Whitewashing Neglect of Children

November 1, 2007

Whitewashing Neglect of Children

On October 31st Lindsay Kines of the Times Colonist exposed the Campbell government for its neglect of programs to help sexually abused children and for its disregard for the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Kines demonstrated the kind of investigative journalism that wins awards. He submitted a freedom of information request for documents dealing with sexual abuse of children, including a review of the Ministry of Children and Family Development's Sexual Abuse Intervention Program (SAIP). He received a heavily edited version of the SAIP review, but he also obtained a leaked unedited copy. The difference is shocking and has resulted in a complaint to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Commissioner on how the review was edited. As his colleague, columnist Les Leyne, wrote: "Amazing how little Wite-Out you need to do a whitewash."

Kines reported that the unedited review concluded that the "47 agencies and societies helping abused children felt neglected, isolated and short-changed by government." The program's budget, according to an earlier investigation by the Times Colonist, "had been frozen at $3 million for 17 years."

Premier Campbell was sworn into office on June 5, 2001; as of Halloween 2007, he has been in power for 2,309 days. The number of days is relevant because Campbell started his run at government with "90 days of action", and in that 2,309 days he has had enough time for 26 such periods of action, long enough to take responsibility for anything that's wrong rather than blame the former government.

Naturally the NDP raised Kines' revelations in question period. Children and Family Development Minister Tom Christensen followed in the footsteps of his Minister of State Linda Reid, who recently made a fool of herself over her government's distribution of child-car-seats through Liberal constituency offices. In response to accusations of political interference in freedom of information requests, Christensen said:

"I can tell you that the Ministry of Children and Family Development receives well over a thousand FOI requests each year. I have nothing to do with a single one of those, but in fact we have a piece of legislation that balances access to information with a number of other considerations."

"There are professional public servants within the ministry that receive those requests. They apply the legislation as they believe is appropriate. If the member has a difficulty or if any member of the public who has made a request has a difficulty with how the act has been applied, they have a very fair and independent means of addressing that. It's called the freedom-of-information commissioner."

It is an insult to the professional public servants who handle freedom of information requests for Christensen to hide behind them. It is well established that the politically appointed public affairs bureau has sign-off authority on information requests, particularly requests from journalists. The Campbell government has frustrated professional public servants who often have to tell those who have made requests that "they are waiting sign-off". Is the Campbell government so confident that those public servants are gagged that it feels that it can use them as a shield?

On October 29th Christensen was also on the hot seat, this time answering for a 20% increase in child abuse investigations open for more than 90 days. He said that the Campbell government is adding resources to deal with the problem, but the next day the BC Association of Social Workers issued a news release in which they said:

"The continuing inability of the Ministry of Children and Family Development to complete child protection investigations within the standards it has set is the inevitable result of a child welfare system that has been managed by a government more concerned with meeting an arbitrary budget than with meeting its child protection mandate. Despite the infusion of additional funding, and the hiring of 200 additional social workers since 2001 (which did not replace the numbers that were lost at that time), the child welfare system continues to be under-resourced."

Ted Hughes made the same point when he investigated the Ministry. Christensen may be hoping that a professional association or union won't speak out on behalf of information officers who are routinely frustrated by political interference, frequently from the public affairs bureau. As Les Leyne wrote: "The widespread suspicion that government message-massagers can monkey around with information requests to their hearts' content is now conclusively proven. Colleague Lindsay Kines has caught them red-handed."