When the Campbell government fired the Children's Commissioner and the Family and Youth Advocate and replaced them with the "Child and Youth Officer" as part of the Attorney General's Ministry, many expressed concern that the watchdogs had been muzzled. The new Officer's annual report for 2003-04 confirms those concerns. In 12 pages of tiny print the only criticism it makes of the Ministry of Children and Family Development is concern over the delay in moving control over service delivery from Victoria to community organizations. The report states that "The delay in devolving governance risks the loss of what has been gained. The trust and engagement of those who have put energy into the transformation cannot be turned on and off like a tap."

The Child and Youth Officer, Jane Morley, Q.C., began her report by emphasizing the importance of goals, and then laid out four goals for her office:

1. "Communities throughout British Columbia have sufficient resources and decision-making power to effectively share with government responsibility for the service delivery system in those communities."
2. "The communities of indigenous peoples in British Columbia have sufficient resources and capacity and the necessary autonomy to provide culturally affirmative and effective services for their children, youth and families."
3. "Children and youth in care have measurably improved outcomes."
4. "Children, youth and their families meaningfully participate in decisions affecting them."

The goals are admirable, but "have" could have been replaced with "do not have" when it comes to evaluating the performance of the Campbell government. It is important not to misread the goals as a statement of what has been achieved. Other than the weak criticism of the government for disbanding the regional planning committees, nothing in the report suggests criteria for measuring the attainment of the goals, let alone evaluating the performance of the government's handling of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The Ministry is in chaos. It is suffering from continual reorganization, something Campbell specifically promised not to do. Concentration on not being able to make deep enough budget cuts has taken attention away from other issues, but cuts are being made. One might expect that the Child and Youth Officer would have something to say about how the chaos is affecting children-in-care.

The third goal, measurably improved outcomes for children-in-care, is the most important. It is reasonable to expect that the Officer's report would set out a couple of measurable outcomes as examples, but all it talks about is the need for co-operation between ministries so as to improve the exchange of information. The report refers to the statutory obligation in section 70 of the Child, Family and Community Service Act to provide children-in-care with a level of care that meets community standards, but it says nothing about how often that is or is not being done. It is not noted in the Officer's report, but in 2003 the Ministry finally agreed to make information available on the number of deaths of children-in-care only to retroactively revise the figures in early 2004. It appears that the Ministry cannot even keep track of how many of its charges have died. In a May 2002 document titled "Measuring Success: A Report on Child and Family Outcomes in BC" over 100 outcome measurements are set out. If the Child and Youth Officer is serious about her goal, she might look at some of those indicators and report to the public on how the Ministry is doing. That would be a lot better than making excuses as is done in the report when it states "Sufficient resources are a prerequisite for an effective service delivery system. Yet there is never enough money to fund health, education and welfare needs, including the needs of child welfare systems." That is a fine attitude for the Officer who should be informing the public whether or not the government has provided adequate resources so as to meet its statutory obligations to children!