GOVERNMENTS JUST about everywhere claim to care about violent crime and subscribe to need to compensate its victims. But all too often their actions belie their claims. In Ontario, we have long had Criminal Injuries Compensation Board with defined power to award victims up to $25,000, which often doesn’t amount to more than token compensation.

But last week we got an example of how either the crafters of legislation or those appointed to carry it out can effectively thumb their noses at some who undeniably deserve such compensation.

What happened to Brenda Waudby really puts the lie to a claim found on the website of the Ministry of the Attorney General: “The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (CICB) is here to help. Our goal is to provide support to victims in a timely and compassionate manner.”

Well, there’s surely not a scintilla of doubt that the Peterborough woman was not only a victim of crime – the murder 13 years ago of her two-yearold daughter Jenna – but also a victim of wrongful prosecution and the loss of her other daughter, who was taken from her and spent two years in foster care following the murder.

It surely shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to discern that hers was as worthy a case for compensation as anyone could imagine. Yet the CICB in its wisdom interpreted its guidelines as not allowing even token compensation for the applicant’s pain and suffering.

Incredibly, the board ruled that she did not meet its criteria for proving that she had suffered nervous shock. The board also denied a claim from Ms. Waudby’s surviving daughter.

“I cannot understand or fathom the reasoning for this decision,” Ms. Waudby told Globe and Mail reporter Kirk Makin. “I cannot move forward until this nightmare, which is being sustained and perpetuated by the government, is over. I believe the government needs to quit dragging their heels and fix this. I am tired of being patient.”

In a letter to Attorney General Chris Bentley, her lawyer, Julie Kirkpatrick, asked him to intervene and reverse the board’s decision.

She noted that, due to autopsy mistakes made by disgraced pathologist Charles Smith, her client remained a prime suspect until 2006, when Jenna’s former babysitter was finally convicted in the killing.

Under the CICB’s guidelines, nervous shock is assessed based on the degree of violence involved in the incident; the relationship between the applicant and the victim; the applicant’s presence at the scene of the incident and/or how the applicant learned of the occurrence; the degree of the emotional and psychological injuries suffered; and the type of treatment required.

The relevant legislation, the Compensation for Victims of Crime Act, says “injury” means “actual bodily harm and includes pregnancy and mental or nervous shock.” However, it also says compensation may be awarded for “pain and suffering.”

Ms. Waudby says she continues to sustain psychological blows, including a recent revelation that portions of Jenna’s remains are for some reason still being kept at the Office of the Chief Coroner.

The 26-year-old man convicted in the murder, cannot be identified because he was a minor at the time of the crime, but he eventually confessed that he punched, poked and burned her to the point of death.

As we see it, there surely is no doubt that the legislation and/or the guidelines need to be clarified to make crystal-clear that compensation must be awarded to any claimant who establishes that he or she has been wrongfully accused by the state of causing injury or death to a member of his or her immediate family (defined as parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren).

Hopefully, the Attorney General will act quickly, by either amending the Act and/or its regulations or instructing the CICB to interpret the existing provisions as requiring compensation for Ms. Waudby and anyone who is similarly situated.

But if Mr. Bentley fails to put real meaning into the claim of “support to victims in a timely and compassionate manner,” we would invite Sylvia Jones as Opposition critic for Community and Social Services to challenge her fellow MPPs by introducing a private member’s bill that would amend the Act to remove the requirement (if really exists) for an applicant to prove that the murder of a family member caused him or her “mental or nervous shock.”

All that should be required in such circumstances is proof that the death or injury was caused by a third party, since the existence of long-term pain and suffering for a mother of a murdered child is so patently obvious.

And while it’s obvious that a violent crime against a member of one’s family victimizes other members of the family, often by a loss of companionship and/or income, it’s surely doubly obvious that compensation should be available to a family member who is wrongfully accused of the crime.