Child Welfare Cover-Up

February 25, 2006

Child Welfare Cover-Up

Stan Hagen's "statement" on the release of Jane Morley's report is disgusting. The Minister for Children and Family Development reacted to Morley's report by saying:

"I want to put this report in context. This is about a Director's Case Review following the tragic death of a child. I agree that there was an organizational failure with respect to this individual case review - it took too long and there was miscommunication all along the way. Could we have chosen a better reviewer? Probably."

Global TV, "BC's most watched news", covered the much awaited news item on its noon and 5 PM broadcasts with the graphic "No Cover-Up", before dropping all coverage from its 6 PM news.

The "reviewer" was Nicholas Simons, on contract to the Ministry, when he was a social worker (he is currently an NDP MLA). Simons is bound by the terms of a confidentiality agreement not to comment on his report, and therefore it is cowardly of Hagen to attempt to shift fault to Simons when he cannot defend himself without violating his oath. Fortunately all of Simons' recommendations are included as Appendix 14 to Morley's report. The Attorney General's Ministry appears to have considered the Child and Youth Officer's Report into Sherry Charlie's death to be sufficiently important so as to set up a special link to the report on the Ministry's website.

Morley's report states:

"This report is not an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the child's tragic death. That is the task of the Coroner's public inquest. Nor is it an investigation into questions of legal responsibility, including responsibility for the child's death, that are the functions of other forums. What this report addresses is why were the terms of reference for the Director's case review changed? Why did it take more than two and a half years to complete the case review? What is there to be learned from this experience about how to improve the Director's case review process?"

In other words, Morley's report focuses on NDP MLA Nicholas Simons rather than on the many failings of the Campbell government. Some would ask "why are we surprised"?

Early in her report, Morley stated: "Overall, my observation is that the story of this Director's case review is not a story of conspiracy and cover-up, but rather one of organizational failure". In sharp contrast to Morley's observation, NDP critic Adrian Dix issued a news release in which he said:

"The facts as presented by Ms. Morley are clear," said Dix. "The Ministry of Children and Family Development is incapable of independent review and analysis. Too many key details, pieces of information and recommendations were suppressed by the ministry. The consequences of that suppression are substantial and worrisome."

Dix included a backgrounder to his news release in which he itemized the differences between the recommendations originally made by Nicholas Simons, as evidenced in Appendix 14 of Morley's report, and the recommendations that were made public in the government's sanitized version of the report, a sanitized version that Morley referenced in a August 4, 2005, news release which said: "she has read the severed director's case review of Sherry Charlie's death and is satisfied that the information cut from the report was taken out for privacy reasons as required by law." Appendix 14 is now available for everyone to see on the Internet; it contains recommendations which many would conclude were removed to protect the government, not because anyone's privacy had to be protected.

This long and painful case is now in the hands of Ted Hughes who will report on April 7th. Expectations are high that the former Conflict of Interest Commissioner will put the protection of children ahead of the protection of the Campbell government.