Child Deaths

The Campbell government employs, at your expense, dozens of public relations officers. Notwithstanding that, it didn't manage to get a news release out about the Chief Coroner's 2005 report on Child Death Reviews, nor did it mange to post that report to the top level government website. Buried deeply in the maze of government websites, it is possible to find a link to the report on the bottom of a page on "BC Coroners Service Child Death Review".

The report reiterates what Medical Health Officers frequently say when reviewing Vital Statistics for the year: use seatbelts, learn how to swim, store firearms and ammunition safely. No one should doubt that dozens of lives could be saved if that often repeated advice were followed. The report revealed: "Sixty-six (23%) of the 286 reviewed child deaths, occurred between 2000 and 2005, and involved children in the care of or children receiving services from the MCFD (i.e., the child received services under the Child and Family Community Service Act within the 12 months immediately preceding their death)."

The report stated: "The data presented in this report is a statistical summary of 640 child deaths reviewed by the Child Death Review Unit from January 2003 to August 2005. While this data does not represent all of the child deaths that have occurred since the formation of the CDR Unit, as investigations are not fully reviewed until the case is closed, the sample size is sufficiently large to be representative of all child deaths reported to the BC Coroners Service."

Legally, a child or "infant", according to the Infants Act, is a person under age 19. According to Vital Statistics, 376 children died in 2003, and 351 in 2004. Extrapolating for January through August 2005, a further 324 deaths occurred in the first two thirds of 2005, for a total of 1,051 during the period when the Coroner's Service reported on 640 deaths, or less than 61% of the total. While the Coroner's report asserts that "the sample size is sufficiently large", nothing in the report discusses how samples were taken, consequently, it is impossible to determine whether the samples systemically excluded the most controversial deaths.

There was a time in British Columbia when the death of every child was reviewed, but in the name of cost saving, the Campbell government eliminated those reviews. The Coroner's Report stated: "There were a disproportionately higher number of deaths of Aboriginal children, particularly Natural deaths. Aboriginal children were also over-represented among children in-care or receiving services from the MCFD." Since the Campbell government eliminated reviews of each death, we may never know why Aboriginal children are not only over-represented, but why there has been an increase in infant mortality since 2000. Officials will say that the numbers are too small to be reliable; when he was in opposition, Gordon Campbell would have been quick to say that any death was one too many.