Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
March 6, 2014
CHATHAM,
Ont. - Authorities entered the homes of ultra-orthodox Jewish sect members in Ontario
Wednesday night looking for children after some families at the centre of a
child welfare case left the country.
Two police
officers and four children's aid workers went door to door in the community of
homes in Chatham, Ont., where the Lev Tahor members have been living since they
left Quebec late last year in the middle of a child protection case.
A
community member told supporters in an email obtained by The Canadian Press
that two families whose children were ordered removed from their custody left
Canada for Guatemala, but some of the travellers were detained in Trinidad and
Tobago during a stopover.
Trinidad's
government said the Lev Tahor members arrived Monday at the international
airport in Port-of-Spain aboard a flight from Toronto, and were detained after
immigration officials found "inconsistencies" in the travellers'
responses.
An order
made Wednesday by a judge in Chatham dealing with the apprehension of the
children is expected to be made public Thursday.
Police
would not confirm if they were looking for the 13 children at the centre of the
court case, but a Canadian Press reporter, who was at the Lev Tahor complex
when authorities arrived Wednesday night, could hear the officers ask parents
to see their children and to produce identification.
The police
officers and child welfare workers stayed at the complex for about 90 minutes
and left around 10 p.m. without apprehending anyone.
Most
community members could be seen allowing police into their homes, but not the
children's aid workers. Police asked the landlord to let them into one home
where there was no answer.
The email
from the community member to supporters details how two of the families at the
centre of the order left Canada ahead of an appeal. The email indicates they
were not eager to return willingly if the appeal did not go their way, though
they had return tickets for March 13.
"The
families choose to be on a vacation tour in the Caribbean on the time of the
appeal hearing, to wait out for the decision of the appeal, if they see that
the Ontario can force them back to Quebec, they will decide whatsoever to
return to Ontario or even to Canada," reads the email.
They were
going to Guatemala, some of the group via Mexico and the others via Trinidad
and Tobago, the email said.
The group
of nine — three adults and six children — that went through Trinidad was
detained "for no reason," the email said. Immigration authorities
there wanted to send them back to Canada, but they wanted to be permitted to
join the others in Guatemala, it said. The members of one family are American
citizens and the others are Israeli citizens, the email said, so they dispute
that they should be sent to Canada.
It's not
clear from the email if all of the 13 children have left Canada.
A security
guard at a hotel in Trinidad's capital of Port-of-Spain said he had been tasked
with watching over a group of Jewish people from Canada. When The Canadian
Press asked to speak with a member of the group, the security guard said the
man was busy praying.
Trinidad's
government said immigration authorities have decided the group should be sent
back to Toronto due to a Canadian investigation.
The group
retained a lawyer in Trinidad, and a letter from him to that country's minister
of national security was attached to the email. In the letter, Farai Hove
Masaisai said he had not been given a reason for the group's detention and
alleged they were being poorly treated and underfed.
"The
manner in which they were treated personally brought me to a fundamental low
and made me heavily embarrassed and ashamed to call myself a Trinidadian,"
he wrote.
When
contacted by The Canadian Press, Masaisai said he could not comment because the
case was before the courts.
An appeal
of the court order that would see the 13 children turned over to child
protection authorities in Quebec was scheduled to be heard Wednesday morning,
but instead a lawyer for the local children's aid authority brought an
emergency motion, which prompted a closed-door hearing with the judge.
Superior
Court Judge Lynda Templeton excluded members of the media from the hearing
because she thought the presence of journalists "would cause harm to a
child who is the subject of the proceeding."
Templeton
made an order at the end of the day dealing with "the apprehension of the
children who are the subject of this appeal," but the court refused to
release that order to reporters until Thursday.
The actual
appeal is now scheduled to be heard April 4.
Much of
the Lev Tahor community of about 200 people left their homes in
Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., in the middle of the night, days after a child
welfare agency started a court case against a couple of the families.
In their
absence, the court in Quebec ruled in November that the children be placed in
foster care for 30 days, but the insular community had already settled in
Chatham.
The
community maintains that the move from Quebec had been planned for some time as
they felt persecuted in the province, especially in light of a proposed secular
charter.
The
community was under investigation for issues including hygiene, children's
health and allegations that the children weren't learning according to the
provincial curriculum.
A
spokesman for the community has said Lev Tahor children are given religious
education, but he has denied all allegations of mistreatment. The group says
the other children, not subject to the order, have been traumatized by the
experience.
The Lev
Tahor, which means "pure heart,'' came to Canada in 2005 after their
spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Elbarnes, was granted refugee status here.
The courts
have heard that children's aid has intervened with the community in the past.
Testimony
from social workers highlighted concerns that the community is almost
completely isolated from the outside world, the children are terrified of
others who are not modestly dressed or "pure,'' and some girls are married
as teenagers.
When
reporters went to the community Wednesday, some children peeked curiously from
behind curtains while others waved and smiled.
- With
files from Diana Mehta in Toronto and The Associated Press.
