{"id":824,"date":"2013-11-06T13:13:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T20:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/?p=824"},"modified":"2013-11-06T13:13:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T20:13:54","slug":"bc-gov-wasted-66-million-over-12-years-on-failed-aboriginal-child-services-bcpoli-bced-yteubc-idlenomore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/2013\/11\/06\/bc-gov-wasted-66-million-over-12-years-on-failed-aboriginal-child-services-bcpoli-bced-yteubc-idlenomore\/","title":{"rendered":"BC gov wasted $66-million over 12 years on failed aboriginal child services #bcpoli #bced #yteubc #idlenomore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lindsay Kines, Victoria Times Colonist<\/em><\/a>, November 6, 2013–\u00a0The B.C. government\u2019s failed attempt to reform the aboriginal child welfare system during the past 12 years has wasted nearly $66 million without helping a single child, the province\u2019s child watchdog says in a new report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond accuses the government and aboriginal organizations of blowing money on consultants, pointless research projects and endless meetings that go nowhere and deliver no tangible results.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be blunt, a significant amount of money has gone to people who provide no program or service to directly benefit children,\u201d she writes in her 86-page report, When Talk Trumped Service.<\/p>\n

More than half the money was spent on a failed effort to set up Regional Aboriginal Authorities, while the rest went to self-governance initiatives in the Ministry of Children and Family Development that bled money away from front-line services, the report says.<\/p>\n

Turpel-Lafond said the \u201ccolossal failure of public policy\u201d took place at a time when many aboriginal children have no safe place to live and no help coping with violence, abuse, mental illness and learning disabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren and youth deserve better, and the best contrition for this rather shameful debacle would be a real effort to improve the outcomes for those children by actually knowing what they require and what works to support them \u2014 to stop directing the money into the big theoretical fixes, and instead shore up the front lines of the system, especially in those places where the paved roads end in B.C.,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

Turpel-Lafond spares no one in her report, noting that aboriginal organizations \u2014 particularly political groups \u2014 have been willing participants in the fiasco.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether this is because they have been so overburdened by so many agendas . . . or if they believe that they are actually making progress, the representative is unsure,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

The report urges the Ministry of Children and Family Development to refocus its energy on delivering front-line services to children and leave discussions about a self-government to the Attorney General.<\/p>\n

Turpel-Lafond said Children\u2019s Minister Stephanie Cadieux has indicated that she was unaware of the problems.<\/p>\n

Cadieux, who is slated to speak with reporters this afternoon, issued a statement in which she said the ministry agrees with Turpel-Lafond\u2019s findings and recommendations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know our focus needs to be on providing direct services to aboriginal children and families,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThat\u2019s why, two years ago, the newly appointed deputy minister began the process of shifting the focus of contracts from governance to service delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n

All aboriginal contractors have been told that future contracts will focus on direct services, Cadieux said.<\/p>\n

She denied, however, that the money spent over the past decade was wasted. \u201cOur efforts to build relationships with First Nations communities have established a solid foundation for government as it continues to move forward on the development of government structures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0Victoria Times Colonist<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lindsay Kines, Victoria Times Colonist, November 6, 2013–\u00a0The B.C. government\u2019s failed attempt to reform the aboriginal child welfare system during the past 12 years has wasted nearly $66 million without helping a single child, the province\u2019s child watchdog says in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[406501,2251,2258,2259,635,524083,2265,2266,2273],"tags":[617412,1063369,1063365,1063374,1063379],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bc-education","category-budgets-funding","category-equity","category-ethics","category-government","category-idle-no-more","category-organizing","category-protests","category-students","tag-bc-education-2","tag-budgets-funding","tag-government","tag-k-12-issues","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}