult parents for challenging their arbitrary authority? Did the police act appropriately, or did the massive deployment of police power actually create the crisis that followed?

How do you ask those questions without writing about the custody issue?

Even now, no one seems quite sure how to juggle these competing pressures. It took CBC Radio, for example, more than five hours and eight local newscasts’ worth of internal discussion last week to finally decide to run a story about our committee’s call for a public inquiry.

And the Herald, which had published its own first-rate, four-day series on the background to the case last week — the first real attempt to put the issues and personalities in context since Richard Cuthbertson’s excellent story on Larry Finck’s personal history appeared in The Daily News immediately after the standoff — decided not to post its own series on its website on the advice of its lawyers.

(Having raised the issue of how other media outlets have dealt with the story, I should note — gratefully — that my editors have not censored or substantively altered any of the columns I’ve written about the case.)

But this media conundrum — like the standoff circus and the courtroom craziness — is ultimately beside the point.

We are still left with questions — Why did authorities take the child in the first place? Who authorized the use of massive force to seize the child? Why does the child not have her own independent legal representation in court? What external checks and balances are in place to make sure that Children’s Aid, Family Court and the Community Services Department act in the interest of the child? — that can only be answered by a full, independent and public inquiry.

If you agree, I encourage you to write (5151 Terminal Rd., Halifax, N.S. B3J 2L6), call (902-424-4044) or e-mail the justice minister bakermg@gov.ns.ca or
michaelbakermla@ns.sympatico.ca demanding he appoints such an inquiry. It won’t happen otherwise.

Stephen.Kimber@ukings.ns.ca

HFX DAILY NEWS: Inquiry justified

2005-07-03T13:39:00.000-04:00

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.

HOWE: Legitimate questions

2005-07-01T17:33:00.000-04:00

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

2005-07-01T17:30:00.000-04:00

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"

=----=0=----=
For the love of our families
http://www.familyheadquarters.ca
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YOUNGSON: In pursuit of David Morse

2005-07-01T03:32:00.000-04:00

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

2005-06-30T13:10:00.000-04:00

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

2005-06-30T12:26:00.000-04:00

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?

2005-06-28T12:08:00.000-04:00

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

ELIZABETH FRY SOCIETY: yes to a public inquiry

2005-06-24T17:52:00.000-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Release Date: June 24, 2005

Heather McKenzie, the Elizabeth Fry Society’s Outreach Coordinator, indicates that, “approximately 35% of my clients are presently working with the Children’s Aid Society to maintain custody of their children”. Donna Phillips, Executive Director states, “in working with women and their families on a regular basis, we have identified many discrepancies in the manner in which the policies and procedures of the Children’s Aid Society are interpreted in the apprehension of presumed at-risk children in our communities”. These interpretations raise many questions, provide very few answers and lack a clearly identified course of attaining information for involved families and/or support agencies.

Many women, who are part of this procedure, often are left feeling powerless and overwhelmed by bureaucratic procedures and feel they have no recourse for support and protection for the family unit from an agency that was put in place for their benefit. As a result, these women, through fear of unfair treatment, often turn away from this agency, instead of toward it for assistance and guidance. It is our belief that the original mandate of the Children’s Aid Society is to support and advocate for the family as a unit; to explore all available avenues with parents and children that would provide a working plan that would lead to a healthy, intact family.

Phillips states, “in light of the information we have received from our concerned clients, the Elizabeth Fry Society strongly supports the call for an immediate inquiry respecting the Children’s Aid Society of Nova Scotia. It is necessary to investigate the accountability of policies and procedures as well as measure the quality of performance of the organization”.

In order to be of true value, we support that an inquiry be carried out by an objective third party. It is our belief that an inquiry, structured and implemented in a positive manner, will only work to the benefit of all concerned parties. Our organization is also concerned with the Department of Community Service’s apparent failure to complete a mandated review of the child welfare system in the province. It is our understanding that this procedure has not been followed since 1999.

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Background Information
The Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia supports and advocates for women in conflict with the law and those at risk of becoming in conflict with the law. The Society works hard to provide preventative programs in the community to assist women before they enter the criminal justice system. The Society has been working with women in mainland Nova Scotia since 1982.

For more information regarding this release please contact:
Donna Phillips
Ph: (902) 454-5051, Cell (902) 449-0737, Fax: (902) 455-5913

BORDEN COLLEY: Standoff couple loses baby

2005-06-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

Judge denies VandenElsen, Finck access to child
By SHERRI BORDEN COLLEY / Court Reporter
The Halifax Herald Limited
Friday, June 24, 2005

The baby at the centre of a police standoff a year ago last month has permanently been taken away from the parents - Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck.

On Wednesday, Associate Chief Justice Deborah Smith of the family division of Nova Scotia Supreme Court placed the couple's infant in the permanent care and custody of the Children's Aid Society of Halifax - with no access for either parent.

A written copy of the ruling was made public Thursday.

"I am satisfied that (the baby) continues to be a child in need of protective services," Justice Smith wrote in a 48-page decision.

"Serious mental health concerns have been raised throughout this proceeding about both of (the child's) parents."

Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck, who are in jail pending their sentencing next week on convictions stemming from the standoff, were not permitted to speak to the media Thursday.

"The issue is in relation to not feeling it's in their best interests at the time to speak to the media and the fact that they still have outstanding matters before the courts," said Sean Kelly, superintendent of the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth.

Marilyn Dey, a friend who visited Ms. VandenElsen in jail on Thursday afternoon, said Ms. VandenElsen found the ruling too upsetting to even read it.

"If this report is anything like the previous orders and renderings of Justice Smith, it is libellous and slanderous and shows a grave conflict of interest," Ms. Dey read from a four-page statement Ms. VandenElsen wrote.

Ms. Dey said her "emotionally strong" friend expected the decision to go against her.

"She's known that right from the time (the baby) was a fetus, when they (Children's Aid) were after it," Ms. Dey said.

"I mean, this is the written word but she has known that this was going to come. I mean, she is devastated. There's no question about it."

In January 2004, the month after the child's birth, Children's Aid asked the court to find that the child was in need of protection.

At the initial hearing, the society requested a supervision order that would have allowed the child to be left in the care and custody of the parents but would have permitted social workers to periodically visit the family home to make sure the child was being properly cared for.

The society also requested that both parents undergo a psychiatric and psychological assessment, which the court subsequently ordered.

Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck have never complied with that order.

Evidence from the interim hearing, particularly that given by the doctor who delivered the baby, indicated that the child appeared to be well-cared-for by the parents.

But other evidence raised serious concerns about the mental health of both Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck.

Both have been charged in the past with child abduction.

In November 2003, Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen, well along in her pregnancy, moved to Nova Scotia from Ontario because they knew Children's Aid officials in Ontario wanted to seize the baby soon after birth.

On Dec. 19, 2003, the Huron-Perth Children's Aid Society in Stratford, Ont., issued a Canada-wide child protection alert telling authorities that Ms. VandenElsen's access to her triplets from a previous marriage had recently been terminated.

The alert also noted Ms. VandenElsen's pending trial for the alleged abduction of those three children and that Mr. Finck was on probation for abducting his older daughter and bringing her to Nova Scotia. It also said he had refused a psychological assessment.

The supervisor who wrote the alert recommended a warrant be issued to apprehend the couple's baby, who was born just days later.

Based on information received from its Ontario counterpart, the Children's Aid Society of Halifax became involved with the family in December 2003, the month the baby was born.

The standoff began in the early hours of May 19, 2004, when police tried to enforce Justice Smith's court order from Jan. 15, 2004, mandating that the baby be placed in the temporary care of the Children's Aid Society of Halifax. That order was upheld in subsequent reviews.

Last summer, in Mr. Finck's criminal case, a psychiatrist at the East Coast Forensic Hospital in Dartmouth found that he suffers from chronic delusions of persecution and has serious psychotic illness along with a personality disorder.

While Justice Smith had no expert opinion evidence concerning Ms. VandenElsen's mental state, she had no hesitation in finding there are "serious and legitimate concerns about her mental health."

Ms. VandenElsen presents herself in court as an intelligent individual but "her conduct is often grossly inappropriate, aggressive, antagonistic and sometimes bizarre," the judge said in Thursday's ruling.

"There have been a number of occasions during the course of these proceedings when she has either been unwilling or unable to control her behaviour."

Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck dispute any suggestion that they suffer from mental illness and claim they are being persecuted because of their strongly held belief that the family justice system is corrupt.

They also believe that the court violated their charter rights by ordering them to participate in a psychiatric and psychological assessment.

Ms. VandenElsen also alleges that government agents "systematically kidnapped" her baby.

Justice Smith said Ms. VandenElsen's involvement in the child's disappearance from Halifax on Jan. 15, 2004, and the couple's role in the armed standoff in May 2004 put the child "at substantial risk of physical and emotional harm."

Since the standoff ended on May 21, 2004, the couple have done little to deal with the issues that put the child in temporary care, the judge said.

"They refuse or are incapable of recognizing or dealing with the mental health issues that have been raised throughout this proceeding - opting instead to charge ahead in what appears to be a relentless pursuit of fighting 'the system.'

"They appear to be consumed with their perception of a corrupt family justice system and seem incapable of recognizing their role in (the baby) being placed in care."

The judge concluded that the parents are unable to focus on or act in the best interests of their child and that the child would be at substantial risk of physical and emotional harm if returned to their care.

The custody decision comes on the heels of the couple's criminal trial stemming from the standoff.

On May 12, Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck were convicted of obstruction, contravening a child custody order and weapons offences during the standoff. Their sentencing hearing begins Tuesday.

Ms. VandenElsen, who is demanding a public inquiry, began a hunger strike in jail on May 21.

She is also awaiting a new trial in Ontario on charges of abducting her triplets after an acquittal was thrown out in 2003.

Mr. Finck was convicted in 2000 and served prison time for abducting his daughter, then four, from an Ontario reserve in 1999.

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Copyright © 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited

CLUFF: Lawyer worries for VandenElsen

2005-06-23T12:52:00.000-04:00

Stratford Beacon Herald
By Paul Cluff / Staff reporter
June 22nd, 2005

Former Stratford resident Carline VandenElsen is on a hunger strike in Halifax and has not eaten food in 31 days.

Ms. VandenElsen has survived on a liquid diet and vitamins, says Amy Robern, a Stratford lawyer who has represented her in the past and has kept in contact with supporters and the VandenElsen family.

Ms. VandenElsen and husband Larry Finck were convicted earlier this year of offences related to a 67-hour armed standoff with police in Halifax in May 2004.
The couple have appealed the judge’s ruling.

Ms. Robern said she is worried about the physical and mental state of Ms. VandenElsen.
“She is doing very poorly.”

Ms. VandenElsen was in hospital for evaluation but has since been placed back in custody, where she awaits sentencing, said Ms. Robern.

According to a supporters website, Ms. VandenElsen’s “Starving for the Children” hunger strike began May 21 to “alert the public and pressure the government to order an inquiry in the apprehension of her five-month-old daughter on May 21, 2004.”

Ms. Robern said Ms. VandenElsen’s actions are in protest of the Children’s Aid Society of Halifax.

Ms. Robern said the CAS must justify why they wanted to take the newborn from the mother and her husband, Lawrence Finck.
The standoff started when the CAS attempted to take custody of Ms. VandenElsen’s baby, Mona Claire.

After the standoff, the baby was placed in the care of the CAS.

“No one knows why. No reasons have been given. It's pure harassment,” Ms. Robern said.

Supporters of Ms. VandenElsen in Halifax have held a vigil in support and have asked for an inquiry into the actions of the CAS.

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Copyright © 2005 The Stratford Beacon Herald

JACKSON: Party to sue to force review of Children's and Family Services Act

2005-06-23T12:44:00.000-04:00

NDP: Lack of committee against provincial law
Party to sue to force review of Children's and Family Services Act
By DAVID JACKSON / Provincial Reporter The Halifax Herald Limited
Thursday, June 23, 2005

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MLA Graham Steele said it's important because it would provide an outlet for people to express their views to someone other than decision-makers.

NDP: Lack of committee against provincial law

New Democrat MLA Graham Steele plans on going to court to force the province to follow its own law.

Mr. Steele said Community Services Minister David Morse is bound by statute to set up an advisory committee to review the Children's and Family Services Act.

There hasn't been such a committee since 1999.

According to the act, the committee should include two people who've had children who needed protective services, two members of minority communities, a legal aid lawyer, a representative of the department and the minister, and up to three other people appointed by the minister.

Mr. Steele, who learned a few months ago about the requirement for a committee, said it's important because it would provide an outlet for people to express their views to someone other than decision-makers.

He said the case of Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen has highlighted issues relating to child protection orders.

The couple was involved in a three-day police standoff last year that started when Halifax police tried to enforce such an order.

Mr. Steele said that case isn't the reason he's going to court, but it's caused other people to come forward with concerns.

Mr. Morse said the province has advertised for people to serve on the committee but hasn't had any response.

"If Mr. Steele wants to do something constructive, and he knows somebody that would like to participate on this, we certainly would encourage him to send those people to the executive council office," he said.

Mr. Steele called that response "complete and utter nonsense."

"It's the most feeble, most ridiculous excuse that I can imagine," said the Halifax Fairview MLA.

"He knows that there are people out there who have asked him, begged him to set up the committee and volunteered to be on it."

Mr. Steele plans to file court papers Monday.

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Copyright © 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited

YOUNGSON: Response to Dorey's article

2005-06-20T10:38:00.000-04:00

Kim Moar, Barry Dorey, Media, CS/CA, Minister of Community Services David Morse: (see attachment in 2 formats)

RE: Article published Saturday, June 18th, 2005 in the Daily News: Children's Aid Fights Back with PR Push ( Kim Moar) ; and article published June 17th, 2005 in the Halifax Herald, VandenElsen Supporters Pose Questions at Aid Society Meeting (Barry Dorey)

KIM MOAR :

What is with this "crashed the annual general meeting"? In an attempt to sensationalize this story, you have misrepresented what happened at the annual meeting of the Halifax CAS on Thursday, June 16, 2005. This meeting was open to the public and as such anyone was able to attend.

And as for "demanding answers", we were asking questions. When someone from the audience challenged our right to do so, Mr. John Rowan, the Executive Director of the Halifax Children's Aid Society, confirmed that this was a public meeting and that we did have a right to ask questions. To which I thanked him for his reply.

BARRY DOREY:

You have wrongly lead the public to believe that we had "peppered the board members with questions" about the VandenElsen / Fink case. In truth we did not ask ANY QUESTIONS pertaining to this case.

You ascertained that Evangiline Godron was a supporter of Carline VandeElsen. You then made assumptions of the other women present. When I came over to speak to you, after your talk with Evangiline, you did not ask if I was a supporter of Carline's and you did not even speak to the third woman.

I did tell you that I was university educated with 3 degrees and that I had been researching concerns about Children's Services/Aid (CS/CA) for 2 1/2 years and that I was quite frustrated that noone from the media ever wants to talk to me. I had suggested contacting you and you immediately began giving me excuses, to which I stopped you and told you I had heard all the lies and all the excuses already.

THE MEDIA:

What happened to fair and even coverage by the media?

I think you in the media need to pay close attention to the information that is being given you by CS/CA. They are better than politicians in avoiding questions.

For example, when Evangiline asked for details about what the Halifax Children's Aid Society did under specific circumstances, Mr. Rowan began spouting off that the CFS Act says this, that, and the other thing. As he began his rambling, I interjected and told him, that we were well aware of what the act says, and I informed him that that was not the question. That the question asked was what did the Society do not what the act said..

Do you not understand. This is one of our major concerns, the Act says a lot of wonderful thing BUT very little of the act is followed by the court, CA/CS or the Minister of Community Services.

As I recently said to one of my professors: " The act is full of 'the Court shall", ' CS/CA shall", and 'the Minister shall BUT I see very little 'shalling' going on!"

For an explanation of the legal importance of the worh "shall" in the CFS Act, see what Rollie Thompson told us about its significance more than a year ago in the attached document under section 88.

It does not matter how wonderful the Act sounds if the government and the courts are disregarding the law and not following it! ! ! !

Children's Services / Children's Aid :

"All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as self evident" Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Have you entered into the second stage ? If so, I welcome it because this means that the third stage is on the way!

Mr Morse:

I am still waiting for a reply to the e-mail I sent you 2 weeks ago. You assured me in writing that you would inform me in time to apply for the committee:

June 10, 2005

Dear David Morse, Minister of Community Services:

Re: Membership in the Minister's Advisory Committee as per Section 88 of the
Children and Family Services Act.

I wrote you May 11, 2004 and August 16, 2004, and you replied June 28, 2005 and September 21, 2004, respectively. In your June letter you informed me, " Given your expressed interest, I would be pleased to inform you at the appropriate point in time when membership selection is being considered."

I am patiently waiting to be contacted so I can apply for membership to this committee.

I phoned your office in December, 2004 and January, 2005 requesting an appointment with you. In reply, Judith Ferguson, Assistant. Deputy Minister of Community Services, phoned me and we had a conversation on January 6th. In this conversation, she assured me at the beginning of the conversation, that if I was not satisfied with my conversation with her that a meeting could be arranged with you. By the end of the conversation, I assured her that I still wanted a meeting with you. At this point, she informed me that she would phone me back - I never heard from her again!

I am still requesting this meeting. You say you like meeting people. I assure you I am an interesting person to meet.

I am also formally notifying you that I expect, as promised, to be informed at the appropriate point in time when membership selection is being considered for the Minister's Advisory Committeeso so that I may apply for membership.

Considering I have been communicating with you since May 11. 2004, and I was promised a call back concerning a meeting with you (that I am still waiting for), as well as the fact that this committee is suppose to meet on an annual basis, I am expecting a speedy and positive reply to this letter.

Your sincerely.

Linda Youngson

c.c. Rick Howe, Marilyn Dey

Linda Youngson B.A., B.Ed., M.Ed.

Please see the attachments above, the articles below and the following blog site http://www.carlinevandenelsen.blogspot.com/ . Be sure to see both sets of comments. The first has 34 comments - the second 10 (thus far)
VandenElsen supporters pose questions at aid society meeting
Officials refuse to talk details

Friday, June 17, 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited

By BARRY DOREY / Staff Reporter

Some supporters of Carline VandenElsen tried to make things uncomfortable for those attending the annual general meeting of the Children's Aid Society of Halifax on Thursday night.

Friends of the woman who was convicted last month on several charges stemming from a custody dispute that turned into a standoff with police in May 2004 peppered board members with questions.

Evangeline Godron asked whether thorough investigations precede every case in which the society seizes a child, alluding to allegations that Ms. VandenElsen's child was taken unjustly.

"We follow the protocol in all cases," acting CEO John Rowan told her.

He said the province sets out clear rules and guidelines that must be followed.

The society held its 85th annual general meeting at a Halifax hotel just blocks from the Shirley Street home that was the scene of the three-day standoff.

Ms. VandenElsen and her husband, Larry Finck, were found guilty last month of obstruction, abducting their baby in contravention of a child custody order and other charges.

The standoff began in earnest when a shot was fired over police officers' heads from inside the house and neighbours were evacuated.

The society issued a news release in anticipation of questions about the case, which it did not mention by name.

"The Children's Aid Society of Halifax is unable to comment on the specifics regarding any family it works with," the release said. "We appreciate that this allows unfounded allegations to go unanswered."

Ms. Godron also requested a breakdown of how much money or work that legal firms have contributed to the society or its charitable foundation.

The annual report states the society spent $571,412 on legal fees in the last fiscal year, roughly half of the overall administrative budget.

She said she wanted answers about community services practices in general.

"There are thousands of comparable cases, the VandenElsen case is just the best-known," Ms. Godron said in an interview.

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Children's Aid fights back with PR push
The Daily News (Halifax) Local News, Saturday, June 18, 2005, p. 3

Kim Moar

In the wake of a high-profile child-custody case, the province hopes to promote public awareness of what the Children's Aid Society is all about with a new brochure.

"If the public has a better understanding of what we do and why we do it, it makes our job that much easier," acting director of child welfare services Leonard Doiron said yesterday.

While unable to talk about Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen specifically, Doiron said the publicity surrounding that case has raised the public's interest in Children's Aid.

"The public's perception, in all fairness, is probably poor in terms of what child-protection work does, because they rarely have an opportunity to hear the full story," Doiron said.

In May 2004, Finck and VandenElsen were involved in a 67-hour armed standoff on Shirley Street in Halifax that resulted in a shot being fired at police. Officers were attempting to serve the couple with a court order giving temporary custody of their five-month-old daughter to child-welfare workers.

In all, less than one per cent of the estimated 11,500 cases a year in Nova Scotia involve taking the child into care.

"Taking a child from the home, either temporarily or permanently, is unusual and only done with a child is in imminent danger of abuse or neglect," the brochure states.

During a 10-week trial into a number of firearms-related charges, Finck and VandenElsen repeatedly criticized Children's Aid and the way child-protection workers handled their case.

Confidentiality prevents the agency from responding to specific allegations.

On June 28 - coincidentally the same day the province will host a conference on child-protection issues - Finck and VandenElsen will be back in court for sentencing.

On Thursday, VandenElsen supporters crashed the annual general meeting of the Children's Aid Society in Halifax demanding answers about the agency.

"We want to make a full description of our services and our processes made available to the public so they can make up their own minds about how things are done," Doiron said.

In a concise format, the brochure explains the agency's services, families' rights and how to report suspected child abuse or neglect. The brochure is available online at www.gov.ns.ca/ coms/families/child_welfare.html.

kmoar@hfxnews.ca

DOREY: CAS 85th Annual Meeting

2005-06-17T13:12:00.000-04:00

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Friday, June 17, 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited

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VandenElsen supporters pose questions at aid society meeting

Officials refuse to talk details
By BARRY DOREY / Staff Reporter

Some supporters of Carline VandenElsen tried to make things uncomfortable for those attending the annual general meeting of the Children's Aid Society of Halifax on Thursday night.

Friends of the woman who was convicted last month on several charges stemming from a custody dispute that turned into a standoff with police in May 2004 peppered board members with questions.

Evangeline Godron asked whether thorough investigations precede every case in which the society seizes a child, alluding to allegations that Ms. VandenElsen's child was taken unjustly.

"We follow the protocol in all cases," acting CEO John Rowan told her.

He said the province sets out clear rules and guidelines that must be followed.

The society held its 85th annual general meeting at a Halifax hotel just blocks from the Shirley Street home that was the scene of the three-day standoff.

Ms. VandenElsen and her husband, Larry Finck, were found guilty last month of obstruction, abducting their baby in contravention of a child custody order and other charges.

The standoff began in earnest when a shot was fired over police officers' heads from inside the house and neighbours were evacuated.

The society issued a news release in anticipation of questions about the case, which it did not mention by name.

"The Children's Aid Society of Halifax is unable to comment on the specifics regarding any family it works with," the release said. "We appreciate that this allows unfounded allegations to go unanswered."

Ms. Godron also requested a breakdown of how much money or work that legal firms have contributed to the society or its charitable foundation.

The annual report states the society spent $571,412 on legal fees in the last fiscal year, roughly half of the overall administrative budget.

She said she wanted answers about community services practices in general.

"There are thousands of comparable cases, the VandenElsen case is just the best-known," Ms. Godron said in an interview.

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Copyright © 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited

ANDRE: Speculations #1

2005-06-17T00:02:00.000-04:00

At this point, Carline and Larry Finck are in jail awaiting sentencing for accusations stemming from the way they defended themselves against a barbaric and highly dubious apprehension order filed by the CAS and signed and authorized by a judge. Mona-Clare is still orphaned as a result.

With as much compassion as we can, as much faith in human goodness as we can still find in us (or is it a NEED to believe in that goodness), intertwined with mercy and grace, and the certainty that truth exists, there is still a need to be have that truth uncovered. No court judgement can completely put an end to the questions we have.

This is not a technical equation, an exaction from law poured like concrete into a court judgement, but it is about complex actors of a human drama. As Shakespearian as can be, the case of Carline Vandenelsen and her children delivers a tale of treason and betrayal, abuse of power and malicious intent, disinformation and scheming, unrighteousness and the condemnation of the wrong person by the law.

Reading and studying King Lear, Othello or Macbeth, we dive in the dark pools of the conflicted human psyche, and find tormented figures, souls for whom the end justifies the means. We find these souls embolden by the success of their deceptive tactics when dishonor cloaks its subjective and abusive rulings over the lives of others, under the guise of political necessity by a third party, unwittingly tied to evil by the necessity of its own societal symbolism.

Justice in our world does not mean righteousness. It means shrewdness in interpreting the law. For good or for bad. But what can we do when things are so, that the cold sword of the judicial system is used to cut the umbilical chord prematurely and without regards for the lives it hurts, nor understanding for the tenderness and vulnerability of human nature.

Hence, here I find myself opening the books to find the chapter that describes the day before the storm... and find an intricate web of speculations which could each lead to a common lair... and to be fair, the following has to be ascertained:

IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE DISCOVER IF THIS situation has been orchestrated by people from Ontario, if anyone close to Carline and her children involved in past legal battle are behind this, if either one of them placed the call to the CAS five days before Mona-Clare’s birth. IF SO, then we have a totally different case, a totally different story. And the whole country has been played like we was fools.

If it is so, it would now mean that this is a case of conspiracy to destroy the lives of 7 people: Larry, Carline, Mona-Clare and Mona Finck (she died during the standoff of a heart attack), and Peter, Gray and Olivia, Carline’s children now living with her ex husband.

IF IT IS SO, that those people (they know who they are), or anyone else connected to them, has set in motion a series of tragic events by issuing an accusatory statement, which they knew would be taken seriously, not because either parent has ever been found to be unfit, but because they have been involved in high profile cases, then if they did so, he, she or they would have to answer to criminal charges ranging from: conspiracy to use deceit in order to keep Carline and Larry away from Carline’s 3 children; conspiracy to use law enforcement and governmental resources to kidnap a baby and break a family for personal gain; leading to the death of Mona Finck; leading to the use of governmental officers and Emergency Response Unit to further a personal agenda having nothing to do with the best interest of the child which is being apprehended; endangering the lives of the 4 people present at 6161 Shirley Street in Halifax from May 19th to May 21st ; endangering of the whole neighborhood. These are criminal offences: public mischief, and I suspect there could be more charges.

Therefore we also request that a PUBLIC INQUIRY be made, so as to reveal the source of the apprehension order against Mona-Clare Finck. Failure to pursue this avenue would leave our justice system prey to ill intentioned individuals using the law to commit crimes against Canadians, and amount to justifying those crimes against Canadian using the law and the Family Law Privacy Act to hide and protect the perpetrators from accountability. Those who know something should come out and speak.

FURTHERMORE, the true nature of Carline VandenElsen’s acts regarding the absconding of her triplets to Mexico would certainly have to be examined with this new evidence, in this new light, as this would show that indeed there was serious and decisive intent on the part of said parties to deprive the children of any contact with their mother. It would also prove beyond doubt that he has been active in disinformation and character assassination for many years, trying to paint Carline as a criminal and crazy person who represents a danger for her children.

FURTHERMORE, the whole public would have to be reconciled with the fact that they have been played as well in this case, the victims of a diabolical plot to exert a petty vengeance using any means necessary, as they have been swallowing camels and filtering flies. And for those with enough integrity, it would be hoped that they would restore publicly the ones they have attacked publicly.

FURTHERMORE, the children should all be returned to their mother, and Carline's assets returned to her, and damages alloted to her for the years of victimization and irreparable harm she and her children would have suffered at the hand of these confused people.

I am just speculating here. But that’s all the judicial system would leave us with at this point, as long as they do not investigate the case of Mona-Clare Finck in a public manner. But it looks really strange to me, an outsider, that this whole scenario would unfold 4 days before the birth of Mona-Clare, shortly after the children were told by a friend that Carline was expecting a baby girl any day now.

In good conscience, we will keep asking for a public inquiry and a reform of Family Law where it is needed, a law that allows this sort of thing to happen: the apprehension of a unborn child, and the right of Canadian parents to refuse to be mentally assessed by a court-appointed specialist when there is no reason in their mind to do so. They had a birth to prepare for, and a new life to welcome, a family to build and a little girl to educate in the ways of love, community, and in the ways of the world…

Andre

ANDRE: Adoption and foster care

2005-06-16T14:19:00.000-04:00

Here is an excerpt from a Reader's Digest online debate in 1999. Visitors to the site were invited to give their opinion about the following question: "At what point do you think a child should be taken permanently from his or her parents and placed in foster care or adopted by others?"

The case presented to them concerned Robert, a 2.5 years old boy found wandering the streets in Vancouver, his mom a drug addict. Robert was brought back home and left with his mother for another 6 years with the obvious results that he suffered terribly. His mother was ordered to attend "parenting courses" but of course, crack does not help you study and be attentive to your life and those around you.

"A second parenting course didn't help: One night in August 1988, his mother kicked Robert out of her apartment. "I can't go home because my mom has company," Robert told the social worker who investigated. He went into care briefly but was returned to his mother in early September."

And so the result was more confusion, more hurt.

"From October 1988 to June 1989, Robert lived in four different foster homes and went to three different schools. The chaos and uncertainty took their toll: He became unruly and difficult to manage. Regarded as a troublemaker, he was placed in a group home with kids as old as 14, although he was just six."

Says the couple who finally adopted him: "Robert was eight when he became available for adoption. He didn't find a family until he was almost 12. Why did he sit there for four years? Why the heck did they drag it out like that?"

Here is a case where the CAS acted, but the family-court judge and the ensuing crowd of judicial officials handled his case in a way that does not address the particular nature of family bonds and life development. Something was definitely wrong.

"Maggie, a Toronto foster mother of three young children, says: "Canada should be ashamed of itself for the way it is treating its children. They should be getting the best of everything there is in this country. Instead they get the scraps. I hold society responsible for not knowing what's going on, for not being outraged that children are living in these conditions."

In many cases, children at risk are helped by the intervention of the CAS. And it seems that here is the suspended bridge over the abyss. Once a child has entered the "system" and is being "processed" (yikes) there seems to be very little the CAS or the parents can do. The "process" has to run its course, independantly from the laws of nature and bonding. And the "process" has everything to do with the judicial system.

"After reading the article "Canada's Foster Care System" I felt I needed to contact you to relay some of my concerns with the article. First of all I feel the title is very misleading, as the tragedy doesn't lie with the C.A.S. or the Foster Care System, but with the judicial system. It is there that decisions are made as to what happens to these children and whether they should be returned home or not, not in the office of the C.A.S. or the home of the Foster Parents."

So here is the thing: Once a child is into the processing channels of the CAS apparatus, he/she disappears from view. The child is an anonymous person, the case is secret and protected by the Privacy Act, and nobody in the public (families, friends, supportes) can know what's happening with that child. The only instances that can do anything at this point to either return the child to his/her family, or take that child to the next step of custody, are the judicial ones.

So what happens in the case of errors, where the child was not at risk, had never been, and the order actually concerns "fears of future harm," a preemptive abduction by CAS workers? The answer is that it's too late. We can only hope and pray that there would be a good and quick inquiry done to determine the validity of the apprehension of a child, and that the judicial personel will be thorough and impartial to reputation, religion, race, gender, social status.

In the case of a mistake by CAS workers or the judge, the child will still be swallowed out of view by the judicial system, placed in foster homes, eventually even adopted. The time frame for the proceedings is very precise and restrictive. You are encouraged to find a lawyer that has YOUR best interest at heart, because the judicial system has ITS own best interest at heart: to apply the law as legalistically as possible. And every CAS office seems to have their own legal team as well. It's VERY protected.

Once you're in, YOU'RE IN. It is impossible to get out. The best interest of the child then becomes to find a temporary home (foster care) and ultimately a good and loving family. But always by using the best interest of the law, not of the child. Even if it has been found that children have been taken away from their families without proper cause, the law cannot seemingly be changed. The child will remain out of his/her family.

It would be interesting to have data that would show us the number of children taken from their families each year, and out of that, how many actually went back to their families. And measure that across age groups.

Because there is a bigger demand to babies and toddlers, when a child is introduced into "the system," will he/she be prepared for adoption much quicker than other age groups? Some could feel offended at that suggestion and I would understand. However we have to ask, because if that is the case, then that motivation could possibly blind the administration of justice and open the door to abuse on the part of judicial and family-court personal.

When one listens to the stories told by parents concerning their ordeal with the CAS and family-court, a reform of family law seems to be badly needed in Canada. I'm sure the same-sex marriage issue will bring this to the fore pretty soon when they apply for adoption.

Finally, consider abortion: judges sign apprehension orders under the present Family Laws allowing the apprehension of babies by the CAS while the baby is still in the mother's womb.

Those who support abortion say the fetus is not a human being until "it" is born. The judge signs an apprehension order to prevent future harm to a human being, not an "it." At that point, doesn't the fetus become ward of the State? How can the fetus be treated as a ward of the State if "it" is not human yet?

I'm just processing this idea, not sure how far I'll be able to go with it, but it's certainly an interesting dilemma...

Andre

ANDRE: Trafficking in Persons?

2005-06-15T14:32:00.000-04:00

The question has been asked many times: is there a relationship between the "casual" and arrogant abduction of children on the part of the Children's Aid Society and where those children end-up? We live in a scary world...

We understand the CAS does have legitimacy in many cases of family abuse. What is blurred is the important number of families broken apart unecessarily. Now, we do know that not all CAS personel are evil. That the CAS does good as well as bad. But in this case, and because of the many stories we heard, we have to ask:

What really happens to babies and children that are taken away from their families without any valid reasons? Many parents don't know how to fight and just resign themselves to the fact that they lost their loved treasures. And that is very sad. The abuse of power can go a long way without seeming evident...

But why would the CAS need to make up stories to get children away from their families? Why work so hard at breaking up families? Can this be one of the answers? Is this what could be going on? We didn't want to believe the Butter Box Babies story. Are we going to let this one go uncheck? We want to know where Mona-Clare Finck is today...

Whistle-blowers wanted!

CAS workers should come forward too in order to help clean-up this mess and restore the reputation and original mandate of the CAS to an efficiency that will not be compromised by corruption. Make sure you seek the protection of trusted authorities before coming out, and contact the media as well. That way, you stand a better chance not to be silenced through intimidation.

Read on and while you pray this is not happening in Canada... accept it: it is... That's why we need to ask more questions to our elected officials for them to order a public inquiry in the actions of the CAS in the case of Mona-Clare Finck, and by extension, into other children's as well.

Trafficking in Persons

Definitions
Trafficking in persons is a serious crime that involves:

- the movement of people across or within borders;
- threats or use of force, coercion and deception;
- and exploitation, whether forced labour, forced prostitution, or other forms of servitude.

Trafficking in persons is not migrant smuggling. Smuggled migrants are usually free once they arrive at their destination; trafficking victims are not.

Trafficking in persons has been described as a modern form of slavery. It is a serious human rights violation and is reported by the United Nations to be the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime.

The Government of Canada is working to combat trafficking in persons both domestically and internationally.

Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime

Article 3
Use of terms

For the purposes of this Protocol:

(a) “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;

(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;

(d) “Child” shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.

SOURCE: Department of Justice Canada

BRAUER: Open Letter to Canadians

2005-06-13T00:00:00.000-04:00

Seized 5 mo old nursing baby by NS Swat team on the apprehension order of CAS, approved by NS Supreme Court May 21/04

June 13, 2005

Open Letter to Canadians: No Babies Allowed in NS!

Dear Canadians,

There is a terrible crime happening in NS. Parents are at risk of having their children snatched, unlawfully, by the Children's Aid Society.

They have an incredible government support system and they are unaccountable to anyone. First they apply for an apprehension order of your child based upon the most vague and illogical reasons, "possible future harm." (Gestapo tactics) This is the one size fits all loophole excuse to torture and terrorize the family. Then they submit this application to a judge who routinely rubber stamps the order. (Gestapo tactics)

Next, a psychological evaluation is ordered, but wait, there's more! The psychologists are all employed by the government. What does that tell you? Refusing a biased evaluation is reason for seizure of your child because you are uncooperative.

Next step is to engage the police, SWAT Team, who will first stalk your house and family and then bash in your door in the middle of the night to forcefully snatch your baby. (Gestapo tactics)

If you resist, you will be arrested, tasered, abused and confined. The baby will be taken anyway and you will never see her/him again. (Gestapo tactics)

This is exactly what happened to a NS couple, Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck. First a little history.

Carline and Larry lived in Ontario. They both lost custody of their previous children because our Supreme Courts routinely, during a divorce, designate one parent the custodial parent and the other parent the non custodial parent. From that moment all parents are no longer parents of their own children. A non custodial parent will never be able to make a parenting decision again as that right has been removed from them.

In Carline's case her triplets were removed from her care and awarded to her ex husband. She was given very limited access to her own children for no apparent reason. We have the children and Canadian judges raise them. We must now ask permission from a judge for everything. Our Family Law System is barbaric, cruel and unconstitutional but they have the power. They refuse to implement equal shared parenting.

Carline VandenElsen couldn't bear having no contact with her triplets, as the judge threatened to do. She took matters into her own hands and abducted them to Mexico, where she enjoyed a special time with her children.

Eventually she was caught and returned to Ontario. She was acquitted on all charges, based upon necessity. At this time however, the crown is appealing the verdict.

Despite accusations to the contrary, Carline VandenElsen never had any dealings with the Ontario Children's Aid.

Larry Finck had a baby daughter. When the mother died, the mother's brother was awarded custody of the child despite the father's application for custody.

The child went to live on the Indian reserve and the father would never have custody of his child again. It was even difficult to see her.

After a scheduled visit with his own baby, Larry Finck did not return the child, siting that the child was in danger. The courts didn't see it that way and denied custody and access to the father.

Carline and Larry met in Ontario and married. They moved to NS believing that they could start a new life here, in quiet NS. That was not to be. Upon learning of her pregnancy, the NS Children's Aid Society, got involved and kicked it up another notch. They issued an apprehension order of the fetus, claiming " possible future harm".

The Children's Aid has a checklist 14 reasons to apprehend a child. Not one of the 14 reasons was applicable so they used their catch all reason. There was no abuse or neglect and they even had a glowing family doctor's report of their excellent parenting skills.

After the birth of the baby, the judge rubber stamped the order without any investigation, without any consultation, without any home visits, despite the mandate of the Children's Aid to keep families together.

When the baby was 5 months old and nursing from her mother's breast, ( babies only food source) the SWAT team bashed in their door and attempted to seize the child. The alarmed parents refused. After a 67 hour standoff, during which time the grandmother died of natural causes, the couple gave up. The baby was seized, the parents tazerd and pushed to the ground. They were arrested and confined. The precious mother's milk was never collected for the baby.

The baby hasn't been seen since and it is now more than a year later. This was supposed to be temporary. A year is long term. The courts are now in the process of making a decision regarding permanent care, permanent removal of their child forever. This couple is very vocal in their disgust of government. This and this alone is what has caused the seizure of their child. It is now a punishable crime to voice opposition to government activities. (Gestapo tactic)

During the standoff a gun was fired, a warning shot, while the police were bashing in the front door of the family's home after midnight. (Gestapo tactics)

Carline VandenElsen was subsequently charged with firing the weapon even though no DNA was found and no gunshot residue was found. Strictly conjecture.

Larry Finck, charged with firing the gun and abducting his own child, has already served a year in jail. Again no DNA and no GSR was found. Strictly conjecture. What happened to " innocent until proven guilty?" Why is an innocent man in prison for a whole year?

Both parents are charged with abducting their own child. How is that humanly possible?

Carline and Larry are now confined in the Central NS Corrections Facility awaiting sentencing. They have been denied envelopes, stamps, medical treatment, a better mattress, communication with each other, their legal files and documents, phone privileges and legal council. Larry Finck has been denied bail several times, the reason stated that he is at risk of flight. Why are murderers and pedophiles out on bail and not a father protecting his own family?

At no time was the baby every provided with legal counsel. During the criminal trial the couple each had legal representation but they subsequently fired their lawyers. They felt they were not working in their best interests. They asked for legal representation during the permanent care hearings but were denied. They wanted a lawyer who would work for them exclusively and not the integrity of the court, a required condition of all lawyers.

Carline is ready to die. She has given up on ever having justice. She has been on a hunger strike, starving for the children, since May 21/05, the anniversary of the seizure of her baby. She has demanded a Public Inquiry into the corruption of this case and all the other apprehension orders of the Children's Aid. They have repeatedly asked for their Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be upheld but not one court has upheld them. Section 7 of the Charter guarantees "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principals of fundamental justice." Section 7 of the Charter guarantees the life, liberty and personal security of all Canadians. It also demands that governments respect the basic principles of justice whenever it intrudes on those rights.

Where are Carline and Larry's rights? Who will uphold them? Who will compensate them? Who will release them? Who will return their baby? Who will come forward and rally to their defence?

No one is safe in NS! Babies and parents are not safe anymore. At any time of the day or night, the CAS can unlawfully snatch your child. They already did!

In the meantime, Nova Scotia’s politicians arrogantly refuse to hold a Public Inquiry. The NS Ombudsman refuses to get involved.

Why? What are they hiding? The flow chart shows no less than twenty two separate entities profiting from the seizure of this child. All expenses are paid for by the taxpayers. A family at home costs the taxpayers absolutely nothing. Seizure of the child invokes 22 separate groups of civil servants and private organizations that must be paid. This is costing the taxpayers millions and millions in uneccessay expense.

We, the people, and Carline and Larry, have a right to a Public Inquiry. Call it now, or resign Premier Hamm and AG Michael Baker!

There is something else happening here that is very strange. There appears to be a blanket censorship on any information regarding this situation. Some media and the community have refused to allow information to get through. Even the local schools don't want anything to do with the truth. Libraries, schools and book stores refuse to take Carline VandenElsen's book. (Gestapo tactics) This case affects every single person in NS and in Canada. This is not the only case. We hear many horror stories everyday, all across Canada.

Carline and Larry have many supporters who have been working 24/7 for a Public Inquiry. However, the justice system is content to just let Carline VandenElsen die in prison and to continue supporting the snatching of healthy babies from their parents.

In this letter, we have identified certain actions as Gestapo tactics. This is no accident. A comparison of Hitler’s actions regarding the snatching of children by their CAS is identical to modern NS and Canadian tactics. Your child could be next! Evil is here!

Our elected civil servants are no longer working for the people but actively working against them. They are engaged in a Political Coverup that rivals Ottawa’s Ad Scam.

We are asking for all interested parties willing to support the release of Larry and Carline and in favour of a Public Inquiry to come forward. Please call us at
902.798.5267 and leave your name and phone number. Fund-raising in progress.

Donations welcome.

Live Free!
Connie Brauer and Vic Harris

Family Civil Rights Movement
NS, Canada
902.798.5267 ( Office hours 9-9AST-1 hr past EST)
cbrauer@lincsat.com

http://justiceforparents.blogspot.com

KIMBER: Open Letter to Justice Minister Baker

2005-06-07T10:44:00.000-04:00

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

CARLINE: response to Michael Baker

2005-06-02T12:52:00.000-04:00

June 2nd 2005
[This is Carline's reply to Justice Minister Baker as relayed in her telephone conversation last night.]

"Starving for the Children" is not only for Mona-Clare. It is for the 100's of children in Nova Scotia who have been snatched by a corrupt child welfare system. The public inquiry is needed to examine the activities of this Child Welfare System in Nova Scotia.

I have put in 4 requests to see a medical doctor. All have been refused. I will be contacting Tony Stores, ombudsman and medical laison for his help. Corrections supplies 2 cups of Ensure, milk and juice a day. While I'm at court they give me pop! Good nutritional support that is!

Repeated attempts by Larry and myself and by other advocates, to contact and meet with Premier Hamm,Justice Minister Baker and Community Services Minister David Morse have all been denied. There are 30 boxes of documents at the court every day on Water Street that Minister Baker should take a look at.

There are advocates here in Halifax who are willing to give him all the information he needs to call a public inquiry. Come on Minister Baker, lift the deliberate blindness,look at the information and open the lines of communication. Let the truth come out!

Carline VandenElsen

ANDRE: Response to Justice Minister Michael Baker

2005-05-31T01:08:00.000-04:00

No Public Inquiry into Carline VandenElsen Case Justice
May 20, 2005 16:55

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Justice Minister Michael Baker said today, May 20, that unless new information becomes available, he has no plans to call a public inquiry as requested by Carline VandenElsen.

"We will be monitoring Ms. VandenElsen carefully. We will do what we can to make sure that Ms. VandenElsen’s health is not jeopardized by her actions," said Mr. Baker, "However, based on the information we have at the present time, the Department of Justice does not feel that a public inquiry is warranted."

-30-

Contact: Carla Grant
Department of Justice
902-424-6282
E-mail: grantc@gov.ns.ca

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
RESPONSE to Justice Minister Michael Baker
Re: "information available"
(and one other thing, or two...)

Justice Minister Michael Baker
Department of Justice,
Government of Nova Scotia

Dear sir,

This is in response to your posting on the Nova Scotia governement website, saying that "based on the information we have at the present time, the Department of Justice does not feel that a public inquiry is warranted."

Are you saying that the informaiton you have at the present time constitutes the inclusive sum of all that is available? Or are you saying that you cannot use any information that the court has not approved as representing the information you should use to make a decision?

Because there is a growing number of people who wonder what warrants the issuing of a court order to take away a baby that's still in the womb from a healthy, caring and loving family... with no reason given other than "There was a court order." But to this day, no details have been given to the parents or the media.

And so I'd like to know what you consider "available" information: ONLY what the judge deems as relevant, or what both sides, defense and prosecution, actually present? I believe a public inquiry will conclusively demonstrate that you DO have new information available. It is simply a matter of asking the RIGHT people. And not use this as a cope out to shy away from exposing the ills of this case and request accountability from those who need to be held accountable. Not the baby, not the parents. But the CAS.

Read More...

KIMBER: Why we need a public inquiry...

2005-05-29T20:09:00.000-04:00

Why we need a public inquiry into the taking of Mona Clare

By Stephen Kimber

May 29, 2005

Forget for a moment the circus that their trial became: their lawyer firings, their seemingly ever-more-paranoid claims of baby-factory conspiracies, their spectator-shocking, judge-trying courtroom outbursts, their richly fertilized and cross-pollinated legal garden of lawsuits, appeals, briefs and petitions that are still growing wild inside Halifax court houses. Forget even Carline VandenElsen’s current “starving-for-the-children” hunger strike that threatens to turn this farce into tragedy.

Focus instead on the single critical — and still unanswered — question that is at the heart of the story of Mona Clare Finck: Did the Nova Scotia Children’s Aid Society have any reasonable legal grounds to seize the infant from her parents in the first place?

Everything else — policemen with battering rams and machine guns showing up at the Finck front door in the middle of one night last May, the single shot fired from inside the house, the 67-hour standoff with a heavily-armed police tactical squad that followed, the death by natural causes of Mona Clare’s grandmother in the middle of it all, the criminal charges, the trial, the application by child protection authorities for permanent custody… All of those events flow from an initial decision by Children’s Aid back in December 2003 to seek an apprehension order for the then still-unborn Mona Clare.

Why did Children’s Aid do that?

Could its decision to take the infant have been made on the basis of nothing more substantial than a relayed phone call to Ontario Children’s Aid from VandenElsen’s far-from-disinterested ex-husband, informing them — wrongly, as it turns out — that VandenElsen had already given birth in Halifax.

We do know VandenElsen and her husband Larry Finck had each been in conflict with child protection authorities in Ontario over the custody of their children from previous marriages. We know Finck served time for abducting his daughter, and VandenElsen was charged with kidnapping her triplets. But we also know a jury found her not guilty of those charges, accepting her argument she was acting out of what she considered necessity. We know too that the Crown successfully appealed the verdict, meaning VandenElsen — still not found guilty of anything — was awaiting a new trial at the time of the apprehension order.

Perhaps most importantly, we know now that there is nothing on the public record — other than their ongoing battles with child custody authorities — to indicate that either Finck or VandenElsen was an unfit parent.

So why did Children’s Aid seize Mona Clare?

Should there be — as Carline VandenElsen is demanding — a full public inquiry to answer that question?

Nova Scotia Justice Minister Michael Baker doesn’t think so. Shortly after VandenElsen announced she would stop eating until authorities agreed to such an inquiry, the Justice Minister issued a terse news release: “Based on the information we have at the present time,” he said, “the Department of Justice does not feel that a public inquiry is warranted.”

What information is that, Mr. Baker?

The province’s Children and Family Services Act, which governs child custody issues, is clear that the “purpose of this Act is to protect children from harm, promote the integrity of the family and assure the best interests of children.”

The Act specifically lists 14 different situations in which a child might be “in need of protective services.” Those include everything from actual and potential physical, sexual or emotional abuse, to neglect and abandonment, to the parents’ failure or unwillingness to provide proper medical care.

None of the criteria apply to this case.

Even if you were to stretch the Act’s Section 22.2(g) — which says a child can be taken from its parents if “there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer emotional harm [demonstrated by severe anxiety, depression, withdrawal, or self-destructive or aggressive behaviour]…” — and tried to make the argument that someday perhaps Mona Clare’s parents’ disputes with child protection authorities over custody of children from before she was born might somehow, possibly, conceivably result in some unspecified emotional harm to Mona Clare, well, that is much, much more than just a stretch.

The Act itself is clear about what constitutes “substantial risk” of harm to a child: “a real danger that is apparent on the evidence.”

The evidence in this case, in fact, suggests quite the opposite. The doctor who delivered the child and met with the family before and after her birth reported: “Both parents appropriate with baby, caring, loving.” Neighbours, who saw mother and daughter in the weeks before the police assault, said they saw nothing to indicate the child was in any danger. Doctors and nurses at the IWK, who examined five-month-old Mona Clare after she’d been seized by police, described her as “a well grown and well developed baby with no clinical signs of any illness… doing well… active, playful and feeding well…”

So, Mr. Baker, let me ask you again: What information did your department have at the time that legally justified seizing this child from her parents?

Or does this really have anything to do with the law?

Could it be that Children’s Aid here over-reacted to an over-reaction by child protection officials in Ontario, who didn’t like Finck’s and VandenElsen’s attitude and wanted to punish them for the crime of being difficult? And could it be that judges here okayed this because our Family Court system has become more of a rubber stamp for the child-care bureaucracy than a careful check on the arbitrary powers of those agencies? Could there be other cases as egregious as this one that we don’t yet know about only because no shots were fired.

The truth, Mr. Baker, is that you already have plenty of information to warrant a public inquiry. It’s past time you called one.

Stephen.Kimber@ukings.ns.ca

LIGHTSTONE: Money raised for mom...

2005-05-29T19:42:00.000-04:00

Money raised for mom on hunger strike
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE / Staff Reporter
The Halifax Herald Limited
May 29, 2005

A Nova Scotia couple who say they're full-time human rights activists are trying to raise money to support Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen - and other parents whose children have been removed from their care.

Connie Brauer and Vic Harris, who have each lost custody of children from previous relationships, said Saturday any donated cash will go toward fighting what they say is an unjust child-welfare system.

Ms. Brauer of Falmouth said part of the money raised will finance planned advertising to target what they call government abuse of parents.

Another reason the couple is seeking funds is to build a database of children removed from their homes by child-protection agencies .

Ms. Brauer acknowledged she and her husband are friends of Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen. They've joined others who have called for a public inquiry into the case.

A little more than a year ago, Mr. Finck and his wife were involved in a 67-hour armed standoff with Halifax Regional Police. They were convicted of several charges and are to be sentenced in late June.

Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen are both in custody in metro; their 17-month-old daughter is in foster care.

Ms. VandenElsen has been on a hunger strike for about a week to back demands for an inquiry.

On Saturday, she phoned ATV news and said she expects to be put in solitary confinement soon.

"I'm not getting any health services, nor am I getting any counselling," she said. Ms. VandenElsen said she now weighs about 114 pounds.

Jail officials will not comment on a prisoner's hunger strike. Justice Minister Michael Baker has said the province won't authorize an inquiry unless new information comes to light.

A spokeswoman for Community Services, which handles child-welfare issues in Nova Scotia, has refused comment on the standoff case because it's still before the courts.

Ms. Brauer said only an independent probe can properly get to the bottom of the Finck-VandenElsen case.

She had harsh words for Halifax police and their use of emergency response officers during the widely publicized standoff.

She was appalled by what she called "Gestapo" police tactics used in the middle of the night.

A police spokeswoman told The Chronicle Herald recently the department is conducting an internal review of how it handled the incident but that it feels officers acted appropriately.

CARLINE RESPONDS TO ARTICLE

2005-05-29T12:31:00.000-04:00

=== === === === === ===

"My baby was stolen and I want her back."

RESPONSE FROM CARLINE VANDENELSEN TO Michael Lightstone's (Staff Reporter at the Halifax Herald) article titled: "Child protection system comes under scrutiny" on May 22, 2005.

Either the media has misinformed the public, once again or Rollie Thompson has misinformed the media.And I'm not surprised that it would be both.

First things first. 700 child protection cases a year? Try 700 a month, and that would be an underestimate. Devonshire Family Court in Halifax- 4-5 days a week, 4-5 court rooms, 15 minute hearings, morning and afternoon sessions. The parking lot is full, the fancyest cars belonging to the lawyers. half are child welfare cases.

If only 30 cases involve children being taken into protective custody, as Mr. Thompson would so boldly suggest how is it then that foster care continues in crises, that the Department of Community Services and the Foster Care Agency for Canada advertises regularly, looking for anyone to warehouse children seized by the authorities? Local motels also take in children apprehended, unilaterally taken from their parents, many taken from their schools or daycare. And could there be any other reason why taxpayers are "buying into" state group homes for children, once again seized by child welfare agents?

Mr. Thompson suggests that there might be 14 situations in which a child requires protection. If this figure is accurate, then this makes the child welfare business all the more critical and disturbing as thousands of children are deemed "in need of protection”, with figures rising. And we would call ourselves a progressive society?

I'm not surprised Mr. Thompson would grab the opportunity to disseminate the actions of child welfare

Authorities as somewhat salutary to the common good. He is a lawyer, making efforts to gain credence to information fallaciously.

Propoganda For Profit

With a lawyer like Mr. Thompson and the wannabe's he teaches at Dalhousie, the more babes and children "in need of protection" the more money the lawyers make.

According to my research and studies, which were done in part at the same university where Mr. Thompson teaches/indoctrinates there are over twice as many child protection cases by the Children's Aid Society of Halifax and the Department of Community Services than there are in Toronto- frightening when you compare populations.

Mr. Thompson may be correct in that the "Halifax stand off" is so unique, however what he fails to state is that the activity by the [police and child welfare workers, breaking into the homes like sneaking thives in the night is not unusual. It is increasingly occurring throughout Canada and more particularly in the Atlantic provinces.

Look at the statistics-increasing infertility, decreasing birth rates but unconsenting and undisclosed adoption sales on the rise. The babes/children have to come from somewhere.

I'm surprised, but not really. that Mr. Thompson hasn't more fully explained how and why Canada has moved from the prevention of cruelty to animals to child welfare to "child protection" so that a child doesn't need to be abused, neglected or abandoned before the state will "move in". Today in our progressive society, a lawyer working on behalf of a state agency need only apply to a court to seize a newborn or child on the grounds that she is at possible risk of a future event- what that event is, no one knows. In fact a court order is not necessary to apprehend a child. The child can be taken and never to see it's parents again.

Mr. Thompson is almost quite right when suggesting, "legislation isn't what drives the system" that it's the "child welfare authorities" driving it. I would add/emphasize that it's the lawyers in the drivers seat-Profiteering on the backs of babes in a multi billion dollar family law system.

I would also suggest closeted facism from 50 years ago, private ownership overtaken by the state forging ahead with it's rendered version of "child welfare" as the underlying reason why today Canada's most precious resource- the child- is endangered.

There is a very good reason why the intellects are leaving Canada, why the population cannot be sustained without scrounging for immigrants.

Other implications are equally disturbing. Take Canada's law on same sex marriages. The waiting list for babes/children to be adopted/purchases has increased drastically. Imagine, come to Canada, get married, adopt/buy a baby. What a holiday!

No one is minding the kiddy store. It isn't surprising that Mr. Thompson says there hasn't been a demand for massive changes in child welfare laws in Nova Scotia. One third of the population doesn’t know what’s going on, a third knows but can't do anything about it, and the other third either knows but doesn't care or knows but isn't making a stink because they're too busy making rich. Ask Rolllie Thompson.

Ask Rollie Thompson how much a lawyer makes through these adoption sales, through the child protection process. He says the law stipulates that details of cases be kept confidential. In the protection of the child!! Fat chance!

It’s the systematic abuse, psychological and emotional rape, it's exploitation of children and families. Any decent parent or taxpayer would be outraged to know what state authorities and lawyers are doing to the Canadian family.

I didn't think I could cry anymore. I'm a good and loving mother who has lost four beautiful children to a corrupt family law business and I've heard countless testimonies and read hundreds of cases.but the story a fellow prisoner shared with me the other day sent me to my cell in tears.

She'd been walking down the street, pregnant. The cops pick her up, tell her there's a warrant for her arrest, take her to the hospital, where she's induced and children's aid are there to take her new born. Police release her and she never sees her baby again.

NO one is going to tell me it was just a coincidence. Sgt.Lindsy Hernden, Halifax cop dressed in SWAT fatigues- using a battering ram to break in my mother-in-laws door, the son of Ruth Hernden- CAS worker who participated in initial meetings relating to the apprehension of my baby,Mona Clare, Also the one who participated in the decision to move in for permanent custody.

Mona Clare never stood a chance.

And no one is going to tell me Debra Smith, who made the apprehension order to seize my baby was promoted to Associate Chief Justice because of her judicial integrity.

My baby was stolen and I want her back.

(signed May 23, 2005)

Carline Vandenelsen

RELATED NEWS: Children's Aid Watch

2005-05-28T02:19:00.001-04:00

Children's Aid Watch

This website has lots of material concerning some Children's Aid agencies in Canada and the damage they cause on families who could do without the "help" and "protection."

Helps to give some perspective to Carline and Larry's ordeals. It's not about these two persons, but about how the governement gets away with destroying families through a morbid need to be in control of the families who happen to come on their radar for whatever reasons...

JEFFREY: ...in case she falls into a coma...

2005-05-26T11:17:00.000-04:00

VandenElsen still not eating; living will puts Finck in charge
By Davene Jeffrey
The Halifax Herald Limited
Thursday, May 26, 2005

Carline VandenElsen, who's in Day 5 of a hunger strike, has prepared a living will in case she falls into a coma, supporters say.

Ms. VandenElsen, 42, and Larry Finck, 51, are in custody and will be sentenced next month on several convictions after holding police at bay for 67 hours during an armed standoff in Halifax just over a year ago.

The siege began after police went to the couple's home to enforce a child apprehension order.

Ms. VandenElsen has said she expects to die and has vowed not to eat until an inquiry is announced into her case.

In the meantime, she is drinking liquids and has prepared her will, says friend and supporter Marilyn Dey.

Ms. VandenElsen wants medical intervention used to keep her alive and has given her power of attorney to her husband, states an Internet site devoted to Ms. VandenElsen's hunger strike, which she calls Starving for the Children. Updates are posted at http://starvingforthechildren.blogspot.com.

Following jail policy, officials will not confirm whether Ms. VandenElsen is on a hunger strike. It is also policy to refuse media access to prisoners on hunger strikes, jail superintendent Sean Kelly has said.

Ms. VandenElsen's fast began Saturday, the anniversary of the day the standoff ended, the last day she saw her infant daughter and the day her mother-in-law, Mona Finck, died.

The family had barricaded themselves inside 6161 Shirley St. Mrs. Finck died of natural causes during the standoff.

Throughout the couple's many court hearings following the standoff, they had complained the system was out to get them.

In a letter written by Ms. VandenElsen from the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth, and released to this newspaper Wednesday, she continued to rail against authorities, including police, child-welfare officials and lawyers.

"It's the lawyers in the driver's seat, profiteering on the backs of babes in a multibillion-dollar family law system," Ms. VandenElsen wrote.

She and her husband have both referred to the child-welfare system as the buying and selling of babies.

"No one is minding the kiddy store," says the letter. "One-third of the population doesn't know what's going on, a third knows but can't do anything about it and the other third either knows but doesn't care or knows but isn't making (a stink) because they're too busy making (it) rich."

Ms. VandenElsen also recounts a tragic tale she claims was told to her by a fellow inmate who lost her baby to authorities.

"She'd been walking down the street, pregnant. The cops pick her up, tell her there's a warrant for her arrest, take her to the hospital, where she's induced and children's aid are there to take her newborn. Police release her and she never sees her baby again."

Her letter ends "My baby was stolen and I want her back" followed by her signature.

By DAVENE JEFFREY / Staff Reporter

ANDRE: Should the Media Have Asked Questions

2005-05-25T19:13:00.000-04:00

=======

Should the media have asked questions? Surely. But should not people now ask questions too?

Can the media help?

All media have ethics. Many have ethics that extend as far as their lawyers are able to keep them out of trouble, which means: they make their money being a billboard for tragedies and frivolity. And for too many yet, tragedies are but news. Now, most serious media also have moral ethics.

Many of those media fail at times to contain their excitement that there is a "story." If they smell a good lead that will help their reputation and the media sales, then the temptation (read: the practice) is very strong of bringing an "exploitable angle" to the public to create and maintain interest (read: the dynamics of the bottom-line).

Thankfully, some media believe in their medium so much, that they will go the extra mile to make sure that not only was the story “news” for them, but that they also covered it with integrity, looking at both sides of the issue. However, it is hoped that it's not just to cover their butt and be able to say: "Oh but we presented both sides of the issue..." when in fact they simple asked questions from both sides. Some really do not present the issues of either sides, but present both sides saying something about their issue, sound bytes statements that were then edited before publishing.

And it is then shared with their readers ansd viewers. And by keeping the story present and giving it visibility, they silently tell people that this particular story is worthy of their attention. Or so they might assume to some degree, otherwise they might not run it at all.

This can be one of the best services they render to the families and individuals who are involved in a tragedy, because it gives readers and the audience the responsibility to think for themselves and hopefully ask the obvious questions anyone would ask. This contributes to inform and helps us in the processing of that information against our values and social consensus.

Serving to preserve our dignity and integrity through the gathering of a momentum as our righteous sense of civic duty compels us daily to get involved in asking for truth to come out and justice to be served, the participation of the media is crucial in informing and inspiring the people, the strength of our democracy, to speak up and ask for accountability on the part of those who make and enforce the law.

When government officials act in a way that seems to be detrimental to the values we have agreed, as citizens and voters, to see protected and nurtured, then we have the right to ask questions, hard questions, annoying questions, redundant questions, until we are satisfied with the answers. And so does the media.

CONTINUED...

JEFFREY: Jailed mother prepared to die

2005-05-25T15:42:00.000-04:00

VandeNelsen launches hunger strike to protest loss of baby
by Davene Jeffrey
The Halifax Herald Limited
Saturday, May 21, 2005

Carline VandeNelsen says she's ready to die to change the system.

"I am launching a Starving for the Children campaign," she said in a news release Friday.

The 42-year-old was convicted earlier this month of abduction in contravention of a child custody order, obstruction and a series of weapons-related offences.

She is in custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth and awaiting sentencing late next month.

She and her husband, Larry Finck, 51, held police at bay for three days a year ago after they barricaded themselves inside Mr. Finck's mother's home at 6161 Shirley St. in Halifax.

The standoff ended when the couple emerged carrying the body of Mr. Finck's mother, Mona, on a stretcher. She had died of natural causes during the standoff.

Ms. VandeNelsen carried their baby strapped to her chest.

Today marks the first anniversary of the end of the armed siege, the day Mrs. Finck died and the day the couple lost custody of their baby.

Today is also the day Ms. VandeNelsen vows to stop eating.

"We're very concerned for her," says supporter Marilyn Dey.

Jail officials have refused media access to Ms. VandeNelsen for fear she will continue the hunger strike.

As of Friday afternoon, prison superintendent Sean Kelly had not received notice from his staff that Ms. VandeNelsen is refusing to eat.

Word of the intended hunger strike was announced through supporters.

A letter released on Ms. VandeNelsen's behalf says she will not eat "until Premier John Hamm and Justice Minister Michael Baker agree to investigate the actions of police and child welfare authorities and the disappearance of her baby."

Ms. VandeNelsen writes: "I do not anticipate my survival. However, I see (no) alternative."

Mr. Baker issued a news release late Friday afternoon saying that unless new information becomes available, he has no plans to order an inquiry into the Halifax standoff.

He said the government will do what it can to "make sure that Ms. VandeNelsen's health is not jeopardized by her actions."

If she stops eating, Mr. Kelly said, his correctional staff will do whatever they can to keep her healthy. The jail has dealt with other hunger strikes in the past, the superintendent said.

It is the jail's policy to call a hunger strike "decreased nutritional intake."

"We've had a number of different scenarios over the years," said the superintendent, who estimates that on average, one inmate per year launches a hunger strike.

Prisoners have devised varying food or liquid intake plans, but most have been short-lived, he said.

Some don't make it past the first skipped meal, he said.

None of the hunger strikers at the facility has ever gone to the point of being in physical danger, he said.

When a hunger strike is launched, prison staff monitor the inmate's health and offer nutritional supplements and counselling, Mr. Kelly said.

In Ms. VandeNelsen's release, she spells out her troubled past with children's aid organizations and family law courts in Ontario and Halifax.

In 2000 she fled with her triplets, then age seven, before a court appearance she feared would cut off access to her children, who now live in Ontario with their father.

Ms. VandeNelsen is scheduled to be in court in Ontario this fall to face a retrial for allegedly abducting those children and fleeing with them to Mexico.

More than a year ago, Ms. VandeNelsen left Halifax after a family court judge granted temporary custody of her newborn to the Halifax Children's Aid Society. When officials were notified that Ms. VandeNelsen had returned to the city with the baby, police went to Mrs. Finck's home to apprehend the infant, sparking the standoff.

The pair were convicted by a 12-member jury after almost 10 weeks of trial and two days of deliberations.

Ms. VandeNelsen and her husband were both convicted of abducting a baby in contravention of a child custody order, obstructing police, possessing an unregistered shotgun and possessing a shotgun dangerous to the public peace.

Ms. VandeNelsen was also convicted of using a shotgun while committing an indictable offence, threatening to use a shotgun in committing an assault on police and careless use of a shotgun.

By DAVENE JEFFREY / Staff Reporter

LASKEY: Public inquiry needed

2005-05-24T23:45:00.000-04:00

Siege of Shirley Street: Public inquiry needed
Heather Laskey
Saturday, May 14, 2005
The Halifax Herald Limited

(Original posting with pictures HERE)

Well now, let's get this story right about the Siege of Shirley Street. According to an RCMP officer's testimony reported in The Chronicle Herald early in the trial, this is what we are to understand took place in Halifax last May: It's after midnight when police go to the house with a child apprehension order on behalf of the Children's Aid Society. Inside is a man, his elderly mother, his wife and their five-month-old baby. Members of the RCMP emergency response team position themselves on roofs and inside neighbouring houses in this residential area. They are armed with semi-automatic machine guns. I repeat - semi-automatic machine guns.

The welcome mat isn't out, so they try to break down the front door of the house, by using a battering ram. Yes, a battering ram. Then there's a shotgun blast from inside the house. It whistles over the head of one of the police officers through the window of the opposite house.

You may recall what happened next. Shirley Street was cordoned off; neighbours were awakened, told to hide in their basements and not to leave their houses. The area was crawling with all kinds of police in all kind of get-ups, and all kinds of vehicles. It was as though they were trying to raise the level of public hysteria.

Or put on some kind of a show, or movie set - with the character parts being played by the man and woman. The "action" included the woman breast-feeding the baby on the porch roof, and the emergency response team propelling a robot towards the house loaded with baby diapers, milk and medicine for the man's ailing mother. Her doctor was not allowed to make a house call.

The public, many of whom knew the man who'd grown up locally, remained bemused. There was a general feeling, reflected in the letters column of this newspaper, that the attempt to remove the baby from its parents was simply wrong.

Sixty-seven hours into the drama, the couple emerge from the house. On a makeshift stretcher, they are carrying the body of the man's mother. She, not surprisingly, appears to have died of a heart attack. It is seen that there is a shotgun strung over the man's shoulder; the baby is in a carrier on the woman's breast.

According to the Mountie's testimony at the trial, as the couple carry the stretcher down the block, a dozen police officers converge on them "carrying drawn weapons." The policeman says that they forced them to the ground. "She had her arms wrapped around the baby with a tight grip. She would not release the baby." He said he therefore drove his thumb into the "fleshy area" of the woman's shoulder until she loosened her grip. As the police struggled with her, she cried, "Don't take my baby!"

In what the policeman describes as a "chaotic" struggle, another officer, who is wearing body armour, uses a knife (my italics) to cut the Snugli, with baby inside, from the woman's chest and he carries the baby away. (No description is given of the infant's vocal response.)

The policeman continued, "At this point, we're concerned that she hasn't been properly searched for weapons." She doesn't comply with a police demand to release her arms from beneath her body, so, the Mountie said, one officer "shocked" her twice with a Taser gun. "I've been Tasered," says the policeman, "and it's painful, but it lasts five seconds and it's over."

Here's a question: Had the police gone crazy? For what precise purpose did they intend to use semi-automatic machine guns? Who, for heaven's sake, OK'd the use of a knife to remove the baby from the mother?

There should never have been an armed confrontation. Reflecting on the mock-siege scene, with the trucks and the intelligence centre and multiples of police wearing masks and battle gear, two points were clear not only to me, but to everybody I heard talking about it.

The first was that the police response had nothing to do with the situation in hand - a Children's Aid demand for the baby to be handed over to them at birth (apparently because the woman had previously absconded with her triplets from a previous marriage). And yes, the couple clearly were odd-balls, but that was not an adequate justification.

The second point was that the whole performance - and indeed, it was a performance - obviously had another purpose. The most logical explanation I heard, and with which I concur, is this: The situation was being used as an exercise in the deployment of Emergency Response Teams in urban areas in the event of a real threat from terrorists or a gang of violent criminals. In fact, it was a hysterical melodrama in the worst possible taste.

And while we're at it, will the Children's Aid Society please tell us, the members of the public, what was their justification for demanding the removal of the baby from its mother from the moment it was born. It had better be good. Really good.

We need a public inquiry. And fast. Cost? Not a fraction of what that ill-conceived and dangerous circus cost us last year.

--------------------

Halifax author Heather Laskey has written extensively on the abuse of children in institutional care, including a ground-breaking book (Children of the Poor Clares: The Story of an Irish Orphanage) and articles and radio documentaries on Indian residential schools, and the child immigration movement.

LIGHTSTONE: ... under scrutiny

2005-05-24T23:44:00.000-04:00

Child protection system comes under scrutiny
May 22, 2005
Michael Lightstone/Staff Reporter
The Halifax Herald

Expert says laws up to date, despite criticism of cops' handling of standoff

(Original story with pictures: HERE)

A year ago, a three-day police standoff in Halifax involving a five-month-old girl, her parents, her grandmother and heavily armed officers thrust child-welfare issues in Nova Scotia into the spotlight.

During a controversial nighttime effort to enforce a court order authorized under provincial child-protection laws, police were rebuffed by the youngster's despairing parents.

An officer rammed the front door of 6161 Shirley St. about three times before a shotgun was fired at police from inside the house.

The 67-hour siege ended with the death of the baby's 79-year-old grandmother, Mona Finck, due to natural causes.

Larry Finck and his wife, Carline VandenElsen, were eventually charged and recently convicted in connection with the incident. They'll be sentenced in late June.

The couple's child, now 17 months old, is in foster care.

Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen are in custody awaiting their fate. Ms. VandenElsen began a hunger strike Saturday to protest her plight.

She said she sees no alternative.

"My husband and I are the first Canadian parents to be convicted of acting to protect our offspring," she said in a strongly worded release.

Critics of how police and child-welfare authorities handled the case have said the province's child-protection laws need to be changed to keep more families together.

Dalhousie University law professor Rollie Thompson, who helped with the task the last time the legislation had a major revision (1989-90), said Nova Scotia's statutes are in line with other jurisdictions in Canada.

"It was a significant modernization from the 1976 statute," he said.

Mr. Thompson said that compared to Ontario, which made major changes to its law that allowed authorities to take many children from their parents, Nova Scotia is doing well.

"The Ontario child-welfare system is clogged with children who've been taken into care or been placed into care after a court order," he said.

Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen had run afoul of the law before. He's done time for abducting a daughter from a previous relationship in Ontario in 1999; she has triplets from an earlier marriage who are in the care of her ex-husband in Ontario.

Ms. VandenElsen was originally acquitted of abducting the triplets, who are now about 12 years old, but she will be retried in Stratford, Ont., this fall.

That acrimonious custody battle has long played out in Ontario courts. "It is unlikely (the three children) can remember a time when their parents were not fighting over them," a court document says.

In Nova Scotia, aside from well-publicized criticisms of how Halifax Regional Police and child-welfare officials handled the standoff, there have been calls for an inquiry in the case.

Last summer, Ms. VandenElsen urged Canadians to demand a public probe - an investigation rejected by the provincial government - into the neighbourhood episode that made headlines across the country and prompted letters to the editor of this and other newspapers.

"Let us all ask ourselves what we would have done if we had been confronted with the same situation," a Halifax woman wrote this newspaper in July. "Just being awakened in the middle of the night is terrifying enough, without the purpose and the episode that followed."

The siege was also punctuated by unorthodox behaviour by Mr. Finck and Ms. VandenElsen. Police never fired a shot but used a robot to make deliveries to the house.

The couple's contempt for the child-protection and justice systems was front and centre in the form of a sign Mr. Finck placed outside a window. It said All to Hide the Criminal Abuse of Children by Lawyers.

Theresa Brien, a spokeswoman for regional police, said recently the department doesn't "have any reason to believe that we didn't follow proper procedure" during the standoff.

"However, we do conduct an operational review of . . . major incidents, and this would be included in that," she acknowledged.

Ms. Brien said the internal review is ongoing but she couldn't say when it would be finished.

She said operational reviews are done to examine police conduct and learn potential lessons from a particular incident.

Though some Shirley Street residents praised the actions of police, others who followed the event in news reports felt the department mishandled the situation.

"This confrontation surely underscores the need for a searching public debate to examine policies governing the creation and use of militarized police emergency response teams," a Kings County man said a year ago in a letter to this newspaper.

He said such public scrutiny would ensure deployment of emergency response teams "is consistent with fundamental principles of restraint and proportionality in the use of force."

At trial in Halifax, Ms. VandenElsen was described as a protective, loving mother. Court heard her lawyer at the time, Burnley (Rocky) Jones, stop short of saying her cause justified her means.

"It always boils down to the fact that she has this undying deep love and connection to her children, and because she has taken certain actions as a mother she is now facing these serious criminal charges," he said.

On May 12, Ms. VandenElsen and Mr. Finck were convicted of several charges by a Nova Scotia Supreme Court jury. The verdicts came after two days of deliberations following a nine-week trial marked by outbursts and accusations by the defendants.

Nova Scotia's child-welfare and family-services staff deal with about 14,000 families in the province, a government official said last May shortly after the Shirley Street standoff ended.

Of those, some 700 cases a year appear before the courts. About 30 cases involve a youngster being taken into protective custody, the province has said.

The Children and Family Services Act sets out 14 situations in which a child requires protection. But the law stipulates that details of individual cases are to be kept confidential which, critics have charged, makes it difficult to know if the system is working as it should, and who's to be held accountable if it isn't.

Asked about the Finck/VandenElsen case, a spokeswoman with the Community Services Department declined comment.

"This matter is actually still before the courts, on appeal, and because of that fact . . . we're not really able to provide any further information," Terri Green said recently.

Mr. Thompson didn't want to comment on the child-welfare system in the context of the Halifax standoff because, he said, it is so unique.

"It's like talking about a moon that comes through the solar system once every so many hundred years."

He said the case "tells us nothing at the moment. In terms of the broader system and the day-to-day parents that I've represented and other people represent, . . . it tells us nothing about that."

Speaking about provincial legislation, Mr. Thompson said child-protection laws are "a kind of a check" on resources and "the approach" of social workers in the field.

"Legislation isn't what drives the system," he said in an interview. "What drives the system is resources and the approach of child-welfare authorities - the resources they have available to them to do their job, and the general social-work culture and approach in child protection."

Mr. Thompson said in general, "there's not been a demand for massive changes in (child-welfare law) in Nova Scotia at this point."

What's important, he said, is "that on a day-to-day basis what matters is the . . . services available to parents. The statute is not that helpful in that subject."

On May 13, Mr. Finck served notice he wanted their convictions stayed, claiming he and his wife were entrapped by police, but Justice Robert Wright ruled against his motion.

Court documents filed three days later confirmed what many observers predicted would be the next chapter in the saga - the couple are appealing their convictions.

KIMBER: Best interests of ...?

2005-05-24T23:33:00.000-04:00

Best interests of the child or Children’s Aid?
By Stephen Kimber
Halifax Daily News,
February 27, 2005

What is in the best interest of a child? And what is in the best interest of the agency responsible for protecting that child?

Those were the first questions that jumped into my head last week when I learned that the Children’s Aid Society of Halifax now wants the courts to grant it permanent custody of the daughter of Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen.

The Society says it believes it must seek permanent care and custody of the child because — in the 12-and-a-half months since it won its first apprehension order for the then-infant in January 2004 — “the parents have become more enveloped in their own theories of conspiracy and system abuse, and have shown a continued and increasing inability and unwillingness to acknowledge mental health issues, parenting concerns and their own involvement in activities which place the child at risk.”

Whoah.

Rewind.

We need to remind ourselves of how we got to this point in the first place.

Start with Finck and VandenElsen. They do each have a history of conflict with child protection authorities, it is true, but neither has ever been convicted of abusing or neglecting their children.

In the heat of custody disputes with their former spouses, both took off with their kids. In 2000, Finck was convicted and served time in jail. That same year, VandenElsen ran off to Mexico with her triplets because she was afraid she was about to lose all access to them. An Ontario jury later acquitted VandenElsen of child abduction, agreeing with her argument that she believed losing contact with their mother would cause the children irreparable harm. But the Crown has since successfully appealed that verdict and VandenElsen is now awaiting a second trial on those charges.

In the fall of 2003, after VandenElsen became pregnant with their child, she and Finck returned to her new husband’s hometown of Halifax, and moved in with his mother.

The event that apparently triggered the wild legal and emotional rollercoaster that is still rolling over both of them was a phone call to Children’s Aid officials in Ontario on Dec. 18, 2003, informing them that Carline was in Halifax, had had a baby — she didn’t until a week later — and that it could be in danger.

The call came from Craig Merkley, VandenElsen’s ex-husband, the one with whom she’d had the bitter custody dispute. Hardly an unbiased observer.

Based — so far as we know now — on that self-interested call and on the Ontario CAS’s blatantly obvious conclusion that Carline had attempted to “have the children align with her throughout a lengthy custody and access dispute” — it relayed a “child protection alert” to Halifax Children’s Aid, which then sought an apprehension order to take the child from its parents.

Children’s Aid went ahead with its application even after interviewing a Halifax doctor who’d helped deliver the baby and had met with the family on three separate occasions before and after. She told them she had “no concerns” about their parenting at all.

Which hardly clarifies why Halifax police officers, carrying a machine gun and battering ram, showed up in the middle of one night last May to execute the CAS order.

While Finck’s and VandenElsen’s refusal to hand over their child in such circumstances — and the bizarre 67-hour standoff that followed — might explain the CAS’s reference in its permanent custody application to the couple’s “involvement in activities which place the child at risk,” it does not even begin to explain why Children’s Aid triggered the chain of events that put the child at risk in the first place.

The more you look under the rock of the CAS’s initial decision-making, in fact, the easier it is to understand why Finck and VandenElsen might become enveloped in “theories of conspiracy and system abuse.” Although those theories — Children’s Aid as an adoption factory for white babies, or in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry to over-medicate children in care for greater profits — might indeed be outlandish, and their blizzard of legal challenges and lawsuits against anyone and everyone even remotely involved in their case may be a time-consuming annoyance to the courts, the reality is that all of this started because of what appears to be the unjustified actions of the Children’s Aid Society.

Given that, you can begin to understand why Finck and VandenElsen might be reluctant to “acknowledge mental health issues [and] parenting concerns” when all they did to trigger this torrent of officialdom was have a baby.

Did Children’s Aid really take this baby because it thought she was in danger? Or as an act of bureaucratic vengeance because VandenElsen and Finck — who already believed the agency had treated them unfairly in the past and had made their feelings known loudly and often — rubbed its workers the wrong way?

And does CAS now want its original custody order made permanent to protect the child? Or itself?

Before any order is granted, we need answers to those questions.

Stephen Kimber

KIMBER: ...Mona Clare… again

2005-05-24T23:26:00.000-04:00

The taking of Mona Clare... again
By Stephen Kimber
Halifax Daily News,
September 26, 2004

I know, I know. I should move on. There is, after all, plenty of other stuff I could be writing about: wars, hurricanes, civic elections, American elections, panhandlers, health care deals, health care crises, the new fall television season, the no-new hockey season, the sponsorship scandal hearings, how those fine editors at CanWest managed to make “terrorists” out of “militants” and even ordinary “people” and blah blah blah…

So why do I keep coming back to the strange and twisted tale of Carline VandenElsen, Larry Finck, their daughter Mona Clare, the Halifax Regional Police and the Children’s Aid Society?

Because there is still much about this case that puzzles me, and because the more I learn the less convinced I am that Children’s Aid is acting — as it is supposed to do — in the “best interests” of this child.

Let’s review: At 1:30 a.m. on May 19, Halifax City Police stormed the Halifax house where the Fincks were living with their then five-month old daughter and Finck’s mother. The police demanded they surrender the baby to Children’s Aid, which had obtained a court order for her custody. That precipitated a 67-hour standoff that is now the focus of a dog’s breakfast of charges — and counter-charges — involving VandenElsen and Finck.

But did the police really need to go in with a battering ram and machine guns in the middle of the night to rescue the child?

No. Although VandenElsen did take the baby to visit her sister in Alberta around the time the initial court order was issued in mid-January, they returned to Halifax a month later and had been hiding in plain sight in her mother-in-law’s house for more than two months before police moved in.

In the weeks before the siege, in fact, VandenElsen went for walks in the neighbourhood without Larry. She carried Mona Clare in a Snugli. The police could easily have apprehended the baby in those circumstances without violence and certainly without the standoff that eventually transpired.

We know they could have done that because we now know police knew for some time VandenElsen and the baby were back in town, and were watching them.

In fact, earlier on the night the standoff began, police officers followed Finck and VandenElsen to the local Walmart where they did some shopping for the baby. Mona Clare was at home with her grandmother. Again, that created an obvious window of opportunity for police to seize the child without provoking an incident — if they so desired.

We do not know — and probably never will if we depend just on the criminal trials ahead — why the police acted as they did.

Just as we may never know — without a public inquiry — exactly why Children’s Aid sought the court order to take the child in the first place.

We know the first record in the chain that led to the custody order was a call to Children’s Aid in Stratford, ON, on Dec. 18 from Craig Merkely, VandenElsen’s ex-husband, wrongly informing them VandenElsen had already had her baby in Halifax.

To put his call in context, Merkley and VandenElsen had been involved in a lengthy, nasty custody battle over their triplets, during which — as is often the case in such matters — each side accused the other of poor parenting, even abuse. But there was never any evidence VandenElsen actually abused her kids.

The worst the Children’s Aid there could come up with when it issued its Canada-wide Child Protection Alert a day after talking with Merkley, in fact, was VandenElsen’s “attempts to have the children align with her throughout a lengthy custody and access dispute.”

Now there’s a surprise.

It is true, however, that VandenElsen did take off with the children in the fall of 2000 when she thought she would lose complete custody of them. As a result, she was charged with child abduction. But a jury acquitted her on the grounds of “necessity.” The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned that decision and has ordered a new trial, which is scheduled for this fall. Last October, another court there awarded permanent custody of the children to her ex-husband.

Two weeks after that, VandenElsen moved to Halifax with Larry Finck —who’d served two years for abducting his daughter in a custody dispute — whom she’d met and married during her legal odyssey. Their plan was to start over with their new child in a new city. On Dec. 23, VandenElsen gave birth to Mona Clare.

Were VandenElsen and Finck — whose main run-ins with the law involved highly charged custody disputes — such a danger to their newborn daughter she needed to be taken from them immediately?

Certainly not based on the family photographs VandenElsen included in an affidavit she filed with the Supreme Court in August. They show a smiling baby, playing with stuffed animals, cuddled in the arms of her father, being dressed by her mother and fed by her grandmother.

Photographs never tell the whole story, of course, but consider these reports from doctors who examined Mona Clare.

On Jan 8, 2004, the Children’s Aid Society approached Dr. Dawn Edgar, who’d assisted in Mona Clare’s birth and saw the family on three subsequent occasions, to ask if she had any concerns about “either parent, re: mental health.” According to Edgar’s own notes of the conversation, she told the CAS: “No, no concerns. Both parents appropriate with baby, caring, loving.”

A week later, the Children’s Aid her got an order to apprehend the baby.

Three months later, after Mona Clare was turned over to social workers following the siege, she was taken to the IWK Health Centre “for further observations and investigations for possible non-accidental injury.” According to the discharge report signed by Dr. D. Chowdhury, nursing notes indicated the baby was “doing well on the floor, active, playful and feeding well.” Chowdury’s own impression was that Mona Clare was “a well grown and well developed baby with no clinical signs of any illness.”

So why was Mona Clare taken from her parents?

We need a public inquiry into this case — and plenty of others I’ve been told about since I started writing about Mona Clare — to find out how Children’s Aid really operates and whether it acts in “the best interests” of children.

Stephen Kimber

KIMBER: The crime of being a pain

2005-05-24T23:23:00.000-04:00

The crime of being a pain
By Stephen Kimber
Halifax Daily News
September 19, 2004

So is Canada’s judicial system now punishing Carline VandenElsen for the high crime of being a legal pain in the ass?

Last week, an Ontario judge turned down VandenElsen’s request to delay until next March her upcoming retrial on charges that, during an ugly custody battle with her ex-husband in 2000, she grabbed her triplets and took off to Mexico.

On the face of it, her request hardly seems unreasonable, or unusual.

Anyone who has spent any time inside a Canadian courtroom will know just how much valuable court time is sucked up as lawyers and judges sweat over their Daytimers and Palm Pilots trying to find a date, any date, often months in the future, when they’ll finally all be in the same place at the same time — and there’ll be an unoccupied court room available for them to use — so they can attend to whatever are the pressing legal matters at hand.

One could argue that it takes way too long to get justice in Canada, but that is another issue and another column.

The simple fact is that delays are the way the system works.

And VandenElsen had good cause to ask for a delay.

Her case in Ontario is set of begin with a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday. But on Friday, VandenElsen was supposed to be here in Halifax in Family Court for the continuation of a hearing to review the status of a temporary custody order involving her baby daughter. That hearing was expected to last into this coming week (although the judge has since ruled, without VandenElsen present, that her baby will, in fact, remain in temporary foster care).

Even with custody off the table, VandenElsen still has plenty of other legal matters on her plate to keep her fully occupied in Halifax. For starters, of course, she and her husband must prepare their defence against a blizzard of criminal charges — and legal counter-claims — relating to a three-day standoff in late May when police arrived at their home in the middle of the night with a battering ram and machine guns to enforce a court order taking their baby away from them.

That case is supposed to go to trial in January.

The charges are serious, and VandenElsen doesn’t have a lawyer. Rocky Jones, who represented her at her preliminary hearing this summer, withdrew from the case because he said provincial Legal Aid doesn’t pay lawyers enough to handle complex criminal matters.

Before her life became an escalating series of legal battles with the established order, it’s worth noting that VandenElsen was a middle-class mother of three, a teacher, a homeowner, someone “who could afford a glass of wine when I wanted one.”

Today she is living rent-free in her late mother-in-law’s home on Shirley Street, barely surviving on the $175 a month she gets from welfare and the supplementary support of friends. She can’t afford a lawyer, can’t even afford a phone, and she gets around — mostly from court house to court house — on a borrowed bicycle.
So how is she supposed to be able to afford to fly back and forth to Ontario for her upcoming retrial and legal hearings in Halifax? (She managed to make last week’s court date in Ontario only because her sister bought the ticket.)

Judge Bonne Wein didn’t answer that when she ordered VandenElsen to be back in court in Stratford this week.

Just as she didn’t explain exactly what it was about this particular case that made it so pressing it had to go forward immediately.

VandenElsen has already been tried once. She was acquitted when a jury bought her argument she was not guilty by reason of necessity, forced to abduct her own children to prevent the courts from denying her permanent access to them. The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned the jury’s verdict, ruling the judge had made a mistake in letting her make the necessity argument in the first place, and ordered a new trial.

So VandenElsen must faces those charges again, but there is no urgency about the matter. Since her original trial, another court awarded permanent custody of the children to her ex-husband. She hasn’t seen them since Sept. 2003.

Even the Crown, in a June letter, said it believed the more serious “Nova Scotia matters should be concluded” before her retrial.

So why the urgency?

Could it be that VandenElsen ruffles too many legal feathers? Last week, she angrily called a Nova Scotia Children’s Aid Society lawyer a bitch and loudly informed the judge in her Ontario hearing she wouldn’t be back for the court-ordered jury selection.

Over the past decade, it’s fair to say VandenElsen has become so embittered by her experiences with Canada’s legal system she fails to show the due deference our courts believe they’re entitled to.

But since when has it been a crime to be a pain in the ass.

Stephen Kimber

KIMBER: Unanswered questions

2005-05-24T22:49:00.000-04:00

Unanswered questions from the Shirley Street Standoff
by Stephen Kimber
Halifax Daily News
Aug 15, 2004

What to make of the latest bizarre twists and turns in the tempestuous, tortured and terrible — not to forget, in these news-less dogs days of summer, terribly titillating — saga of Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen?

Last Tuesday, the Halifax couple at the centre of May’s infamous 67-hour Shirley Street Standoff were finally committed to stand trial in connection with the incident. They are each charged with breaching a court order for refusing to hand over their infant daughter to the Children’s Aid Society, forcibly confining their baby to keep her out of the hands of CAS workers and, finally, obstructing well-weaponed police officers — they showed up at Finck’s family home in the middle of the night packing a machine gun and battering ram in their arsenal — attempting to enforce that order.

Finck is also charged with six different weapons offences in connection with a gun shot allegedly fired from inside the house at the beginning of the standoff, even though — as became clear during the preliminary hearing — the Crown no longer believes he fired the gun.

And so it goes.

When they first appeared in court after their arrest, VandenElsen and Finck demanded an immediate preliminary hearing in order to get the facts of their case out quickly (not to mention asking for safe haven in Iraq).

But then last week, in the middle of that very hearing, they suddenly volunteered to waive their right to the preliminary and move directly to trial. Given that preliminary hearings are mainly intended to provide the defence with the outlines of the Crown’s case so the defendants can prepare for the trial, giving up on the hearing before it had concluded seemed… well, unusual.

Even more unusual, however, the Crown opposed the request. In part, that’s because Crown attorney Rick Woodburn wanted to present evidence to convince the judge there were grounds for charging VandenElsen instead of Finck as the trigger-person in the alleged shooting.

But Judge Castor Williams ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to support those charges, meaning the Crown is still prosecuting Larry Finck for firing the shot they no longer believe he fired.

Uh, OK…

In the midst of all this, we learned from the papers that Finck’s mother — who died of natural causes inside the barricaded house during the incident and whose body was then carried out by the couple on a stretcher when they ended the siege — had bequeathed Finck a grand total of just five dollars out of an estate worth three-quarters of a million dollars.

Tee-hee…

It is easy — too easy — to get caught up in the weirdness of all of this and lose sight of the important issues at the heart of this case.

Should Children’s Aid have been given a court order to take custody of Finck and VandenElsen’s infant daughter in the first place? Did Halifax Regional Police’s handling of the initial stages of this incident help provoke the confrontation that led to the standoff.

Both VandenElsen and Finck have a “history;” each has faced charges of abducting their children from previous relationships during custody battles. But there has never been any indication in anything I’ve heard or seen to suggest either of them was ever an abusive, or negligent, or otherwise unfit parent.

So why would Children’s Aid want to take their new baby away from them? Hiding behind its usual “protection of privacy” shield, the Society has had little to say about the circumstances that led them to seek the order but we have learned, as a result of the court proceedings, that it followed a call from VandenElsen’s ex-spouse, the one with whom she had the custody battle. Hardly a disinterested party.

And the police? While the force deserves credit for its patience and restraint during the standoff, it has now become apparent that the initial police actions — arriving in the middle of the night, heavily armed, and using a battering ram to try and gain entry to the house — may have been at least as responsible as VandenElsen and Finck for the way events so quickly spiralled out of control.

Carline VandenElsen is absolutely right. We do need a public inquiry into the way Children’s Aid and the Halifax police dealt with this case from the beginning. Because we won’t find the answers to the most important questions from the court cases.

Stephen Kimber

KIMBER: Shirley Street Stand-Off

2005-05-24T22:47:00.000-04:00

By Stephen Kimber
Halifax Daily News,
May 30, 2004

The recent 67-hour standoff between Halifax Regional Police and a couple who refused to hand their infant daughter over to the custody of the Children’s Aid Society showcased the former at its professional, level-headed best but has raised troubling questions about the role of the latter in controversial child protection cases.

Start with the police.

The police had little choice but to enforce a Jan. 15 apprehension order for Mona Clare VandenElsen, the then three-week-old daughter of Lawrence Finck and Carline VandenElsen. But when officers went to the family home in late January to get the child, VandenElsen had already disappeared with her daughter.

Police learned earlier this month that the mother and child had returned to Halifax, so officers were dispatched to the house again at midnight on Wed., May 19. Though one can certainly question the wisdom of trying to serve such an order in the middle of the night, the police were legitimately concerned — based on their own experience in January as well as the couple’s track record in violating custody orders in previous relationships — that one of them might take off with the little girl again.
This time, however, the people inside the Shirley Street house refused the officers entry, barricaded the door and, at one point, when police tried to enter a second time, allegedly fired shots out the window.

That was the beginning of a tense two-and-a-half days of SWAT teams, neighbourhood evacuations and ongoing, seemingly never-ending negotiations. Punctuated at one point by a police robot improbably delivering diapers to the house and at another by the couple’s impromptu appearance on the home’s roof to denounce Children’s Aid and breastfeed the baby. But as Halifax Police Const. Kevin McLellan put it to reporters at one point during the siege: “As long as we’re talking… we are moving forward.”

The police were smart enough to recognize that this was not a situation that required the recklessness of Rambo so much as the patience of Job. On Friday night, their staying power was rewarded when the standoff ended two days and 15 hours after it began — bizarrely but without additional violence. (While Finck’s elderly mother, who was inside the home during the standoff, did die during the siege, officials say it was of natural causes.) We owe the police a debt of gratitude for the way they handled what could easily have turned into a horrible tragedy.

But, that said, what are we to make of the Children’s Aid Society’s decision to seek custody of the child in the first place?

The Society isn’t commenting on the specifics of the case so we’re left with more questions than answers, the most important of which is this: was this apprehension order really necessary?

There’s no question both Finck and VandenElsen have track records of violating court orders in child custody disputes.In 2000, Finck was convicted of abducting his four-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, and spent time in jail. That same year, VandenElsen fled to Mexico with the triplets from her first marriage because she was afraid she was about to lose all access to them. An Ontario court had already awarded custody of the children to her ex-husband and a decision on her own future access was pending. A jury later acquitted her on the abduction charges, accepting the defence argument that VandenElsen feared the children would be irreparably harmed if they lost all contact with their mother. That decision has since been overturned and a new trial ordered.

Reading between the lines of the clippings concerning those cases, neither Finck nor VandenElsen seem easy to like. “Ms VandenElsen” wrote one judge, “has chosen to perpetuate her fixation with her own victimization.” The judge in Finck’s case said he was “volatile and unpredictable… [and] has taken on the mantle of the obsessed and seems to have forsaken reason.”The one thing I didn’t find in any of those news stories, however, was any suggestion that either parent had deliberately harmed any of their children (except, of course, insofar as the custody battle itself represented a kind of harm to them.)

Parents involved in bitter child custody battles often feel like victims, often become obsessed and, occasionally, even do stupid things they believe to be in their children’s best interests..VandenElsen and Finck have certainly both done what appear to be irrational, perhaps even illegal things in what may have been misguided attempts to right what they see as wrongs being done to their children. The courts have, or are, dealing with those cases.

But does that mean VandenElsen and Finck represented such an imminent danger to Mona Claire that Children’s Aid had no choice but to swoop in and take their child from them?“When any court formally terminates a parent-child relationship, that is an event that is inevitably sad,” Mr. Justice Grant Campbell wrote last year in denying VandenElsen custody of her three older children. “A court must take such a drastic step in only the most extreme of cases.”

Was this really one of those cases?

Or, in this case, is Finck and VandenElsen’s “perceived victimization” more real than perceived?

Stephen Kimber

:: "News Room Watch" ::

2005-05-22T20:02:00.000-04:00

This site is called "News Room Watch" because it will present media clippings addressing situations having to do with problems regarding child and family services in Canada, and accountability of institutions.

It is done with public interest in mind, as we are aware of many families asking questions and requesting transparence in the methods used to insure proper and efficient protection to children and families in Canada through the present official regulations.

Email your findings at: andrelef1@hotmail.com

Andre Lefebvre