Budget Cuts for Children's Aid Societies

As most of you all know, there have recently been major budget cuts throughout the 53 provincial Children's Aid Agencies. Some agencies have been cut as much as 5.5 million dollars. The 67 million dollar shortfall, has forced agencies to cut back on programs for the children and youth in care.

Recently, the Children's Aid agencies have requested a meeting with primer Dalton McGuinty, to discuss the cash cuts, but surprise surprise they were refused.

Not only are the children and youth being affected, the workers are also affected by the cuts. In one local agency, they are being forced to lay off approximately one third of their staff. Which in turn, makes it nearly impossible for workers to be able to meet minimum standards of seeing children every month to assess their "safety and well-being."

There is plenty of finger-pointing and a lot of different numbers being thrown around. But this is the crux of it for me:

-Marcelo Gomez-Wiuckstern, director of communications at the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies, says fewer case workers means agencies will not be able to respond to high-risk child abuse allegations.

- In 2007, 90 children and teenagers died while under the care of the Ontario's child protection system. Some died in accidents. Others killed themselves. Some were murdered.

Katelynn Sampson's case should serve as a good reminder. She was found dead in the apartment of her legal guardian in 2008, while supposedly under the care of the Native Child and Family Services of Toronto.

Yes, these two stories speak to the failings of the child protection system as much as to the vulnerability of these children. But surely kneecapping the agencies by cutting case workers is not the answer.

Youth in care dont have parents to protect them, thats the responsibility of the Children's Aid Society. How are they supposed to do that when DALTON MCGUINTY is cutting funding. If I recall correctly, wasnt it the Liberals that used to talk about "the need to help society's neediest for the greater good." Now they want to scrimp and save by cutting funding to the needy kids.

Hey Dalton, how about you answer a couple of our questions....

How about we ask Dalton McGuinty what he would do? In fact, lets ask him what he would do if he was a 12 year old being abused? Because of his budget cuts, CAS probably wouldn't get to his case in the proper amount of time. Who knows how much abuse he would endure by the time the overworked CAS worker got to his case.

Hey Dalton, what would you do if you were a Youth on ECM, and you were faced with the choice of having a winter coat, or paying rent and buying food? Well you would probably have to go hungry or deal with the cold, because of your budget cuts, there isnt enough funding to supply youth with Seasonal Clothing allowance.

What would you do if you were a youth in care, and wanted to see your biological family for the holidays, well you would probably have to throw that idea out the window because, well your budget cuts have made it impossible to provide enough staff for court ordered supervised visits.

How can you justify these budget cuts when you dont know what its like?
Sure, its hard work for you isnt it?
Ill tell you whats hard, Minimum wage, with a baby on the way, thats hard. Building a bed out of a cardboard box, thats hard. Stealing from the grocery store or going hungry, that hard. That where were headed with your budget cuts.

Can you actually look us in the eyes, and say this is for the greater good Dalton?

Please Sign this petition, if you agree that these budget cuts are outrageous.