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FILE PHOTO
Phoenix Sinclair was only five years old when her
mother, Samantha Kematch, and stepfather, Karl McKay, murdered her on the Fisher
River First Nation.
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By
Austin Grabish, The Express Weekly
The province is pledging to better its
child-welfare system while supporting families who are at risk of losing their
kids, but will take several years to implement key recommendations from the
multimillion-dollar Phoenix Sinclair inquiry.
Family Services Minister Keri Irvin-Ross said it
may take the province as many as seven years to implement the 62
recommendations made by the $14-million inquiry into the death of the
five-year-old girl, who’s murder went undetected for months by child-welfare
officials.
And the province won’t commit to acting on all of
the recommendations from the inquiry.
Extending care to all kids in the child-welfare
system until the age of 25 is one of the recommendations the province may not
follow through with, Irvin-Ross said at a press conference last Tuesday.
“What
I’m saying is that we’re going to review that recommendation and we’re going to
come up with a plan that’s balanced and supports the youth…,” Irvin-Ross said.
“I have had ongoing conversations with Commissioner
(Ted) Hughes. He knows that some recommendations may not be implemented as he
has recorded them, but he accepts that and knows that we’re working towards
improving a better system.”
“It has to be a balanced approach,” she said.
Irvin-Ross
said the province plans on moving forward with a more holistic approach for its
child-welfare system.
"We're shifting our emphasis from protection
to prevention. Prevention is the best protection.”
She said
the province will boost in-home funding supports for families by 60 per cent,
noting poverty is an underlining problem for kids in the child-welfare system.
“We have to address the root causes,” Irvin-Ross
said.
“Our
priority is to keep children at home safely.”
Progressive Conservative Family Services critic
Ian Wishart said the province should be moving forward quicker with many of the
recommendations.
“We feel that that’s an unacceptably long-time
for children to continue to be at risk,” Wishart said in a telephone interview.
“We know that everyday children are at risk and
the system is failing them and you need to make the improvements in the system
not just talk about them forever.”
He said the murder of a 21-month-old toddler on
the Peguis First Nation last summer is an example of why changes to the system are
needed.
The young girl was in the child-welfare system at
some point in her life, and her parents and step-sister have been charged in
connection with her death.
He said the Peguis toddler’s death was “eerily
similar” to Sinclair’s.
Sinclair’s mother and stepfather beat her to
death in 2005.
“I think that really drives it home,” he said.
Wishart said there are nearly 11,000 kids in the
province’s child-welfare system, and
87 per cent of those kids are aboriginal.
Irvin-Ross said the province will establish an
independent indigenous children’s advocate, but questions about the proposed
advocate’s ability to criticize the government have already been reported.
Grand Chief Derek Nepinak said the
province didn’t properly consult the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs before
announcing its plans last Tuesday.
“AMC was intentionally left out
and there was marginal engagement of AMC member First Nations,” Nepinak said in
a press release.
-- First published in the Express Weekly News print edition February 5, 2015 p.3
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