WHISTLEBLOWERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

We need whistle blowers. Whistleblowers make a difference - a large difference. Stats show that defendants get nailed when whistleblowers are involved in the case. I am not even hinting at nailing people but reliving them of their jobs. It’s too late to train them.

Advocates and critics and wounded children and adults can go public with their complaints, and news media can give their grievances higher profile, but the legislated immunity worn by the B.C. Ministry of Children and Families will continue to enable moral mistakes in case management because of systemic defects that remain untreated. In other words we are vulnerable and powerless. Habitually in B.C. courts of law, impartiality evaporates as well-funded MCFD lawyers subdue plaintiffs' lawyers inexperienced in family law. Exaggerating the discrimination is the perception that judges predictably concur with MCFD.

Granted that casual readers of Ministry news never have open files to peruse, yet there have been many cases in which ordinary citizens can recognize injustice and can recommend a course of action that would better serve a child and the parents and a culture. The case of three-year-old SS is one of these.

Is there an MCFD employee who knows when the decision was made to move the girl? Can a whistleblower enlighten us as to why this child was left for three years in a foster home before this move was made? Can someone reveal whether Stephanie Cadieux approved this move? Does Minister Stephanie Cadieux relinquish a controversial decision like this to a Director? Is there a whistleblower who can tell us why three out of four Métis service agencies in B.C. approved the government plan to send SS to Ontario? Can someone explain if there were interactions between the non-Métis parents in Ontario and the MCFD of B.C.? Will there be someone to explain the internal discussions about adopting the child to Ontario and changing that to fostering because the former violated the law? Does someone know and will that someone tell us why MCFD so adamantly refused to allow the upstanding foster family to adopt SS?

This kind of case will occur again and again, met with some public interest and even indignation, then will blow over. To recall evenhandedness, objectivity and justice to each and every case and specially to cases involving indigenous people, more noise is needed. We need the kind of noise that comes from inside the MCFD. One person or a few people within the Ministry, who acknowledge botched case handling and wrongheaded decisions and attribute cause and liability. We need courageous people whose personal integrity cannot suppress the information, but who come forward, knowing the risk to their employment and privacy feel obliged to reveal the problems, propose remedy.

If you will consider helping LM and RB as they go forward, look at these links,

Facebook page ‘Bring Home Baby S’, and the two websites that tell her story, bringsshome.ca or bringsshome.com.