So? They were investigated become someone filed a complaint about small children alone, and the investigator found that the parent was home supervising the children and there was no problem. The rest of the article is FUD about CFS's refusal to expunge case files.
That's a 'near-miss'. Something that shouldn't happen does happen, and you come closer to disaster than you were ever comfortable with. At that point, all it would take is a grouchy case worker to throw their entire family into disarray for months or years.
Two years ago, an Ontario foster family had their children taken away solely for refusing to lie about the existence of the Easter Bunny[1]. The parents were planning on celebrating the holiday with the children, but when the Children's Aid Society of Hamilton discovered the parents were unwilling to lie if asked, they had the children immediately removed from the home. The caseworkers treated learning the truth about the Easter Bunny as if it were a serious immediate danger to the safety of the children. If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is.
The foster parents won a lawsuit over the matter in March of this year, but it's kind of too late to make things right. The lives of both the children and the parents have been permanently changed by the bad decisions by case workers.
If I was that Manitoba parent, I'd be angry and scared too. Nothing happened this time, but if she continues letting her kids play in the backyard, she's rolling the dice again. All that needs to happen is for her same neighbour to make another complaint, and to get an unreasonable caseworker. Superficially, it might even seem reasonable, "children removed from home of woman after repeated complaints of neglect" is not a headline that sounds concerning.
> Two years ago, an Ontario foster family had their children taken away solely for refusing to lie about the existence of the Easter Bunny.
And people all over the world read about the case and started to worry that something similar might happen to them, even though it was one single case on another continent (from where I am) two years ago. Maybe we should treat it as the freak incident it was.
The complexity of the case is overlooked in the summary. At issue there was the extent to which foster parents are obligated to support the cultural and religous practices of the legal/biological parents who the children are intended to be reunited with. As with all common law in history, at the borders between clearly right and clearly wrong is a fuzzy area that is addressed messily over time, since it's impossible to know the correct answer for every case in advance.
The problem here was an overzealous case worker -- which is a real issue that needs to be addressed, as you say. And it was addressed by the final ruling, sending a message to future case workers -- not an incorrect law about parenting responsibilities. Making a judgment about the merits of an investigation before the investigation means that you need to decide to not investigate anything.
How often do case workers inappropriately cancel a foster-care arrangement, vs how often to foster parents actually harm foster children?
