PUBLISHER'S NOTE: News of the newsroom shooting at the Capital Gazette sent shivers down my spine. (Especially after spending years in the newsroom of The Toronto Star - Canada's largest daily Newspaper); My condolences go to the families of the deceased; My prayers go to the injured. May they survive this horror. My condolences - and wishes for strength - also go to everyone at the Capital Gazette who work together to get the news out. My admiration goes to the extraordinary reporters and other staff of this tiny community newspaper who managed to get the news out during the height of the crises - and to publish a special issue from the floor of a parking garage within hours. An extraordinary display of journalistic integrity and courage - and a reminder of why we must value and support - those who report the news for the rest of us.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Although the girl, who is now 11,
wished both to be adopted and to continue to see her parents, the
prospective adoptive mother said she would not proceed if access was
allowed. Based partly on the parents’ Indigenous heritage, which
Campbell said should have triggered special considerations, he granted
access but stayed its enforcement so there could be a hearing to decide
whether contact with the parents was in the child’s best interest. In
December 2017, the Court of Appeal overturned Campbell’s decision, in
part because of the adoptive mother’s wishes. Justice Mary Lou Benotto,
who wrote
the decision, also said the child’s Indigenous heritage was based “on nothing but the parents’ self-identification.” “There
is no evidence that the parents had any connection to their culture;
that the child was ever exposed to the Indigenous culture; or that
anyone from the Indigenous community had ever been involved with the
parents or the child,” she wrote. The parents asserted that the
Supreme Court should hear their case, in part, because the Court of
Appeal “erred in its consideration of the children’s Indigenous
heritage.” Considering the chronic overrepresentation of Indigenous
children in care, the case presented Canada’s highest court with an
opportunity to explore an issue of “critical public importance,” the
parents said in their written arguments."
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STORY: "Supreme Court won’t hear Motherisk case," by Investigative Reporter Rachel Mendleson, published by The Toronto Star on June 28, 2018.
GIST: "The
Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed their application to appeal a
decision that denied the "It’s the end of the road for the parents in a hotly contested Motherisk case. The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed their application to appeal a
decision that denied them access to their daughter, who was apprehended
by the Waterloo children’s aid society after a Motherisk lab test
purported to show her mother was using cocaine. The mother denied the finding by the now discredited lab but was unable to disprove it. The
emotional court battle that
followed underscored weaknesses in the child welfare system and how it
treats Indigenous families, as well as the long-standing reliance on
Motherisk’s flawed hair drug and alcohol tests in high-stakes cases in
ways that often can’t be undone. The parents, who are identified
by their initials to protect the identity of their daughter, were
devastated by the news on Thursday. They had hoped for one last legal
chance to win the right to see their daughter again. “I
don’t know how I’m going to go on. I just don’t know how this can be,”
said the mother, C.T. “I worked damned hard, and I just feel like it was
all for nothing, to try and give my daughter a better life ... It’s
like a fresh wound every day. It’s never going to go away. I just want
my little bean sprout.” Said
the father, J.B.: “The system failed us. I just know she won’t be young
forever and there will come a day where she will come looking ...
Bottom line, you just hope (she) turns out OK.” Before the Motherisk lab was closed in the spring of 2015 following a
Star investigation,
child welfare providers across Canada spent millions on the hair tests,
believing the results were hard proof of parental substance abuse. In
some instances, children were removed permanently from their families. Despite
assurances
from the Hospital for Sick Children, which housed the lab, that
Motherisk’s evidence could be trusted, a government-commissioned review
determined in late 2015 that the testing was “inadequate and unreliable”
for use in court and recommended a review of individual cases. Motherisk
Commissioner Judith Beaman concluded her review in February of nearly
1,300 affected child protection files in Ontario. In
her report,
Beaman described the widespread use of Motherisk’s testing in these
cases as being “manifestly unfair and harmful.” She found the testing
was “imposed on people who were among the poorest and the most
vulnerable members of our society,” including a disproportionate number
of Indigenous families. In
this case, the girl was made a Crown ward in 2015, without access to
her parents, following a trial that unfolded just as the concerns about
Motherisk surfaced. The trial judge said that she had disregarded the
positive cocaine hair tests and cited other factors, including concerns
about the mother’s mental health. That view was shared by the
Motherisk Commission, which examined the case and concluded in the
spring of 2016 that Motherisk testing did not play a key role in the
outcome. The mother applied for a judicial review of the commission’s
decision, claiming she had been shut out of the process, but a
divisional court dismissed the application. The parents appealed
the trial judge’s 2015 decision and, in February 2017, a Superior Court
judge overturned the “no access” order. Justice Grant A. Campbell found
the Motherisk tests led to the apprehension of the girl in 2012, which
he said was “based entirely on that now totally discredited drug testing
conducted by Motherisk.” Although the girl, who is now 11,
wished both to be adopted and to continue to see her parents, the
prospective adoptive mother said she would not proceed if access was
allowed. Based partly on the parents’ Indigenous heritage, which
Campbell said should have triggered special considerations, he granted
access but stayed its enforcement so there could be a hearing to decide
whether contact with the parents was in the child’s best interest. In
December 2017, the Court of Appeal overturned Campbell’s decision, in
part because of the adoptive mother’s wishes. Justice Mary Lou Benotto,
who wrote
the decision, also said the child’s Indigenous heritage was based “on nothing but the parents’ self-identification.” “There
is no evidence that the parents had any connection to their culture;
that the child was ever exposed to the Indigenous culture; or that
anyone from the Indigenous community had ever been involved with the
parents or the child,” she wrote. The parents asserted that the
Supreme Court should hear their case, in part, because the Court of
Appeal “erred in its consideration of the children’s Indigenous
heritage.” Considering the chronic overrepresentation of Indigenous
children in care, the case presented Canada’s highest court with an
opportunity to explore an issue of “critical public importance,” the
parents said in their written arguments."
