The following is a letter to the editor and to reporter Tanya Talaga of the Toronto Star in response to the article about the Ministry of Children and Youth Services finally naming 3 people to the Commission on Sustainable Children’s Aid Societies.

As a former foster child and executive director of the Foster Care Council of Canada, an organization which strives for increased transparency and accountability in child-welfare, I am concerned about the Ministry of Children and Youth Services’ 3 person commission which is made up of an adoptive father who stands to benefit from increased funding to CAS’s through ongoing adoption supports and a reported “expert in child welfare” who being so, most likely has close ties to CAS staff, Ene Underwood, a former member of the board of Toronto’s Children’s Aid Society, and Wendy Thomson, an adoptive parent and public service reform adviser.

Will the Commission seek public input to learn where the CAS’s are wasting money.

Will they respond to repeated submissions made to the Ministry about wasted funds on unnecessary litigation against citizens for speaking out about them, for opening cases to get ministry funds in six-month terms based on false and misleading information submitted in affidavits to the courts by workers, and over 2 Million dollars a year in ministry allocated child protection funds going to support the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (a provincially registered lobby group with salaries at over 3 Million a year)?

I advise everyone to contact the Ministry to ask how to contact the Commission, or to at least make submissions to the committee through MPP’s and child welfare opposition critics, Andrea Horwath (NDP) and Sylvia Jones (PC) since she might be the only way to contact the commission.

Please visit http://www.racas.wetpaint.com to learn about the Ride for Accountability in Child Welfare

Sincerely
John Dunn
Executive Director
The Foster Care Council of Canada
613-220-1039

http://www.afterfostercare.ca

Foster Care News Blog

http://www.fostercarenews.blogspot.com

Also read about the Ride for Accountability in 2010

http://www.racas.wetpaint.com

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