A trial that began April 8, 2013 – seven months after appointment of Minister of Children and Family Development Stephanie Cadieux – concluded this week when Justice Paul Walker released lengthy Reasons for Judgment. The findings relate a thoroughly dysfunctional ministry but, rather than commenting directly, I’ll let the judge’s final words speak for themselves.
XXII. CONCLUSION
[1071] The Province is liable for misfeasance, breach of the standard of care, and breach of fiduciary duty on the part of the Director and her agents.
[1072] The misfeasance of [ministry supervisor] Mr.Strickland set in motion a series of events, including the Apprehension, which caused various social workers and Ministry employees involved in the file to view [mother] J.P. as manipulative and malicious. The Director failed to assess and investigate reports of sexual abuse as required by the CFCSA and the standard of care. The Director had no reasonable basis to apprehend the children. The Apprehension was wrongful.
[1073] The Director unreasonably and with a closed mind rejected at the outset the veracity of the sexual abuse allegations and took the view they were fabricated by J.P. before the VPD completed its investigation and before the children were interviewed. The Director did not consider whether the children were at risk of harm as a result of the children’s sexual abuse disclosures and other evidence. The Director concluded that the children needed protection from J.P. and not [father] B.G. without conducting any assessment and investigation of her own.
[1074] As J.P. continued to complain about the sexual abuse of her children and to protest the Director’s conduct, social workers’ antipathy towards her increased, and as it did, the Director’s focus turned away from the best interests of the children to J.P. As early as February 2010, the Director encouraged B.G. to apply for custody in order to return the children to him, regardless of information adverse to B.G. and even though she acknowledged the possibility that B.G. had sexually abused his children. In that latter respect, the Director acted in breach of her fiduciary duty to the children while they were in her care.
[1075] The children remained in foster care while the Director provided her ongoing support of B.G., until March 29, 2012 (when the Director withdrew her protection concerns about J.P.). The children could not be immediately returned to their mother’s care because of the need for appropriate reintegration having been kept in foster care for so long.
[1076] The Director rebuffed J.P.’s efforts to ameliorate the Director’s protection concerns and always, and unreasonably, assumed the worst of J.P.’s motives and conduct. In addition to Mr. Strickland’s misfeasance, for which the Director is responsible, social workers, for whom the Director is also responsible, engaged in a wholesale disregard of their statutory mandate and the requisite standard of care expected of them to protect the children from harm.
[1077] Social workers who became involved in the case for the Director sought to further the plan to support B.G. in a manner that overlooked the children’s best interests. The Director’s antipathy towards J.P. diverted her attention from the children’s needs for medical intervention in spite of [psychologist] Mr. Colby’s opinion evidence and reports of the children’s highly disturbing sexualized and aggressive behaviours provided by supervised access workers. That antipathy, coupled with the plan to support B.G., led social workers to rebuff J.P. personally as well as the information she tried to provide in support of her case and to provide services for the children. Based on the evidence available to the Director by mid to late December 2009, it should have been apparent to the Director that the risk of harm to the children from B.G. was very high.
[1078] The Director was put on notice that B.G. had sexually abused the children and would do it again, and she cannot say now that she did not know it was possible or could occur while he was given unsupervised access to his children.
[1079] The Director’s decision to provide B.G. with unsupervised access led to P.G. being sexually abused by her father. Her decision also placed the children in close, regular, and unsupervised proximity with the person who had abused them
[1080] In the course of pursuing custody of the children in favour of B.G., the Director decided that she did not have to abide by orders and directions of this Court about B.G.’s supervised access to the children. No credence can be given to the Director’s current advice to this Court, communicated through counsel, that she will abide by orders of this Court. Her advice is inconsistent with the position she recently took before another judge of this Court.
[1081] The Director provided false and misleading information (in the Form “A”) to the Provincial Court to support the Apprehension and failed to correct or amend even though its social workers (depending on whom and at what point in time), knew or ought to have known it contained false and misleading information. She also relied on the Form “A” and other incorrect affidavit evidence when supporting B.G.’s custody application in this Court, when pursuing her application for an extension of the temporary custody order in the First Trial, and seeking the restraining order against J.P. in the Provincial Court. The Director improperly interfered with Mr. Colby’s investigation because she did not agree with an order made by this Court.
[1082] The Director delayed in delivering documents requested by another branch of government in order to process the plaintiffs’ claims for compensation. Her conduct was either deliberate or the result of gross neglect but in either case the conduct was callously indifferent to the children’s needs.
[1083] In all, I found that the Ministry employees who gave evidence, who were involved with the plaintiffs, lost sight of their duties, professionalism, and their objectivity.
[1084] Even today, many of the social workers involved in the case doggedly stick to their adverse view of J.P., despite the Director’s decision to withdraw her protection concerns, the lack of any expert opinion evidence that J.P. suffers from a mental illness and the findings from the First Trial that the children were sexually and physically abused by their father. Many Ministry employees are unable to comprehend, let alone accept, any reason for the Director to have reversed her position, as she did, during the First Trial.
[1085] Some Ministry witnesses were openly hostile towards J.P. when giving their testimony. Many of them refuse to accept the findings of fact made during the First Trial despite the claim made by some of them that what they wanted all along was to have an independent third party examine all of the evidence and determine if sexual abuse had occurred.
[1086] Immunity afforded by the CFCSA to good faith discretionary decisions is not afforded to the Director and social workers in this case.
[1087] The Director is also required to pay for special costs of the First Trial in an amount that will be determined from further submissions.
[1088] In conclusion, I wish to add that J.P. assumed and carried out the Director’s statutory mandate to protect her children. If it were not for the Herculean efforts of J.P., the children would now, through the fault of the Director, be in the custody of their father who sexually and physically abused them.
Categories: BC Liberals
in-sights.ca 
I believe you may find interest in my reply to Stephie.. Ms Cadieux, I will not beg you to leave, i will not implore you to do the right thing. The reason for this is simple. You do not care about children and you do not care about the taxpayer, as the latest CKNW piece of profligate waste in your ministry shows. You will resist the findings of Judge Walker despite the FACT he found evidence your ministry helped a pedophile evade justice for half a decade and your actions will allow this stain on civilization to remain at liberty despite his crimes against humanity. By turning a blind eye to this, you are little better than a quisling. By turning an “inquiry” over to Bob Plecas (who you and I know was a fellow Liberal) objectivity is lost. This whole sorry episode should be kicked off with Criminal Trials, a Public Tribunal, then firings. Moreover, you should resign. In the words of Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain (which was echoed from Oliver Cromwell) I say, “You have sat too long for any good you are doing. Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, Go.” By the way, If you should be so foolish as to appeal this, you WILL lose, for Mr. Hittrich and the Judge have already went over this in fine detail. I will not foreclose this by saying good day Ms Cadieux, because I simply cannot find it within me to wish it to you. K.Blake Newton.
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2004 CBC Bad Management, but no fraud http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bad-management-but-no-fraud-in-walls-affair-report-1.515638
2015 CBC Fraud, but no Management?
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: From Globe & Mail, July 2015
The province’s children and youth representative, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, said she has “no confidence” in the ministry’s ability to investigate itself.
“This is a child welfare ministry that for some time has felt that it doesn’t have to answer to independent oversight or to a court,” she said in an interview.
“They’re not capable of holding each other to account. They do not have the structures to do that.”
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Visitors to my blog appear to see a link between Doug Walls with Stephanie Cadieux. Just happens they involve the Ministry, just eleven years separation. Nothing learned, Nothing gained.
http://blogborgcollective.blogspot.ca/2013/04/cryptic-comment-fraud-by-doug-walls.html
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Not unlike the firing of the Healthcare Workers, this latest misuse of Public Trust will be met with “catch me if you can” by the Premier’s Office and the Ministries that had a hand in it.
Reprehensible behavior doesn’t begin to describe the wanton callousness.
Gary L.
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when you permit a condition to exist you are pretty much the same as the offender. I have said for a long time that the Minister, Cabinet, and premier ought to be arrested for child abuse. perhaps some one now will get with the agenda. her photoopness most likely anointed Cad. to the position thinking people would not criticise her. well in my world, equality gets you equal critisim when it is deserved.
this government never has and never will care about children. They don't vote. In many cases their families don't vote either and the rest, well they either choose to believe its not true or don't care either.
We are one sick society, when we let this continue on and on. B.C. has had the highest rate of child poverty in Canada for all of the past 14 yrs. except one. Nice record. B.C. is the only province left which does not have a poverty reduction plan. Mental care for children with mental health issues, almost non exsistent. Her photoopness and travellign freak show, are only interested in LNG, getting their friends on b. of d. and enchancing their own life styles. We can only hope that if there is a hell, there is a special place reserved for them.
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I saw Cadieux on TV and I was so taken aback, I almost phoned the police and reprted a child abuse case and make an official complaint against Cadieux herself as enabling child molestation.
Sorry, in my book, she is a child molester, by enabling child molestation in her Ministry and by extension, Premier photo-op is a child molester, by not instantly firing Cadieux, thus photo-op is enabling Cadieux in her efforts enabling child molestation in her ministry.
We live in a country that goes after child molester tourism abroad, we had better sharpen our focus and go after child molesters in the Ministry of Children!
The librals have gone from just plain corrupt to just plain sick – and people still support this outfit, my god, I think I will throw up!
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Well said Lew, tyranny in any form is not democracy. Its time to put the fear of consequence back in governance. Since it is obvious that the current checks and balances mean little or nothing, to political organizations, bent on malfeasance while in power.
A more structured form of political or legal retribution is now required.
Corruption comes in many forms, many of which have surfaced in this country and province, within the past 15 years.
I submit that terrorism as described by all levels of government, is not this country's greatest threat. The greatest threat to us, is the “creeping cancer” known as corruption, within political parties and governments at all levels, in this country.
This message has become very clear with the results of the Quebec Corruption Commission, the Senate scandal, the Robo Call,
Elections fiasco, BC Rail, the Healthcare Firing/ Big Pharma scandal and now the above judges ruling into the Social Services
Ministry.
The whole concept of democracy and responsible, ethical governance in this country, is under serious threat.
The solution, will be a long painful, expensive exploration, into the values and ethics of political partisanship, malfeasance and manipulation of our democratic system.
That would be just a start…
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Welcome back Norm; I just know you enjoyed Johnstone Straight and all it offers. I was hoping you might ease back into the swing of things with some nice pics of the Blackfish, Telegraph Cove etc. but no, in true fashion you ramped up to full speed immediately.
Thank you for the exposure you give to this disgusting case where the local media fails us all with their complacency.
If only Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond had some legal authority to lay charges. But I guess if she could, she wouldn't be around long, would she?
Hawgwash.
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I don't know that Cadieux will feel pressured to step down. As Gordon DUI Campbell taught his party, “When you get caught with your pants down, just pull them back up and keep on walking.”
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The Ministry was protecting the perp.
Today the Ministry is protecting itself.
Who was protecting the children?
The mother did her utmost and should be heralded for doing so.
There is a Minister , a Director and minions that should be packing there bags.
And PRONTO.
Not unlike the firing of the Healthcare Workers and the late Rob McIsaac, we must not let this one go.
Gary L.
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BC Mary's Advice: Dear Reader: If you want to leave me a comment with Email address and or Phone Number and to keep it confidential then give it the title: NOT FOR PUBLICATION
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EDITED TO PRESERVE PRIVACY:
The fact that four children at least were abused by someone that the MCFD protected is repulsive. They did this for more than five years. Norm, please get ahold of me at [deleted] and I will give you more. So much more. It is sickening. it is grotesque and we need an immediate resignation from Stephie the Cad. We also need criminal investigations, then a tribunal and finally a public investigation. Stephie wants a closed one, and no one can believe a closed investigation of these people who far from helping children, actually aided in their abuse. Thank you.
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Adieu Cadieux, Strickland, et al.
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Thomas Jefferson said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”
H.L. Mencken took it a step further when he quipped “People deserve the government they get, and they deserve to get it good and hard.”
These kids couldn’t vote. What did they deserve?
This government has taken governance far beyond differences in public policy, and is demonstrably harming the public and the public interest.
Jefferson also said, “When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny.”
What the judge outlined in his ruling matches very accurately the definition of tyranny in my dictionary.
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