MORE ON WATERLOO REGION'S FAMILY & CHILDRENS' SERVICES

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record has an Opinion piece by Luisa D'Amato titled "Child protection gets short shrift from province". Pretty clearly Luisa's title says it all as to whom she believes are doing things properly. In no uncertain terms Luisa would rather err on the side of potentially overprotecting (& overspending) when it comes to child welfare. Her first sentence is "Show me a family where the father beats up the mother, and I'll show you their emotionally abused child.".

Maybe there's some semantics involved here. I would suggest that show me a father who's been accused of assaulting his wife and I'll show you a very bad family situation where probably everybody, adults and children, are sufferring emotionally, whether there was an assault or not.

In principle I agree with Luisa. In practice, human institutions and bureaucracies routinely run out of control. Their behaviour while espousing motherhood and apple pie is only constrained by legitimate accountability and transparency. FCS are currently under attack in Ontario for overstepping their authority and overeaching in some cases.