It could have ended very badly.
Last week in Regina a woman left her sleeping baby in her running vehicle to run into a store.
It is disturbing that anybody could succumb to such a bad idea, but I do understand the impulse. It is a pain in the butt to unhook the kid for a one-minute errand, not to mention it being such a blessing sometimes when they sleep that you don’t want to risk waking them.
There is no shame in having that fleeting thought because stupid thoughts often come unbidden to all of us. The shame is in not quickly dismissing them when the smart ones follow.
It only takes a few seconds to snatch a child or for something else to go horribly wrong for an unsupervised baby.
This woman found out the hard way, when someone made off with her car and baby. I can only imagine the horrific panic she must have felt, hopefully now replaced by an equivalent level of guilt and shame.
She was extremely fortunate the perpetrator was, apparently, not after the child, but the vehicle. She is also very fortunate he had a conscience. Not only did he abandon the vehicle with baby unharmed, he called police to let them know where to find both.
When all was said and done, the incident had as good an ending as possible for everybody involved.
The vitriol spewed at the mother on social media was probably over-the-top, but judging her actions can be legitimately based on what could have happened rather than what did happen. The law does.
Let’s start with Section 218 of the Criminal Code, which reads: Every one who unlawfully abandons or exposes a child who is under the age of ten years, so that its life is or is likely to be endangered or its health is or is likely to be permanently injured, (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding eighteen months.
The key term here is ‘likely’.
I think most police officers and Crown prosecutors would be hard-pressed to lay this charge under the circumstances, although, it has been done in Greater Toronto Area.
In that case, a 39-year-old father left his two-year-old daughter in his car while he went into the Markham, ON Costco. When police arrived, he had been gone 40 minutes and it was around -12C. The girl was unharmed, but the father was charged under Section 218.
I could not find a similar Saskatchewan example.
The other obstacle for a Criminal Code case is the mens rea. In Canada, you not only have to have done the thing you are accused of, you have to have intended to do the thing you are accused of and have known it was wrong.
It would likely be an uphill battle to prove that in this case.
Child welfare legislation is not so strict, but it is also subject to some vagueness that might make it difficult to apply here. I will get back to that in a minute.
The vehicle thief could also arguably be subject to a charge of abandonment. Of course, when you’re facing grand theft auto—its not called that in Canada, but its such a great turn of phrase—and/or kidnapping charges, hanging around until the police got there was probably not top of mind.
Depending on criminal record, outstanding warrants, existing conditional court orders etc., had he hung around could have gone a long way in terms of mitigating circumstances. It may have even led to a reduced charge of, say, taking a motor vehicle without consent (Section 335), commonly called joyriding.
End of digression.
Saskatchewan’s Child and Family Services Act states under Section 81(2) that: Any person who: (a) having the care, custody, control or charge of a child, neglects, abuses, wilfully abandons or exposes the child to abuse or abandonment or causes or procures the child to be abused, abandoned or exposed… is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than $25,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than 24 months or to both fine and imprisonment.
This is rather vague, and likely intentionally so as to allow discretion since every circumstance is unique and the ultimate goal is to protect children with a fundamental principle that keeping them with their own parents if at all possible is in their best interest.
The facts in evidence likely do not warrant charges, although it would not be surprising if it were to trigger a child welfare investigation. Is this a case of an uncharacteristic lapse in judgment or an indication of a pattern of neglect.
The Markham incident also prompted an investigation by Ontario’s Children’s Aid Society.
Getting back to our Regina incident, providing this person is not a serial child abuser, the psychological trauma she has experienced is probably an adequate consequence.
Beyond the education of the specific parent, perhaps the best thing that can come out of this reminding other caregivers that children should never, ever, under any circumstances, be left unattended in a vehicle.
You would think that, if anything, would be common sense.
