Child advocate can't restore Desmarais' parental rights

While the provincial child advocate's office is looking into the case of a Sudbury doctor who was forced to surrender her parental rights so her son could get treatment, it doesn't have the authority to reverse the decision.

“We do not have that power,” said Evan Lannon, a spokesperson for Irwin Elman, Ontario's Advocate for Children and Youth.

Lannon stressed she was speaking in general terms about the authority of the office, since they can't comment on specific cases.

Elman's office is looking into the case of Dr. Nicole Desmarias, whose nine-year-old son is severely mentally ill to the point he is a danger to Desmarais's other children and her partner. There is a treatment centre in southern Ontario – Bayfield – that offers the sort of intensive treatment give her son a chance at recovering.

But the only way the province will pay for the treatment is if she agreed to make him a Crown ward. She launched a $10 million lawsuit in June in an attempt to prevent that from happening. But faced with a Dec. 5 deadline – when her son was due to return from a live-in assessment in another facility in southern Ontario – Desmarais was forced to surrender her parental rights to the state.

The issue was raised in the Ontario Legislature in the last two weeks by Monique Taylor, the NDP's critic for Children and Youth Service. Children and Youth Services Minister Tracy MacCharles didn't address the Desmarais case directly, but said the government has made significant investments in childhood mental health, including $5 million this year to reduce wait lists.

In a recent interview, Taylor said the case is all the more scandalous because the government has known about this issue for years. She cited a 2005 report by Ontario Ombudsman André Marin entitled 'Between a Rock and a Hard Place,' which directly addressed tragic situations like Desmarais family is facing.

“He made recommendations that, if the government adopted, we would not be in this situation today,” Taylor said.

For her part, Lannon said that while the Child Advocate doesn't have the authority to restore parental rights, under new legislation passed last week – Bill 8 -- they have new power.

“We can now investigate complaints about the Children's Aid Society,” she said.