31420-12-1 SAWRIDGE, Indian vs. ROLAND, Twinn et al

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2 Wehave, in our brief, set out the rights of parents and have said that in the Supreme
3 Court of Canada in B.(R.) v. Children’s Aid Society, which is on page 12 of our brief, that
4 the common law has long recognized that parents are in the best position to take care of
5 their children and make decisions necessary to ensure their well being. And in recent
6 years, the courts have expressed a reluctance to interfere with parental rights and stayed
7 intervention has been tolerated only when necessity was demonstrated. And we are
8 suggesting that if the parents have taken a silent position, that should be -- that should be
9 respected. And if not, they should be able to come forward on their own. And it isn’t
10 necessary to have necessarily the Public Trustee. There isn’t necessarily an issue to have
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a litigation representative.
13 I don’t think there are any cases before you where the Public Trustee was in fact
14 appointed where the parent wasn’t involved. So the cases that have been cited by the
15 Public Trustee, the parents have in fact been involved. The only other case that was
16 suggested or was referred was the Thomlinson case where those all dealt with children
17 who were in care. And so obviously they didn’t have parents who could in fact represent
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them.
20 In the C.H.S. case, which is at Tab 8 of our brief, and of course you’ll be familiar with
21 this case because it is one that you heard and decided. So in paragraph 22 of that
22 decision, you say that it is significant that -- that there was no evidence from parents on
23 the appointment of a next friend. And here, we would say that the Office of the Public
24 Trustee in fact did not provide any evidence of a parent of a child asking them to get
25 involved. They have come here voluntarily. They haven’t consulted parents of the
26 children. They haven’t provided any evidence to you that, in fact, parents are asking
27 them to be involved. And I think that is significant. The only evidence that the Office of
28 the Public Trustee has put before you is the issue of membership. And they have put
29 together an affidavit on the problems that they see or that their deponent sees with the
30 membership application process. But no evidence with respect to whether parents should
31 want them involved. And I think that that could in fact have been done. And I think that,
32 and Iwould submit that, it is a failing here by the Office of the Public Trustee not to
33 have sought that evidence and come to court with evidence of parents saying yes, we
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want you involved, you should be involved on our behalf.
36 In respect of the costs issue and the awarding of costs in advance, it is our submission
37 that the Little Sisters, the Okanagan test is the one that must be applied and that in each
38 and every case cited, the three parts of that test have never been ignored. So there must
39 be impecuniosity. There must be a prima facie meritorious case that will be forfeited.
40 And it must transcend the individual interests. And it is our submission that this case
41 fails on all three aspects of the test. If we’re looking at impecuniosity, obviously there’s