Victim’s mother demands child welfare change
Courtney Scott, 16, died while in Ontario provincial care, far from family and home
The tearful mother of Courtney Scott, a 16-year-old indigenous girl who died while living in a group home told Ontario’s minister of children and youth that she wants her youngest daughter out of provincial care and brought home.
Sheila Scott-Mackenzie, clutching an eagle feather, told the all chiefs meeting of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) in Timmins that she has been sober for six years now, but she has been unable to get her children out of provincial care. One of her daughters, Courtney Scott, 16, died on April 21 after a fire tore through her Orleans, Ont., group home. She was the only group-home resident who was unable to escape.
“I want her back because I don’t want to lose another child. I just want her back,” said Scott-Mackenzie of her 15-year-old daughter to a silent audience, including Minister of Children and Youth Michael Co- teau and the leaders of the 49 First Nations that make up the NAN territory in northern Ontario.
“There needs to be change. They should have homes in our communities. My kids have lost their language,” she said, adding her late grandmother said it “seems this is like residential school all over again.” From the mid-19th century to the 1990s, 150,000 indigenous kids were placed in government-funded, church-run residential schools in order to Christianize them and assimilate them to Canadian society.
Scott-Mackenzie buried her daughter Courtney in Fort Albany on Tuesday.
In the last six months, four indigenous girls have died while in provincial group home care. NAN, along with the Chiefs of Ontario, are demanding an inquest into the girls’ deaths. The girls were all hundreds of kilometres from home when they died.
Scott’s death followed that of Amy Owen, a13-year-old girl who took her own life while living in an Ottawa group home where she was supposed to be receiving one-on-one care because she was suicidal. Before her, Kanina Sue Turtle,15, reportedly took her life on Oct. 29, 2016 but her family is still waiting to hear concrete answers to what happened.
And on Sunday, Tammy Keeash’s body was pulled from the Neebing-McIntyre Floodway after she failed to meet her group home curfew Saturday night. The 17-year-old artist and student was a member of North Caribou First Nation.
NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said it was important for Coteau to be at the meeting to hear the families’ pain and the anger in the communities. Fiddler said there is no reason why children should be sent 1,000 kilometres south to get the help they need. Often, kids are sent to live in group homes to access mental health care.
Fiddler wants to know where all the indigenous kids in care are and what their status is, what type of support they are getting and if they have treatment plans. He said there are “bits and pieces of information out there, but in terms of an overall database to tell us what the true picture is, there isn’t one that I know of.”
Scott-Mackenzie said she didn’t find out until days after Courtney’s death that there was a fire and that her daughter was gone. She was told her daughter “barricaded herself and that she started the fire, but I do not believe that,” Scott-Mackenzie said. She said she read in an article that the fire started at the front of the house, not in the basement.
“It is really hard to lose a child of your own. Courtney, one time when we were talking on Facebook, she said to me, ‘Mom, I need to be heard. I have a voice too. I need to be home with my family, especially with you mom,’ ” Scott-Mackenzie said.
Coteau went to address the NAN chiefs and privately he told Fiddler that he is working on a “blueprint” of reform including an “intensive site review team” of experts that can be dispatched to licensed group homes at a moment’s notice and the start of more unannounced inspections in provincial residences. The ministry also intends to strengthen safety in residences.
Also, they are working to better collect and disperse data on where indigenous children are being cared for.
NDP MP Charlie Angus, who attended the NAN meeting, said the deaths of the four girls weren’t accidents.
“This is systemic negligence. Each of these children have a name,” he told the Star. “Children are dying every day and nobody in Ottawa or Queen’s Park seems to give a rat’s a--.”