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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2017-05-24, Page 44 Huron Expositor • Wednesday. May 24, 2017 lilironCall inquest into Expositor group home deaths PUBLISHED WEEKLY — EST. 1860 P.O. Box 39, 53 Albert Street Clinton, Ontario NOM 1L0 phone: 519-482-3443 www.seaforthhuronexpositor rp] POSTMEDIA CURTIS ARMSTRONG Group Director of Media Sales 519-376-2250 ext 514301 or carnstronppostrnediacom SHAUN GREGORY Multimedia Journalist sgregory@postmedia.com 519-482-3443 Ext. 527305 NANCY DEGANS Media Sales Consultant ndegans@postmedia.com 519-482-3443 Ext. 527306 TERESA SMITH Front Office TSmith@poslmedia.com 519-482-3443 ext 527301 SUBSCRIPTION RATES 1 YEAR $50.00 (47.62+2.38 GST) 2 YEAR $95.00 (90.48+4.52 GST) SENIORS 60 WEEKS $50.00 (47.62+2.38 GST) 120WEEKS $95.00 (90.48+4.52 GST) Publications Mail Agreement No. 40064683 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT P.O. 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For more information or to file a complaint go to www. mediacouncilca or call toll free 1-844-877-1163. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association. We acknowledge the 1 lel financial support of the anacta Government of Canada. How many children have to die in Ontario's foster and group homes before the province's chief coroner agrees to conduct an inquest that might shed light on the causes? This should be a no-brainer. In the past six months five teens and one caregiver have died in provin- cial care, raising a host of questions about problems in the system. The association representing Ontario's children aid societies, a range of First Nations leaders and organizations, and the prov- ince's child advocate have all joined in the call for an inquest. The chief coroner's office should agree in order to get to the bot- tom of what's behind the deaths. Four of the deaths involve indigenous girls from northern Ontario who were living in pro- vincial group home care. At least one took her own life, and a sec- ond reportedly also committed suicide. Another drowned and the fourth died in a fire. All those deaths raise serious questions about what kind of mental health and social ser- vices were available to the girls, and why they had to he cared for hundreds of kilometers away from home rather than in their own communities. Another teen in care, as well as a young caregiver, also died when fire swept through a privately run foster care home near Lindsay. As the Star reported this week, a door in the room where the two died was bolted shut. On the most basic level, their deaths raise questions about lax safety standards in foster and group homes. Both serve chil- dren and youth who are taken from their families for protection by children's aid societies, or sent there by parents concerned about mental health or behavio- ral issues. • There's concem about minimum standards - including the frequency of fire inspections and whether homes have proper fire safety plans. Beyond that, staffin these homes have no minimum training require- ments and tend to be poorly paid. It's a formula for failure. Ontario has more than 15,000 young people in foster and group homes. There's plenty of evidence that they don't get the kind of care they deserve, and the province's child advocate, Irwin Elman, is sounding the alarm about the recent deaths. "These are human lives," he says. "It is a huge loss and they die on Ontario's watch" The province's minister for children, Michael Coteau, agrees the problems run deep and promises a "blueprint for reform" in coming weeks. That's fine, but in the mean- time the coroner's office should take the concrete step of con- ducting an inquest into the recent spate of deaths. That would shine a spotlight on steps that can be taken quickly. Banks should be made to act in clients' best interests One would think the notion that financial advisers should be required by law to put their clients' best interests ahead of their own would be rather uncontroversial. Yet for more than a decade efforts to create a national best -interest standard have gone nowhere. Last week, after five years of negotiations, all but two of the country's provincial financial regulators walked away from the idea. That's a shame. At a time of low interest rates and increased capi- tal requirements, Canadian banks nevertheless continue to see sky- rocketing profits, boosted in part by a troubling combination of exploitative sales practices and inadequate consumer protection. In March, three TD Bank Group employees told CBC News about the "incredible pressure" they and their col- leagues are under to meet sales goals variously described as "aggressive," "unrealistic" and "insane" "When 1 come into work," said one, "I have to put my ethics aside and not do what's right for the customer." In the days following those rev- elations, hundreds of employees from all the major banks came forward with similar allegations. Sales quotas are so high, they said, that the only way to meet them is to aggressively upsell, or worse, surreptitiously extend customers' credit limits or charge them for other new products without their consent. (All the banks deny these allegations.) While some of these tactics are illegal, many others are not. In Canada, financial "advisors" are salespeople who have no legal obligation to act in a client's inter- est. That's opposed to the rela- tively small group of "advisers" - see the difference? - who do have a legal fiduciary duty. That is, "advisers" with an "e" are trust- worthy; "advisors" with an "o" not so much. If you're confused, pre- sumably that's the point. Yet despite the evident inadequacy of the current rules, most of the provincial regulators charged with protecting both cli- ents and the economy from bad - acting banks and investment firms seem content with the sta- tus quo. According to a statement released last week by the recalci- trant securities commissions, the problem with a best -interest standard is that it would give cli- ents a false sense of security. In other words, banks will be banks - and it's unfair to the public to pretend otherwise. There's no better protection, they seem to be saying, than caveat emptor The evidence, however, says oth- erwise. As Ottawa's and Ontario's financial regulators have repeatedly argued in a compelling series of reports, a best -interest standard would do much to dissuade hanks from unethical sales practices and therefore insulate investors. Evi- dently, Australia and the United Kingdom agree. Both countries recently adopted fiduciary -duty laws, and the European Union is expected soon to join them. The Ontario Securities Commis- sion and its New Brunswick coun- terpart now say they intend to go it alone on pursuing such protec- tions. That would be a welcome step, but no substitute for a national standard. Everyone in the country deserves to be protected from unethical financial practices. That's now up to Ottawa - and the feds have a golden opportu- nity. The Trudeau government is currently in the process of reviewing the federal legislation governing financial institutions, and is looking to replace the provincial regulators with a sin- gle national body. The notion that banks should be allowed to pursue their self-inter- est unchecked, that the only pro- tection consumers deserve is their own skepticism, is not just nasty; as the 2008 financial meltdown showed, it's also dangerous. A national best -interest standard would be in the best interests of cli- ents, yes, but also of the country. SEAFORTH HURON EXPOSITOR/CLINTON NEWS RECORD - HOURS OF OPERATION P.O. Box 39.53 Albert St., Clinton ON NOM 1L0 MONDAY: 9:00-5:00 • TUESDAY: CLOSED • WEDNESDAY: 9:00-5:00 • THURSDAY: 9:00-5:00 • FRIDAY: 9:00-5:00 ADVERTISING DEADLINE: FRIDAYS AT 2:OOpm • PHONE: 519-482-3443 www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com