[a] Limit secrecy. (Secrecy corrupts, and absolute secrecy corrupts absolutely.)

Yes, confidentiality is required to protect children, and other vulnerable persons as well. But on that same ground—protection of the vulnerable—there must be limits and checks on confidentiality, in the form of (1) adequate disclosure to all those affected, and (2) oversight by wholly independent entities. Some details on these two points follow.

[b] Empower overseers. (Oversight without authority to correct is impotent.)

Under present law, evidently, neither the Ombudsoffice nor the Children’s Advocate nor any other oversight office has real power to alter decisions by child-welfare agencies. Even the courts are limited in their ability to countermand these agencies—and precious few individuals have the financial or emotional capacity to fight through the courts against the bottomless pockets and endless delaying power possessed by an arm of the state. Remember Serpico? We now have police commissions; a powerful agency such as child welfare should have no lesser safeguards. A citizen’s review board must be created, one empowered to (1) decide appeals on individual cases and (2) investigate and correct systemic abuses. Further, that body must have a legal obligation to report its activities regularly, in detail, to the people of Alberta.

[c] Apply effective penalties for abuse of power. (Immunity corrupts, and absolute immunity….)

Under recent law, no representative of the public exists to discipline social workers who betray their public trust; the new College of Social Workers is self-policing. Remember Serpico? Citizens whose rights are trampled on by police can now turn to law enforcement review boards. Why should child-welfare workers, often able to inflict worse harm than police are, be exempt from all external controls? Some agency or other must get genuine power to police the College.

[d] Empower the people. (Sooner or later, unbalanced power will be abused.)

Just as being required to "read them their rights" helps prevent police from abusing their great power, full disclosure by caseworkers to all affected individuals is crucial: disclosure of the nature of the accusations being made, of the avenues of recourse to defend their interests, etc. And, just as in the criminal justice system, legal-aid-type financial resources must be made available to individuals who find this massive state power being used against them. Likewise crucial is financial compensation for those against whom that power has been wrongfully used.

[e] Know thyself. (The foundation of all discipline is self-discipline.)

All the above checks and balances notwithstanding, the first line of defense against abuse of power is internal monitoring. This should include the careful keeping of statistics, patterns of which can reveal prejudices and other systemic problems. (Job One: to eliminate the existing pervasive anti-father bias.) It must include the use of genuine standards of evidence, to replace ideology and intuition as the grounds for judgments of parental wrongdoing or unfitness. And adequate training in those standards to begin with. And reforming harmful practices. (Job Two: to end the practice of employing "hired guns"—lawyers and child assessors and such who will reach the conclusions antecedently desired by child welfare, or else will not be hired again.)

M.E.R.G.E., 1999. In memory of Hector Daley. We will not allow his fight to have been in vain.