Let Mr. Simons Speak

DoTheRightThing
WhistleblowerVille

In her recent budget Ms. Carole Taylor promised to restore some of the funding to the BC Ministry of Children and Families that Gordon Campbell's Liberal government had previously slashed, and some might say burned, out of it.

But how do we know this government and the Minister currently running this 'Yes Minister' ministry will do the right thing with the money?

Because, clearly, the problem here is more than just money.

Way more.

As exhibit 337,492a, we offer up the latest on the Sherry Charlie tragedy from Paul Willcocks:

The director’s review, an internal investigation, was supposed to look at the lessons that could be learned. (The Liberals had eliminated the Children’s Commission, which provided effective oversight when a child died. The Coroners’ Service is supposed to investigate child deaths, but has failed. An inquest into Sherry’s death was only held this month.)

The ministry’s internal review was plagued with problems. It hired Nicholas Simons to do the review. Simons, now a New Democrat MLA, was then executive director of child and family services for the Sechelt Nation then.

Simons hadn’t done a review like this before, and the ministry never clearly conveyed its expectations. The review went through 25 drafts and ended up pretty much as Simons submitted it in September, 2003, Morley reports.

But not entirely. Recommendations on ways the ministry could improve were gradually eased out of the report.

The ministry view was that the report should only look at whether people followed existing policy, not whether those policies were adequate to protect children. (Simons’ initial draft said that homes where children were to be placed under the new “Kith and Kin” agreements should be evaluated as thoroughly as any other placement; the ministry resisted including the recommendation.)

Perhaps now we can understand why Mr. Simons was not allowed to speak at the Coroner's Inquest or why the current Minister in charge of the Ministry, Mr. Stan Hagen, was so quick to discredit Mr. Simons almost immediately after Ms. Morely's non-report, report was released.

And no, to the best of my knowledge we are not living in a Joseph Heller novel.

Because this is a very real, not a comic, tragedy.

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