On behalf of the children [editorial]

We’re taking this opportunity to give a nod of the head to a couple of remarkable women in our community who know a few of things about pushing an agenda forward despite the great force of government working to thwart their efforts. These women do what they do with great skill and good humour, but know how to lock horns with the best of them when the situation demands it.

Both of these women have ruffled the feathers of Canada’s most powerful to state that what is being done to the country’s most vulnerable—children in care—is unacceptable, and in many cases reprehensible.
Cindy Blackstock is the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada.
Blackstock has led the charge against inequity, attempting to use Canada’s own Human Rights laws to demonstrate the miserly and wrong-headed approach the federal government applies to funding child welfare services on reserve. A human rights tribunal dismissed the complaint she made that First Nations children living on reserve are discriminated against because they don’t get the same level of financial support that off-reserve children receive from the provinces. The fact that Canada was “satisfied” that the complaint was dismissed on a technicality shows the uphill battle Blackstock, and those involved in fighting this inequity face in motivating Canada to do the right thing. The fact that she’s preparing to get back into the ring for round two, bringing the case to a federal court, makes us proud to have her on the side of our children.

We’re also proud to say we have Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond fighting on behalf of our children. Establishing the office of B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth was an initiative of the legislative assembly. The idea for the office was spawned from a review of British Columbia’s child protection services, completed in 2006. The Representative advocates on behalf of children and youth, because they “deserve” to be protected and feel safe. And the Representative works to hold the government and those providing child protection services accountable through investigations, reviews and audits.

Turpel-Lafond is unapologetic when exposing abuses and inadequacies in the child welfare system in that province. She is independent from government and Turpel-Lafond has had to skirmish on many fronts to keep that autonomy pure and true.

She’s not shy about wading in to alligator-infested waters either. We’re anticipating her report about the tasering of a young boy by police in Prince George. The police report was, let’s say, timid in its response to one of their own using a taser on a kid living in a group home, saying that the officer involved did not use excessive force. Whether it was the right way to handle the situation remains to be seen.

When it was learned that the Minister of Children and Family Development under its Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services was using phallometric testing on boys 12 to 17 years of age, some of whom were special needs, the Representative felt it necessary to ask why. Phallometric testing measures sexual arousal as an indicator of deviant sexual behavior, and the practice was halted once advocacy groups raised the matter publicly, but the Representative felt an examination of the subject was still warranted, in case the minister changed his mind.

Her most recent report about a four-month-old’s death in care describes the child welfare system in B.C. as chaotic and inadequate. Turpel-Lafond said the BC government has used the delegated authority system as a way to avoid responsibility, rather than a way to provide the best for children in care.

With comments as clear and pointed as that, Turpel-Lafond is sure to have made a few enemies since her five-year appointment in November 2006. She’s soon up for re-appointment, and one wonders if the Liberal government under new Premier Christy Clark will have the coconuts to face another five years under Turpel-Lafond’s scrutiny.

Good luck to you ladies. Your work is important to us.

Windspeaker