I would like to comment on the editorial of Thursday March 5th, regarding the recent report released by the Ontario Children's Advocate Irwin Elman, entitled '90 Deaths, Ninety Voices Silenced'.

First I would like to applaud the Citizen for putting the focus of this editorial on Elman's key issue which spoke strongly to the need for greater access to information in the case of child deaths.

However, the editorial failed to set the record straight with respect to the misleading claims and false contentions contained in the report that reflect poorly on Ontario's Children's Aid Societies.

These false and chilling claims were of course what caught the headlines across the country when the report was released. And of course, even though the media now has the facts, these are not creating headlines. So the public is left with the perception that 90 children died unnecessarily while in the care of CAS's.

Mr. Elman's report states that '"90 children died while in the care of Children's Aid Societies" and that "most of the deaths were preventable." The facts are quite different.

Of the 90, natural causes took 14 and the CAS had no prior involvement with 36 of them. Thus, in 50 of the 90 cases, the CAS was clearly not in a position to prevent the deaths.

Of those 90 children, only four were in the care of CAS, and none of those four deaths were deemed preventable. Moreover, the investigators within the Coroner's Office who reviewed the pediatric deaths declared that CAS involvement "is not a factor" in the "vast majority of child deaths in Ontario" and cautioned that most of the few deaths of children receiving CAS services "could not have been foreseen or prevented by a CAS".

It remains to be understood why Mr. Elman chose to make such misleading and sensational public statements. If he was looking for attention, he certainly got it — but at what cost?

How might this report affect the public's confidence in a service so vitally important in protecting our children and supporting families?

How might it affect a person's decision to report suspicions, or a parent's responsible decision to approach the CAS when they recognize that they need support and help?

And consider the impact of such reporting on the dedicated foster families across this province who, on a daily basis, provide a home and nurturance to thousands of our most vulnerable children.

A public apology to the CAS community and a thorough rewrite of Mr. Elman's report is called for.
Trish Keachie
Executive Director
Dufferin Child and Family
Services
is self propelling because they have managed to strike the right chord of popular tastes, the motif that appeals to the many. There is also the luck of the draw - that elusive, indefinable twist of fate, as it seems, that catapults the artist into a favourable public eye.

For the majority, though, the challenge is long-winded, for, however much an artist loves what he/she is doing and is justly proud of it, self -promotion is rarely a comfortable exercise. Not every artist can find an agent but most wish they could.

Who buys a work of art? Everyone.

How can a piece of work be defined as art? By the eyes of the person looking at it. What is the difference between art and screw drivers or loaves of bread or rubber boots? The need to rest those eyes on something beautiful or emotional or reassuring.

Art, which is visual or literate or audio, fills our deeper, more sensitive, intellectual needs, which are as important as hunger, thirst, ambition. This is why children put coloured pencils to paper, banging out pictures of family, animals, trees, reflecting their lives through artistic efforts.

The need for art in our lives lies deep within us, like the need for stories. I believe everyone has the instinct to dabble one way or another: to draw, to sing, to write.

Not everyone is driven to do nothing else. But those that only want to share their visions through their talents must also admit to having to deal with the realities of day to day life.

The days of patrons are mainly gone. Only the public is available to feed the artists. And, it seems, only marketing is the means by which the public may know of us. The real problem with the internet is that it is all about quantity, not quality.

Here's hoping that that is not the inevitable road of the future.