Not just those facing jail time
To the Expositor:
Attention candidates for fast approaching provincial and federal elections.
With the federal and provincial elections on the horizon, I would like to “lobby” for legal aid being expanded and available for those individuals that encounter the educational system such as suspensions/expulsions or more locally, the parents in Sudbury who were banned from all Rainbow educational facilities, missing their children’s school, once in a lifetime events, for more than five years.
As well, there are parents/families who suffer at the hands of the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) and activity such as unqualified social service workers doing investigations, making choices in family matters that they do not have expertise in. Headlines across Canada are riddled with CAS missing the mark from children who are abused worse and not monitored with foster families, youth boarded out unsupervised in motels and, sadly, worse.
Canada not only welcomes ISIS fighters back who have murdered, raped, burned, be-headed people, and Canadian taxpayers paid out millions of dollars to such people who were apparently abused by foreign countries.
Let us pay the legal bill for those people/victims, generally organizations that are not enforcement agencies with staff trained to provide caring, investigative services, ie. expelled students, victims of decisions of social workers that are unqualified/untrained investigators. The general rule of thumb is our government will only pay if they are subject to a jail term. These victims would probably prefer jail as then they are entitled to recover what is taken away from them.
Election changes? Let us stop these agencies roaming at will through family issues and Educational pathways without cause and the skills to do so in a caring and accountable manner.
I write this letter as a taxpayer looking forward to my vote, federally and provincially, at election time. This does not reflect views or opinions my direction of my agenda as a trustee of the Rainbow District School Board which is subject to change at any moment when stakeholders in education (parents/ratepayers) ask me to change. In cases of education, I am not there for myself, but for those who elected me to follow their wishes on behalf of their kids.
If you need examples of how our public services falter and do it all wrong, here is one for education that is on the website: Family|Law review Board appeals.
Larry Killens
South Baymouth
