Turpel-Lafond ends 10-year advocacy, outspoken as ever
Representative for children and youth says much more to be done
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond came in like a lion as B.C.'s first representative for children and youth a decade ago, immediately challenging the government to expand her budget and investigative powers. She did not go out like a lamb.
In an interview during her last week on the job, the former Saskatchewan provincial court judge expressed frustration that the Liberals have not named her replacement, fearing a gap in advocacy for B.C.'s most vulnerable youth.
During her 10 years in the B.C. office, Turpel-Lafond opened 17,000 advocacy files, issued 93 reports about failures in the system and made 194 recommendations for change. While she believes her work has led to improvements for children and families, she argues there is still much more change necessary to improve child welfare.
“The bigger issues around child poverty, domestic violence, supports for aboriginal children, young people aging out of care, the bigger things that involve the expenditure of money, fully staffing the ministry in hard-to-recruit places, these are matters that remain open,” Turpel-Lafond said.
When asked about her achievements, she lists helping to boost adoptions to a 10-year high in B.C. and persuading 12 post-secondary schools to waive tuition for foster youth.
She also cited encouraging the reduction of the number of children in foster care, now 7,000 compared with 10,000 a decade ago.
However, she wanted that number to be even lower, and believes that could have happened if the province had not refused to pay aboriginal families the same fees as foster parents to take in vulnerable nieces, nephews and grandchildren. The percentage of foster kids who are aboriginal is 60 per cent, up from 50 per cent in 2006.
“The aboriginal issues are ones that I’ve pushed on pretty hard … and we need to do a lot of work there,” Turpel-Lafond said.
“I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been able to preserve, expose, advocate, but with a decade of austerity budgets, mostly with stand-pat or cuts to the child-serving sector, it’s pretty hard sometimes to find things to serve children and families. And what was there even a decade ago has eroded.”
One of her biggest disappointments is not persuading the government to raise the age of foster care to 24. The ministry has made several improvements for youth who age out at 19, but it is still a piecemeal support system for these youth who often struggle with housing, work and stability.
“The modest enhancements to youth leaving care — the $1 million they announced (last) week — it’s valuable and every little bit counts, but I wanted proper support. Vancouver Foundation has estimated that’s at least a $57-million investment. That piece is not there.”
One of the many stories she told that touched her the most? That of Paige, who overdosed in the Downtown Eastside shortly after aging out of foster care. Turpel-Lafond ruffled feathers when she said the system treated Paige with “professional indifference and racism.”
“Everyone was saying, ‘Well the child welfare system is improved and it’s all better.’ But then we have Paige. I think Paige is a reminder that there will still be kids in SROs and invisible and in tent cities.”
Turpel-Lafond served under two premiers and four children’s ministers, and recalls periods of “rapid improvement” — such as under former minister Mary McNeil — and periods with a slower pace of change, including under the current minister, Stephanie Cadieux.
“Minister Cadieux has maintained the effort on adoptions, and I give her full credit for that, however she has been very slow to be able to get more money into the system. There was a slight uptick to restore the budget … (but) improvements have been piecemeal.”
Turpel-Lafond’s blunt reports created a fractious relationship with the Liberal government. There was a public spat with the speaker, an attempt to limit her access to cabinet documents, and a report by a former deputy minister that essentially called for the dismantling of her office.
“(That report) was done in a way in which backroom, insider, parlour games happen in Victoria. It was a bit of a train wreck, and it was unfortunate. ... If they thought that it could be some way to destabilize a voice for children, I think that was underestimating the extent to which children and families have been touched by the work of this office.”
Although Turpel-Lafond’s term expires at the end of November, she is using up vacation time and is now done as representative. She wishes her replacement had been named by now for a smoother transition and some guarantee that a handful of incomplete reports — such as one into the high-profile case of Alex Gervais who died while he was placed (against child welfare rules) in a hotel — will be finished and released.
“It is very difficult to close a door and have an office collect dust when I know how significant the need is to be actively involved in individual cases and reporting on improvements. ... As you can imagine in the life of kids, with important decisions — like where they are going to live, or if they get medical treatment or what have you — every week is important.”
The government says an interim representative will likely be appointed by the end of November and that a permanent replacement will be sworn in next spring, the soonest the legislature is expected to sit again.
For now, Turpel-Lafond says she will spend time with her four children, and did not reveal what might be next for her.
“I hope that another representative will come and pick up the torch and continue to keep kids as the focus, and I’m sure that we will have that because I don’t think British Columbians will accept anything less … But I think anyone who does this role can’t underestimate how difficult it is.”