The new Minister of Children and Family Development, Christy Clark, is strangely silent on the cancellation of one of her ministry's major initiatives, regionalization of child protection. Judith Lavoie of the Times Colonist broke the story that the planning committees have been disbanded and any attempt to shift services to regional authorities will be delayed until fiscal year 2006-07 at the earliest. The news came from a memo to staff from the Deputy Minister. Nothing has been posted on the Ministry's website and no news release has come out of government on yet another major setback.

On March 24, 2003, in his last estimates debate, her predecessor, Gordon Hogg, said:

"As members know, Children and Family Development is moving toward a five-region governance model that reflects the boundaries of the five health districts. Interim CEOs and regional planning committees were appointed last year, and extensive community consultations have been going on for months. Most of the planning committees are now writing their reports for submission in the coming weeks. The next step will be the appointment of interim authorities and boards. This will take us into a period of comanagement that will last until the interim boards have met all the readiness criteria and can give way to permanent authorities that take on responsibility for service delivery. That was originally scheduled for April of 2004 but may be as early as next fall for one or two of those regions."

Many may find it strange that a project that was set to go, that had hired interim CEOs, is suddenly put on the back burner. The reason lies, at least in part, on financial chaos. On February 6, 2004, the Ministry issued a news release titled "Ministry Upgrading Financial Management". The title is somewhat ironic in light of the audit on how $400,000 was written off without proper authority. Amongst the changes announced in the release was "Grants to support transition planning for regional and community governance are being reviewed. Audits of grants to aboriginal planning committees will begin immediately and will focus on recommendations to improve future practice."

The government that campaigned on the basis of being good managers is proving itself to be incompetent. Don't hold your breath waiting for an admission of how much was wasted on the failed planning exercise; the government might not be able to suppress information on financial irregularities that no doubt contributed to the cancellation of regionalization.

The Ministry's website still boasts a picture of Clark being sworn in. It is time to update it with some hard information:

• What is happening to the failed regionalization initiative?
• How much did it cost?
• What is the impact on children at risk?
• Has the elimination of practice audits lowered standards?
• With no regional authorities to certify, will practice audits be restored?
• Why has the government that campaigned on a promise to bring stability to the Ministry, created chaos?

Read, or better yet view, estimates debate for March 24th to hear Christy Clark's arrogant responses to the NDP's Jenny Kwan, as she confidently held her to account. Clark repeatedly dismissed Kwan's questions with high school debating points as if she didn't have to be accountable. Clark didn't appear to understand that she is accountable for hundreds of millions of tax dollars, and it is not good enough to say that questions should have been asked at some other time. Her attitude is one of the reasons for their dramatic decline in the polls. It is unfortunate that thousands of children who depend on the Ministry can fall victim to that arrogant attitude.