The new representative for children and youth, Bernard Richard, appeared before a B.C. legislature committee this week, and “reset” was one of the things on his mind.
As in, resetting the toxic relationship that developed between his predecessor, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, and the Ministry of Child and Family Development over years of showdowns about children in care.
Turpel-Lafond’s farewell report last October after 10 years in office noted the minister, Stephanie Cadieux, “has refused to meet with me at all during the past 12 months.”
That followed a sustained period of bureaucratic guerrilla warfare between a zealous watchdog who used her oversight powers to the maximum and a defensive, overstressed ministry that eventually started ignoring her.
Turpel-Lafond also remarked: “This government must work on its ability to own up to its shortcomings and to address them.”
On that note, Richard enters the picture, after years in a similar post in New Brunswick.
He’s already accomplished one thing — he met with the minister, which counts as a notable achievement given the past record. He has also scored meetings with the deputy minister and Premier Christy Clark.
The need for a reset is apparently on their minds, as well.
Richard told reporters Clark would be happy to start afresh.
“She knows we won’t always agree. Sometimes I’ll push them further than they’re ready to go. But that’s the nature of the job. I’m prepared to take the heat and I’m sure she can pitch it right back. She’s done that in the past.”
As for the work at hand, he advised MLAs to look forward to five reports this year. Two are on specific horror stories about now-deceased former children in care, one reviews staffing issues in B.C.’s 23 delegated aboriginal agencies, one reviews education support and another updates progress on adoptions.
But he served an intriguing notice on the committee that he won’t be counting the recommendations usually included in such reports as a measure of progress.
“The work of this kind of office is not to make recommendations; it’s to effect change. I want us to focus on where we can be most effective and where we can actually help change happen.”
Prompted by NDP MLA Melanie Mark, he also all but signed up as a supporter of a poverty-reduction strategy in B.C., something that’s been a political cause for several years. Turpel-Lafond also advocated for such a program.
He spoke favourably of New Brunswick’s version, and said as a former politician, “I served under a premier who would always say that the best social program is a job. I understand that reasoning. It just doesn’t work for everyone in any society in the world.”
What Richard does with the job remains to be seen. But the committee also heard some thoughts about the job itself — from the man who invented it.
Ted Hughes, the far-sighted architect of the representative’s function, delivered his views on whether a major change in the mandate is needed.
He wrote the representative’s original job description at a time of scandalous failures in child care. So it included monitoring and auditing the child-welfare system. Although most of the office’s work is case-by-case advocacy, it’s the monitoring function that gets all the headlines.
Hughes suggested at the time that independent monitoring might not be needed forever. After a few years, the ministry might be trusted to measure, monitor and report on its own performance.
Five years later, in 2011, the ministry said it was in the process of achieving that, and just needed two more years.
But it’s still not there yet, and the idea of stripping independent monitoring from the representative’s responsibilities has been kicked around long enough.
Hughes said it’s time to decide for keeps whether the function remains, or whether to continue waiting for the ministry to take it on. “You either get a plan and follow through … or decide that it’s going to stay as a permanent feature of the act and not spend any time on it.”
He said he wouldn’t be upset if it stayed, which looks to be a strong likelihood, as the reset progresses.
