Introduction

The position of Representative for Children and Youth (RCY) was created after the release of the Ted Hughes report on "B.C. Children and Youth Review" on April 7, 2006. Its mandate is governed by a provincial statute called Representative for Children and Youth Act passed on May 18, 2006. According to the B.C. government, the function of the RYC is to improve services and outcomes for children in the province through advocacy, accountability and review. Primarily, RCY is a watchdog on the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). On November 22, 2006, an all-party Special Committee unanimously recommended to the Legislative Assembly that Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond be appointed for a five-year term as RCY. She receives a salary equal to that paid to the chief judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia.

On December 4, 2006, Ms. Turpel-Lafond assumed the office of B.C.'s first Representative for Children and Youth.

In 2010, Ms. Polak claimed that there are 30,000 child abuse complaints per year in the province with a population slightly over 3 million. This is a fairly good number to provide new business in the "child protection" industry. Like most British Columbians, Ms. Polak has not received "services" from MCFD before. Bombarded by information provided by bureaucrats, she totally believes that her front line "child protection" social workers are doing a great job, like all former ministers did. Parents, the service recipients of MCFD, are supposed to be clients. They are the only parties qualify to comment on the quality of the services rendered, not service providers, politicians, academics or judges. Perhaps Premier Gordon Campbell should appoint a parent who has received "service" from MCFD as the minister if he really wants to seek revolutionary changes.

MCFD enjoys absolute power in its "child protection" operations. It is accustomed to scrutinize parents by the subjective standard of its "child protection" social workers and run its operations with little accountability and transparency, if not total secrecy. Often, they use unsparing heavy-hand approach, remove children when they should not be or when less intrusive measures are warranted and take parents to court for lengthy legal proceedings. Apparently, the Ministry is not used to be scrutinized and taken to court by a watchdog. Conflicts often arise at the top level between the MCFD and the RYC. Recently, it escalated into a soap-opera like legal battle that embarrassed the government and cost taxpayers dearly in court and legal expenses.

RCY Won Court Battle To View MCFD “Confidential” Documents

Hostility between the two Mary’s, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond of RCY and Mary Polak of MCFD has gone public. At a B.C. Supreme Court hearing in Victoria on May 13, 2010, the Honourable Madam Justice Griffin awarded RCY the right to view MCFD “confidential” documents and ordered the Ministry to hand over confidential documents requested by the RYC. The documents in question relate to the issue of replacing the Child in the Home of a Relative program (CIHR) by the Extended Family Program (EFP). The RYC alleged that her office is entitled to view these documents to analyze why MCFD cancelled the CIHR program. The Liberal government responded by asking Turpel-Lafond to sign a protocol agreement that would give cabinet a veto over her reports. Furthermore, a “draconian” law was brought in that would retroactively limit her access to cabinet materials to March 30, 2007.

Former Conflict of Interest Commissioner Ted Hughes and Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Philip were in court watching the proceedings in support of RCY’s action.

Will MCFD appeal? The judge said MCFD had to hand over the documents immediately. Given the public backlash against MCFD for resisting the RCY request in the first place, an appeal would cause more public damage. After all, Mary Polak would not want to be caught “wasting taxpayer dollars” using her own words, for such an appeal. This is the price one pays for making such questionable off the cuff responses. Recall that it was Mary Polak who chided Mary Ellen for going to court.

The costs savings of placing a child with relatives, cuts in less than half the payments to foster parents (see the BCASW document). If the program was successful, why was it cancelled? If the program failed, why? At the point of writing, the reason(s) for canceling the program remains a mystery.

What is so important that MCFD is willing and was successfully able to pass a law that specifically prevented RCY from doing its mandated job? What was so important that RCY was then willing to publicize the problem and go to court, and MCFD, rather than concede, brought the matter more publicity by fighting the release of “confidential” information. Taxpayers have paid to collect that information, so why not let us take a look at it. While there are laws, such as the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, that allow a person to obtain information from government, Crown corporations and public bodies, bureaucrats often use costs as deterrence. Sometimes, applicants have to go to court, a very expensive exercise, to compel the government to release information they are entitled to receive by law.

In this case, two warring government tax-paid entities armed with high-priced lawyers fighting it out in court in full public view. With this public show, it certainly does appear as efforts to ensure accountability are occurring. We reserve judgment, however, pending RCY’s report on the documents in question.

MCFD’s Mary Polak has clearly lost this round by all appearances, and has likely done irreparable damage to the Ministry’s image and clout as well as put into question her own level of competence in her ministerial position. Was an inexperienced person like Mary Polak deliberately put into place so that she should fail, as expected, and would her inexperience and incompetence then be blamed for all the woes of the Ministry? God knows.

Fortunately for the public watching this debacle, a court date for the matter was quickly assigned, and the expedited judgment was rendered shortly and publicized the next day. The speed of this legal process is surprisingly rare. The 24-page decision handed down on May 14, 2010 can be found in the BC Supreme Court judgment web page.

What this event reveals is a release of pent-up anger from various sources who may have previously been afraid to speak out against MCFD. Afraid perhaps, that they could have been flagged as speaking against MCFD’s “valiant unsung efforts at preserving the safety of children.” The numerous comments from the public that accompany each story are overwhelmingly against MCFD and support RCY.

The Ministry has often been blamed for incompetence and not fulfilling its basic mandate to protect children. MCFD has become known for simply removing children based on extremely low thresholds of abuse, if abuse even occurred, or be attributed to the parents, and MCFD is also known as not bothering to first offer services that would address “concerns” that would avoid removals in the first place. At times, “child protection” social workers remove children as a first resort rather than as a last resort. Then, they babysit removed children in substandard foster homes at very high cost for years while delivering "services” and waiting for distant court dates to hear their applications.

Why MCFD does this is still a mystery. The 1.4 billion dollar recession-proof MCFD budget needs to be justified by the number of cases. Does bureaucrats and other special interests have to ensure a steady stream of removed children and foster homes filled to capacity in order to keep their jobs and protect themselves from the recession? Is an alternative to foster care that Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is researching a threat to this industry?

Half of the 14,000 children in care are aboriginal. Is MCFD targeting aboriginal families and removing them inappropriately? What is the ratio of children in aboriginal families placed with relatives compared to children from other ethnic groups? There are many unanswered questions surrounding MCFD's "child protection" operations.

To Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, we support your work to seek transparency and accountability. We are hoping you succeed in generating informative reports on the empirical results of MCFD's activities in improving the quality of children in care.

References

• Ron Unruh’s blog
• The Tyee
• The Time Colonist
• Advocacy BC
• The BC Association of Social Workers
• Commentary from BCASW on the CIHR program page 8
• CBC coverage

[This page was added on 17 May 2010, last revised 20 May 2010.]