B.C.’s child-welfare watchdog is taking the provincial government to court.

Representative for Children and Youth Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court in Victoria on Tuesday seeking access to cabinet documents so she can complete one of her audits.

Turpel-Lafond said she has exhausted all reasonable alternatives for getting the information and that court action is the “only avenue” she has left. She declined interviews until the matter is settled by the courts.

The petition against the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Children and Family Development comes just days after Turpel-Lafond said she was “blindsided” by government legislation that would limit her access to cabinet documents.

The legislation, introduced Thursday, would not only deny her such access in the future, but retroactively limit her ability to see cabinet documents as far back as March 30, 2007.

Turpel-Lafond said she wasn’t consulted about the government’s proposed changes, but they appear to be the culmination of a lengthy dispute over access to cabinet documents related to the province’s Child in Home of a Relative program. The program serves about 4,400 children who are unable to live with their parents.

Her office started an audit of the program in 2008, and she expressed surprise in February when the government’s throne speech announced changes that would see it absorbed into a new Extended Family Program.

Turpel-Lafond argues in her petition that the government has failed to comply with its legal duty to turn over the documents so she can complete the audit. The government’s intention to pass retroactive legislation is no excuse for failing to obey the current law, she said.

She has asked for an expedited hearing to take place no later than May 13.

Children’s Minister Mary Polak dismissed the petition as “unfortunate” and a “waste of scarce resources.”

She said government has repeatedly asked Turpel-Lafond to sign a “protocol agreement” that would let her view the cabinet material but limit her ability to make the information public in future reports. Other independent officers of the legislature, such as the auditor general, regularly sign such agreements, said Polak. “We’re not asking that she do anything that would be any different than any other independent officer.”

But Turpel-Lafond has said her office’s legislation clearly grants powers to gather such information and protect its confidentiality. A protocol agreement would amount to a “veto” over her reports, she said Friday.

Polak insists that, despite the proposed legislation, Turpel-Lafond still has access to confidential Children’s Ministry files and coroner’s reports, and can publish such information as she wishes.

Government has an obligation under law to protect the confidentiality of cabinet documents, which generally include the presentations and reports ministers use to justify their decisions, said Polak.

The issue is not whether Turpel-Lafond’s office has the right to read such documents, but whether she has the authority to disclose them publicly in her reports, said Polak.

Since 2006, Turpel-Lafond has only accessed cabinet documents once, and did not use that information in any of her reports, said Polak.

NDP children’s critic Maurine Karagianis said the dispute reflects the government’s ongoing resistance to independent oversight of the child-welfare system.

“Since the day that this office was imposed upon government with force, they have presented all kinds of barriers to listening to the recommendations of the Representative for Children and Youth,” she said. “And now they are taking the further steps of trying to strip away her powers.”

lkines@tc.canwest.com

rfshaw@tc.canwest.com