Canada: Barbara Kay: The problem with Children’s Aid Societies

Article here. Excerpt:

'A young friend of mine took her bruised toddler to the hospital as a precaution after a fall down some stairs. All was well, but she nervously joked, “I was afraid the doctor might call the CAS (Children’s Aid Society).” This shocked me. Decades ago, I took my kids to the hospital on more than one similar occasion, but I never entertained such a misgiving.

My friend’s fears are not unfounded. Had the doctor felt suspicious, she might have called the CAS, which would then make inquiries and checked the parents’ records. In extreme situations, the CAS could theoretically seize the child, forcing the parents into costly litigation to get back access to their child.
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Canadian CAS workers intervene in about 200,000 kids’ lives a year. And it isn’t just the poor and marginalized who become CAS “clients.” A few years ago, for example, an Ontario maid service worker felt an upscale client’s house didn’t meet her standard of house pride; shortly after, a CAS worker showed up.
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In other cases, demonstrably maltreated children are inexplicably left with parents or foster parents known to be dangerous, and sometimes end up injured or even dead. In these latter cases, we read their horror stories with incredulity in Christie Blatchford’s columns.'