New law for foster care deaths
Government lifts identification ban
Four years after her baby suffocated to death in a collapsed bassinet while in foster care, Toni Omeasoo is free to publicly speak her daughter’s name for the first time. Phoenix Majestic Omeasoo. She can show you a photograph of her daughter’s sweet baby mohawk, her chubby cheeks, her pretty brown eyes.
She can do this because the Alberta government has quashed the publication ban that made it illegal to name or share photographs of children who have died inside the province’s foster care system.
“I want people to know what happened to her, I want her to be remembered,” Omeasoo said through tears Wednesday. “She is not forgotten, and there are people who care about what happened to my family. Maybe it will change something for another mother.”
At a meeting Wednesday, the Progressive Conservative cabinet proclaimed a new law that allows families and caregivers to speak publicly about the death of a child.
Media outlets can now publish names, photos and stories of the kids’ lives, unless a judge grants a publication ban in an individual case.
The new law comes into effect eight months after a joint Edmonton Journal-Calgary Herald investigation revealed the province dramatically under-reported the number of children who have died in care and failed to monitor implementation of recommendations to prevent similar deaths.
The series examined the province’s publication ban, which was passed in 2004 with little legislative debate. The government said it protected the privacy of families grieving after the loss of a child; critics said it protected the child welfare system from meaningful scrutiny of its worst failures.
“We’ve taken a very significant step to increase openness and transparency in the child welfare system,” Human Services Minister Manmeet Bhullar said. “We have freed the system and those involved in the system from the burden of secrecy.”
He said each child matters and the stories of their short lives and tragic deaths “must be told.”
“We all need to learn from their stories, we need to make our system better and make our society better as a result of their stories,” Bhullar said.
“It is the right thing to do.”
It remains illegal in Alberta to publish identifying information about a living child who is receiving child welfare services from the province.
Families of children who have died in care still have the right to request a publication ban, but it is no longer automatic and they must go to court to ask a judge to put the publication ban in place.
NDP critic Rachel Notley said she is still concerned the ministry will use a section of the new law to place publication bans on the name of every child, recreating the effect of the old law. She also said the government has “disrespected” the committee process by proclaiming the law before regulations are in place.
“Overall, though, I do believe that if the government were to come to the table sincerely to resolve those two problems, the overall impact of lifting the publication ban will increase accountability and transparency,” Notley said. “That’s a very good thing.”