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Belleville Rally

May 6, 2012 permalink

On Friday, May 4 there was a rally for accountability in Belleville. Here is one photo with Curtis Kingston, Brenda Everall, Maureen Fennelly, Kelly Leveque and Jeffrey Kingston. The Belleville Intelligencer had one picture in its print edition. Curtis Kingston produced a rally video, YouTube and local copy (mp4). Press coverage is enclosed.

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Canada Court Watch protest demands accountability

Curtis Kingston, Kelly Levesque and Brenda Everall
Canada Court Watch members Curtis Kingston, Kelly Levesque and Brenda Everall hoist their signs while they drummed up support for oversight and accountability in a demonstration at Belleville's Century Place Square Last Friday.
Michael J Brethour, Belleville EMC

EMC News -Belleville -Members of Canada Court Watch converged on Century Place Square in Belleville last Friday to drum up support for oversight and accountability.

With many a horn blaring as motorists honked their support, the handful of picketers sought to generate awareness with their signage and get petitions from like-minded residents of the friendly city.

Curtis Kingston, a member of Canada Court Watch, said the day's protest was about letting people know about the current situation with the Ombudsman and MUSH sector.

Kingston explained that the MUSH Sector includes hospitals, long-term-care homes, school boards, Children's Aid Societies, police, and universities

He said the MUSH sector is accountable for 50 per cent of provincial government expenditures. The province has responded to growing concerns about spending practices in the broader public sector by increasing its financial transparency, requiring greater financial disclosure, subjecting these organizations to value-for-money audits, and providing more direction relating to expense practices. However, no progress has been made in opening these organizations to Ombudsman review of the policies and practices that directly affect Ontarians in their daily lives.

Touching briefly on the other organizations, Kingston mainly focused on the CAS.

"There is a need for child protection, the problem is what we have seen is that they (CAS) go above and beyond to keep children in their care," alleged Curtis.

He noted CAS lobbied against the private members bill, Bill-183, which sought to establish oversight of the agency through the Ombudsman.

"When you lobby against oversight that raises suspicion, especially when children are left in their care," he said. "Who would go against oversight? If you are going against oversight, there is an obvious problem."

Kingston said the Social Service Work Act that came into effect in 1998 forced every social worker in the province to be licensed with the College of Social Workers.

"What the Children's Aid Society did was they changed the names of all their social workers to child protection workers, the sole purpose of this was so they would not have to be registered with the college," he alleged.

Kingston said the whole purpose of the college is to regulate the industry and listen to complaints about individual social service workers, much like the colleges of teachers and doctors.

Kingston also took a shot at former executive director of the Hastings County CAS Len Kennedy who Kingston alleged touted himself as a social worker.

"His registration with the college was suspended in 2006. He has said numerous times he is a social worker, under the Social Service Worker Act that is actually illegal," he alleged.

Every year, the Ombudsman's Office receives many compelling complaints about MUSH sector services that they are forced to turn away. In 2010-2011, 1,963 such cases were received.

Source: Belleville EMC

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