Thoughts on BC Politics and More

“ It’s time for the NDP government to start treating people as their first priority .” ~~ Rosalyn Bird, BC Conservative Shadow Minister for Children and Family Development While many British Columbians desperately struggle to access essential supports after seven weeks of BC’s ongoing public sector strike, the NDP government continues to dismiss the consequences of managing the economy with callous disregard. The resulting BC General Employees Union strike is disrupting application and payment processing for a number of essential programs relied upon by the province’s most vulnerable. Seniors, people with disabilities, students relying on grants, and those on social assistance are all being forced into desperate measures to make ends meet amidst the current chaos. BC taxpayer-supported debt has tripled since the NDP took power in 2017 and now stands at over $134 billion. Operating deficits continue to break records annually, with an expected $11.6 billion shortfall for the 2025/26 fisc...

Claire Rattée, MLA for Skeena   A 12-year-old girl found alone in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Reports suggest she may have already been sexually assaulted, yet somehow, she ended up on the street without support. The group home she lives in allegedly reported they were “aware” of her location. How can the ministry justify letting a little 12 year old girl in their care wander the DTES on her own and not intervene?  In a statement the Ministry of Children and Family Development said “When a child in care is absent from the home environment, caregivers and social workers are tasked with working in the best interest of the child, which often involves continuous risk assessment, difficult decision-making, and navigating complex factors related to the child’s life circumstances.” Yet, no one intervened, despite reports of sexual assault and drug use. The Downtown Eastside is ground zero for this government’s failed policies. If a child in government care can disappear into ...

Across Canada at any given time, more than 50,000 children and youth are living in government-paid placements through the child services system. Most of the 50,000 children live in foster placements, and others live with extended family or in congregate settings called group homes.  Children are placed in the child services system when their parents can’t take care of them. It’s traumatizing to be separated from one’s parents and removed from one’s family home. Throughout their lives, children and youth in the child services system may be moved several times for reasons outside of their control ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

No SAJE Rent Supplements Paid Since February 2024:  Opposition Slams NDP for Failing Youth in Care While $300K Was Spent on Swag Claire Rattée, MLA for Skeena and Official Opposition Critic for Mental Health and Addictions, revealed during a recent Finance Committee meeting that no rent supplements have been paid under the SAJE program since February 2024, despite the program being legislated two months later. The discovery came during public testimony from a woman who described how vulnerable youth, including Indigenous youth, are being denied housing support while ministry staff admit they don’t know when payments will resume. SAJE (Strengthening Abilities and Journeys of Empowerment) was meant to provide up to $600/month for two years, with half the funding reserved for Indigenous youth aging out of care. Instead, no payments have been made since February 2024, the September intake was skipped, and frontline staff have received no direction. Meanwhile, the government spent ...

“This System Is Broken” MLA Claire Rattée Demands Immediate Action and Cross-Ministerial Review   VICTORIA, B.C.:   Claire Rattée, MLA for Skeena and Official Opposition Critic for Mental Health and Addictions, is calling for immediate intervention and a full systemic review following the case of an 18-year-old Indigenous woman who has been failed repeatedly by British Columbia’s care systems. The young woman has been living in a homeless encampment for nearly a year. She is being sexually assaulted, using fentanyl and meth, and has experienced multiple near-death overdoses. Despite her pleas for help and her father's ongoing advocacy, no coordinated intervention has taken place. Her case, which includes serious allegations of abuse and neglect, highlights glaring gaps across multiple government ministries and systems: She was molested in a hospital by a convicted nurse and later placed with male staff despite documented trauma. She was placed in a su...

  Chantelle Williams/Facebook “Somebody has to come out and tell the truth on what happened and who’s at fault” ~~ Martin Watts, Uncle of Chantelle Williams The Conservative Party of BC is urgently calling for a coroner’s inquest into the death of 18-year-old Indigenous youth Chantelle Williams, who tragically died under the care of Usma Nuu-chah-nulth Family and Child Services, an agency of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. Her family is disturbed by the lack of transparency and unanswered questions surrounding her final moments, and are seeking answers on who was responsible for her care and supervision and why no one noticed she was missing until it was too late. Chantelle was found unresponsive in Port Alberni in the early morning of January 28, 2025. She was later pronounced dead in the hospital. Temperatures had dropped below –7°C the night of her death. Her family is demanding clarity on the circumstances that led to her untimely passing, and they demand answ...

A provincial program meant to support young adults from the foster care system has not provided any of its expected rent supplements in more than a year, IndigiNews has learned. Sources say the Strengthening Abilities and Journeys of Empowerment (SAJE) program has not provided any of the anticipated rent payments since February 2024 — two months before the program was enacted into “B.C.” law — raising concerns about the initiative’s future ... CLICK HERE for the full story

. . . . The way the school district, the RCMP and the MCFD responded to the assault allegations horrified Claire and her husband. The ministry, for example, insisted Bailey be questioned without their parents present — something Claire and their husband were unwilling to do because Bailey was already struggling with anxiety and being away from their parents, especially Claire. When Bailey initially disclosed the assault to Claire, they said they wanted to keep it private. Claire and her husband were concerned that placing Bailey into an interview alone with the MCFD to recount the assault would exacerbate the child’s trauma. The parents wanted to be there to provide emotional support to their child if they needed it . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

BC’s minister of children and families said there’s no policy that requires a foster child to be removed from a home if the foster parent has a terminal illness. Mitzi Dean was responding to an emotional plea in question period from BC United party MLA Mike de Jong on Tuesday asking the minister to stop the removal of a foster child from her foster family because the father has terminal cancer ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Of course Mitzi Dean should resign as children and family development minister. Dean should have resigned in June after revelations of horrific abuse of a sister and brother she was supposed to protect in a foster care placement a judge described as a “house of horrors.” The emaciated 11-year-old brother died as a result of the abuse. I won’t detail the tortures the children endured over 18 months after they were taken into government care. But imagine young children you know subjected to beatings, degradation, starving and despair. With no escape, and no one to protect them. Just waking up each day into a nightmare ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The Tyee has obtained a second damning audit of a region where one Indigenous child died after horrific abuse in the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The audit, obtained under freedom of information legislation, showed an even worse compliance rate with ministry standards than an earlier audit found. The audit found social workers failed to regularly visit children placed in foster care in all 14 files where it was required, and expressed concern over whether police and parents were notified when children went missing from care. The report notes in a redacted section about responses when children go missing that there were “no plans developed as required" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Good morning, and welcome to day seven ... a look back at the top posts and commentaries of the week – the ones you responded to the most – starting first with a commentary from Conservative Party leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis ... #10 ... It is high time that we started making sure that our Conservative principles of opportunity for all, safety and security, and clean air, soil and water apply to EVERYONE in Canada (June 22 nd ) ... Conservatives believe in equal opportunity. Outcomes, however, are largely determined by personal effort. Those who work hard do better than those who don’t. It is our understanding of personal responsibility and equal opportunity that helps us spot when there is injustice or discrimination in our systems ... #9 ... Viability of ranching (in the Chilcotin) is based on Crown land grazing -- including millions of dollars in infrastructure on Crown land that is now in jeopardy (June 23 rd ) ... a group of ranchers in the Chilcotin region of British ...

Over the past several years, much has been said about BC’s Legal Aid system ... much of it negative.   To the governments credit, it recently undertook an external review of Legal Aid Service Delivery in BC ... this by Jamie Maclaren, QC. According to a media release from the Ministry of the Attorney General today, Maclaren’s report follows an external review and public engagement with legal aid users that was conducted in fall 2018. It includes 25 recommendations and identifies which parts of the current service delivery model are working and where investments and changes can be made to improve services for all British Columbians who use legal aid. Legal aid services and systems were analyzed with the objective of determining if there were opportunities for better user outcomes, user experiences and system efficiencies. Maclaren’s review was informed by written submissions from the public, an online survey to lawyers and legal advocates, and personal consulta...

Investments under the Early Years Strategy will see the BC government -- NO, BC TAXPAYERS -- funding 5,000+ new child-care and after-school program spaces, as well as early childhood educator (ECE) bursaries for 2017-18. Based on feedback the government has received from the child-care community, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) will be launching a new two-stage application process to support the creation of up to 4,100 licensed child-care spaces. Details on program information sessions, applications and criteria will be available online beginning on Wednesday (March 15th, 2017) According to a BC government media release last week, non-profit child-care providers will be able to apply for up to half a million dollars in funding, and private child-care providers will be able to apply for up to a quarter million dollars in funding, to help build new child-care spaces in communities across the province. The release went on to say th...

Recently, two stories in the news, caught my attention.  One was in the Metro News, entitled Investing longer in teens leaving B.C. care would more than pay for itself , which stated: You have to spend money to make money, and that adage may apply to foster care as much as it does to business, according to a new study. For the nearly one thousand 19-year-olds who “age out” of B.C. foster care system every year, an economic report released Monday has found that spending just $57 million in supporting those youth until age 24 would more than pay for itself — and potentially even save taxpayers nearly five times that amount . The second was in the Tyee, entitled Life Skills Program for Former Foster Kids Seeks Boost , made a couple of comments I found both interesting, and sad: ... when life skills coach Linda Liss’s most motivated client, a young First Nations woman who had aged out of foster care, joined a gang, Liss knew it was the child welfare s...