Ontario’s most vulnerable children need a watchdog
TheStar.com – opinion/editorial – Ontario NDP calls again for oversight of children’s aid societies by the provincial ombudsman.
Mar 31 2013
Roughly 25,000 children in Ontario are cared for by children’s aid societies. Most are poor. Many are scarred by domestic violence, neglect, substance abuse, family strife or the death of their parents.
For the most part, Ontario’s 53 children’s aid societies (CAS) do a good job as substitute guardians. But every year brings cases of horrific abuse in foster homes, group homes or relatives’ homes in which children were placed.
These tragedies have prompted regular calls for better oversight of Ontario’s independent — but publicly financed — children’s aid societies. But governments, dating back 40 years, have resisted pressure to appoint a watchdog or allow Ontario’s ombudsman to investigate these agencies.
The NDP has just renewed the call. Monique Taylor, the party’s children and youth services critic, has just tabled a private member’s bill that would put CAS under the auspices of the ombudsman. She introduced the same bill last June. But it died on the order paper when the legislature was prorogued in October.
This time, the Hamilton MPP is determined to succeed. She has the backing of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who brought forward a similar bill four years ago. But she can’t count on the support of either the Liberals or the Conservatives. Although they allowed her previous bill to go to an all-party committee for detailed examination, they stopped short of endorsing it.
She can also expect opposition from the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, which has argued in the past that no further supervision is needed because its members are already monitored by the ministry of children and youth services; the Child and Family Services Review Board; the provincial advocate for children; the auditor general and the coroner’s office.
The trouble is that none of theses agencies exercises systematic oversight. None has a responsibility to intervene before a risk turns into a crisis. None has a mandate to open up Ontario’s secretive child welfare system.
André Marin, the current ombudsman, is eager to add children’s aid societies — as well as municipalities, school boards, hospitals and long-term care facilities — to the long list of government agencies he oversees. The outspoken 48-year-old lawyer may not be the best candidate, given his workload and his penchant for spotlight-seeking. But he is an energetic abuse-hunter. And no one else is volunteering.
Ontario has an environment commissioner to guard the ecosystem, an auditor general to watch over taxpayers’ dollars, a privacy commissioner to keep citizens’ personal information safe, and an integrity commissioner to ensure public employees behave ethically.
Surely the province’s most vulnerable children deserve as much protection.
< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/03/31/ontarios_most_vulnerable_children_need_a_watchdog_editorial.html >
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