I see myself as a "social activist." I am leading a movement that views government intrusion on the family with skepticism. I am privy to the "darkest secrets" of this government policy. People from all over the Province have talked to me about their experience. I have gotten the whole picture. The community is very aware of the problem, but it feels powerless. The community watches and admires my bravery (maybe my foolhardiness, too) as I talk about the problem as I try to take it out of its dark closet. The problem crosses a broad social economic class, from the welfare class to highly skilled professionals, even the most privileged.
The social welfare system is an inverse pyramid that requires a new, daily supply of our children to run its machinery. Its appetite is insatiable.
I am an adoptive white mother of 2 grown African-Canadian boys, leading a movement for the biological rights of the family. I have always considered myself a "Social Democrat." I have never voted Republican or PC. Oddly enough this movement has put me in bed with the right wing. I am puzzled that people want to cut out my writings and read them at PC meetings. I am equally surprised to find myself on the same page as the John Birch Society. I think my activism cuts across all political sectors. The family unit belongs to all of us.
Government has created a social welfare industry that it cannot control, a monster that will swallow up the government that created it. The "best interests of children and families" are irrelevant to it. It has to do with jobs, careers and money, most of all money. After reading the minutes of the Ontario Legislature, I came to the conclusion that this is a conspiracy at the highest level of government. It is a conspiracy that takes aim at the poor, single, uneducated parent, the vulnerable. It targets the immigrants, the minorities and the disabled. It has nothing to do with the "best interests of the child." It is a policy that leaves children in drug houses and violent/dangerous situations because the "workers" are too afraid to enter those homes. It is a system that uses the "Jeffrey Baldwin" situations to call for an increase its own absolute power, wanting more tax dollars and freedom from judicial review. It is a system that refuses to admit that it was its own CAS agency that screwed up.
The present child welfare industry sees gay couples as a ready and willing market for this glut of children, as a way to download the business problem of too many crown wards. Without a doubt, many gay couples will do a good job. Gays should have their legal rights but why "marriage" and not "civil union." Like black children in white families, these children in gay homes will grow into adults somewhat disconnected from the mainstream of their society. Within the extended family, adoption has always had a stigma attached to it. I have personally felt the pain.
I have similar problems with "euthanasia." Why legalize it? Modern medicine already helps patients to die. I have only to anticipate the next step, that some government bureaucrat will decide who shall live and who shall die, who is productive and who is not.
"... we must be wary of those who are too willing to end the lives of the elderly and the ill. If we ever decide that a poor quality of life justifies ending that life, we have taken a step down a slippery slope that places all of us in danger. There is a difference between allowing nature to take its course and actively assisting death. The call for euthanasia surfaces in our society periodically, as it is doing now under the guise of "death with dignity" or assisted suicide. Euthanasia is a concept, it seems to me, that is in direct conflict with a religious and ethical tradition in which the human race is presented with " a blessing and a curse, life and death," and we are instructed '...therefore, to choose life." I believe 'euthanasia' lies outside the commonly held life-centered values of the West and cannot be allowed without incurring great social and personal tragedy. This is not merely an intellectual conundrum. This issue involves actual human beings at risk... -- C. Everett Koop, M.D. *
Is it in society's best interest to try to preserve the biological family structure? The unraveling of the rights of children from those of parents makes children mere objects, properties of the State, to be moved around at will. This may occur for just cause or simply to meet a quota of children in care or for retribution against the parent as in the Carline VandenElsen case. Remember the Agency must have sufficient numbers of children in care to pay its own bills.
Government will take the child-parent loyalty and convert it to the child-state loyalty. Parents will be reduced to mere incubators with the State assuming the parental role, parens patriae. Will the State do a better job than the parent? We have the example of the residential schools in the aboriginal community. Did government help the aboriginal family? The aboriginal family is still continuing to disintegrate before our eyes. The orphan trains of the 19th and 20th Centuries represent another government policy gone awry. It targeted poor, immigrant children to execute its own manifest destiny. In today's world, we see the continual interference of government in health care, expensive and inefficient. Government's policy on environmental issues is smoke and mirrors. Is the water we drink, safe? Is the air we breathe, clean?
What can we do as concerned citizens to prevent this new, upcoming fiasco? Government wants "Leave it to Beaver" families." Government sets a standard that few can meet because parents and children are imperfect human beings. Government is using legislation to micro-manage human behaviour. How silly! Are we machines? One cannot legislate human behaviour. Throughout history, religion has served as the vehicle to modify human behaviour. Is government legislation going to supplant religious training?
Government (McGinty's Best Start program) is already planning to be in your home from your child's birth and to age 6 when he enters school. Then the school system takes over. Similar home visitation programs are springing up all over North America. They are an intrusion into the privacy of your home, Government supervising its investment in its (your) child.
Everything leads back to the UN Convention of the Child. Canada uses this treaty to carry out its agenda but it continually violates the spirit of the Convention. Only children without parents are entitled to government support for health, food, education, clothing and shelter. It is not the right of all children. Why does child poverty continue to escalate? Are we going to produce a new generation of adults who will work hard and respect their elders? Will these children be simply self-centered and self-serving? Through her writings, Hilary Clinton as a spokesperson for this enhanced parental role for government says, "It takes a village to raise a child." She goes on about what a wonderful job she and Bill have done with their daughter Chelsea while most of North America yawns and rolls their eyes.
Are our religious leaders not afraid that government will usurp their moral authority? These religious leaders will find themselves gone, as Government tries to legislate morality. Will this work? History tells us, not.
I stand convinced that the government's intrusion into the family will lead to sedition. There is a growing, vocal reform movement. Can it be stopped? I think, not. In my lifetime I have seen the Fascists and Communists come and go. Religion will now have to out-survive the totalitarian Socialist state.
Dolores A. Sicheri, MD
Lakeshore, Ontario
October 26, 2005
