Committee to review budget for child and youth advocate
Process to begin soon after final changes proposed for the provincial advocate act
As the legislature ponders changes to the province’s child death review process, a larger review of the act governing the child and youth advocate is set to wrap June 22.
The legislative offices committee has been examining the act governing the duties of the child and youth advocate for almost a year, but put its work on hold while the all-party child intervention panel completed its first phase.
Chairperson David Shepherd said the committee largely focused on the advocacy role of the office.
With legislation tabled this week, the committee’s work kicks back into high gear.
The act review is serendipitous in a sense; it’s a legislative requirement that rolled round just a few months before the details of Serenity’s death were uncovered by Postmedia.
The four-year-old indigenous girl was in government care when she died in 2014, weighing just 18 pounds and arriving at hospital with severe injuries that included a fractured skull and a body covered in deep bruises, including her anal and genital areas. No charges have been laid in the case.
The panel is only partway through the second phase of its work, in which it’s undertaking a broad investigation of the child intervention system.
The committee is mandated to have its own review done by June 22, but Shepherd doesn’t expect the two reviews to clash, much as they avoided it last time.
“I suggested (committee members) review (the panel’s recommendations) and consider what they wished to bring forward for our report so as to avoid significant duplication, and I do believe we were pretty successful with that,” he said.
Once it has proposed its final changes to the advocate act, the committee will likely have a second task on its hands — reviewing the budget of the office of the child and youth advocate.
It will be up to child and youth advocate Del Graff if he wishes to have his budget reviewed, but with the broad swath of changes coming, Shepherd thinks there’s a good chance they will meet him at the table.
Children’s Services Minister Danielle Larivee said this week she expects the committee will support the expansion of the advocate’s duties.