MCFD OPINION ABOUT ABORIGINAL ADOPTION? MERE WORDS, WRITTEN BUT IGNORED

I am going to tell you how MCFD disregards its own policies to the injury of a three-year-old child. I will inform you that MCFD has successfully exempted itself from following the law.

Right here on the B.C. government's own website is the page that speaks about adoption of aboriginal children. The lead paragraph states, "Aboriginal children in care need homes with Aboriginal families whenever possible – to help them stay connected with their extended family and community."

That social interest feature is precisely what took place three years ago when LM and RB were asked to take SS into their home when she was a newly born three day old baby girl of Métis biological parentage. LM is Métis and she and RB, her husband, are members of the BC Métis Federation. 

Then the B.C. Website speaks about an Aboriginal Custom Adoption with these value features, such as custom adoption "makes it possible for Aboriginal families, organizations and communities to use a culturally appropriate way of planning for Aboriginal children." Not only that, but the government explanation also states such a Custom Adoption "respects the customs and traditions of the First Nations and/or Aboriginal community of the child," and "ensures Aboriginal children maintain their cultural, linguistic and spiritual identity." Of course, and that too is precisely what LM and RB did when SS's biological parents asked them to be the child's adoptive parents (Custom adoption). Done.

To persons who are now deemed adoptive parents by virtue of the Custom Aboriginal Adoption provision, the government advises them to get a lawyer to help them with an application to have their Custom adoption recognized by the Supreme Court. Taking that advice LM and RB made application for a formally recognized adoption. All is well one would think. The government should be pleased with the progress of this case that is clearly in the best interest of the child.  Not so.  Because the government had a different plan for SS.

MCFD social workers, several months into the fostering program expressed a plan to adopt the child out of province to a non-Métis, non-aboriginal couple in Ontario. Well, guess what! That is not supposed to happen. But it did. It happened to SS's two older sisters years earlier in Ontario.  The Ontario Children's Aid Society placed the two Métis girls in a non- Métis home. The birth parents eventually moved to B.C. where SS was born three years ago.  The Children's Aid in Ontario and the MCFD of BC struck an arrangement, colluded, to have the little girl known as SS join the two sisters in Ontario.  It is unlawful to send an aboriginal child outside the province of B.C. Has anyone spoken publicly about that? Have any news sources picked up on that? Well certainly the BC Métis Federation spoke against this injustice. Yet what about the other Métis organizations and agencies including the Métis Commission for Children and Families of BC, the Island Métis Children and Family Services Society and the Métis Nation British Columbia? What did each of these three do? They supported the MCFD plan. Why? There is a story there. Can you smell it? I will get to that in a day or two. And why don't judges flag injustice that is as flagrant as this?

BY ALL MEANS look up the little girl's Facebook page ‘Bring Home Baby S’, and the two websites that tell her story, bringsshome.ca or bringsshome.com.