Friday July 21, 2000
Update On Nine Children Abducted By Children's Aid
David and Ruby Mielke, who had nine children taken from them by Ontario's Children's Aid Society eight days ago, still don't know when they will get their children back, but they have been assured by the agency that they will be able to start seeing them again. Also, according to Mr. Mielke, the judge granted them open phone access to their children as well. This means that their children are free to call them without being monitored. The last time LifeSite spoke to Mr. Mielke, however, he still had not heard from two of his children. Also, he said that a CAS agent told him that, despite the court order, the final decision as to whether or not their children can call them rests in the hands of the foster parents.
LifeSite reported Monday that the children were taken by CAS, with the help of Ottawa-area police, a month after questions were raised in the children's school about one of the girls having a black eye. The school authorities and CAS seemed resistant to accept the child's own testimony that it was caused by a sibling. The CAS also took issue with the condition of the Mielke house, arguing that it was not a healthy environment for children.
According to Mr. Mielke the CAS seems less interested now than it did earlier in painting him as an abusive father. It never came up in their arguments during the first court hearing held this past Tuesday, he said, despite abuse-related concerns noted in the court papers they served him at the last minute (8 pm the day before the hearing). It seemed clear from their documents, said Mr. Mielke, that they planned "to try to prove that our children must be afraid of us because they are very silent in school, thereby demonstrating, as far as CAS and the school are concerned, 'an obvious fear of all adults'." Mr. Mielke, though, says that "when we walk with them to school, they're chatting all the way. Suddenly, however, as soon as we enter the school door, they become quiet," suggesting that the problem is more likely with the school than with him and his wife or his children.
Mr. Mielke was shocked when he also read in their court papers that they were going to defend the need to take the children away from supposedly unfit parents by observing that the children were dirty and hungry when the agents showed up at their home and that the infant needed a diaper change which wasn't attended to. The father notes that "They were not clean because they had been playing outside all morning, and were still doing so when CAS arrived. They were hungry because CAS arrived just after noon, i.e. before lunch was ready, [and] the one child needed a diaper change because we were all kept outside for the three hours that they were here, which made it impossible for us to deal with the situation, and, perhaps more to the point, the whole business distracted us to the point that we didn't even think of checking." Mr. Mielke said that when he pointed out to the CAS agent responsible for his case, and to her supervisor, how dishonest these allegations were, their remarkable response was: "that's why you have a lawyer to refute our claims."
The elders at the Mielke's church have been trying to help him resolve the situation. His lawyer, however, discouraged them from attending a meeting with the CAS on Monday to try to come to an alternative arrangement whereby the congregation and church leadership could exercise a more active role, hopefully eliminating the need for the children to remain separated from their parents. The lawyer was afraid that the CAS may try to twist the words of people inexperienced in dealing with the provincial agency. In an apparent confirmation of the CAS's cunning tactics, Mr. Mielke notes that in a meeting this week with his CAS case worker and her supervisor, in which one of his elders was present, "they tried to force [the] elder . to tell them that members of our congregation were aware of problems but didn't report them. Since it is illegal nowadays for anyone to fail to report even a suspicion that anything at all might be amiss, it looked like they were trying to pin such guilt upon other members of our congregation."
The CAS has held out the possibility that arrangements could be made immediately for the children to be taken to their church on Sunday so the parents can spend time with them throughout the afternoon between services. Mr. Mielke is also hopeful that the agency might be agreeable to congregation members replacing the current foster parents in looking after their children until CAS allows them to be returned. This, however, would require CAS to question and approve them for fostering, an intrusion which congregation members will have to evaluate carefully in view of the kind of tactics CAS uses to try to gather information against people.
Mr. Mielke says CAS "claimed that it would take several months of carefully arranged and supervised (by them) visits between ourselves and our children in order to rebuild our family. They told us that, being as young children are involved, they would, in all likelihood, be monitoring us for several years. Monitoring means unannounced, randomly scheduled visits to, and inspections of, our home." In the meantime, in an attempt to show a conciliatory attitude towards the CAS, he and his wife have begun to look for another 4-bedroom home in the western end of Ottawa that is better suited for raising 13 children.
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