Child advocate won’t get new powers — for now

Expanding the powers of Alberta’s child and youth advocate isn’t on the government’s to-do list right now, the children’s services minister said Thursday after being questioned following the release of new photos of a girl who died while in government care.

Instead, Children’s Services Minister Danielle Larivee said she will await the recommendations of Alberta’s all-party child intervention panel, charged with identifying ways to fix a broken system.

The death of four-year-old Serenity in 2014 was again brought up in the legislature Thursday after photos of the little girl on life support were published the day before in the Edmonton Journal.

Larivee called those images “horrific.”

“As human beings, we’re devastated to think that such a small child would have gone through that,” she told the Journal.

Serenity’s death was the focus of a round of questions thrown at the government by opposition MLAs Thursday. Jason Nixon, Wildrose’s panel representative, wanted to know when somebody will be charged in Serenity’s death.

The case has been in the hands of Crown prosecutors since last year.

Larivee wouldn’t comment on the legal aspects of the file, but told Postmedia she’s confident prosectors are “doing all they can to deal with a very difficult case.”

“I think some members (of the panel) would like to see this about holding a trial for the people involved in the Serenity case and turning it into an inquiry, instead of being about what changes we can make to the system,” she said.

“I’m very focused on protecting children in the future.”

Questions in the house came after a Thursday morning meeting between Larivee and child and youth advocate Del Graff.

Larivee said giving Graff ’s office more power wasn’t part of their conversation — it was more about the need to work closely together to improve the child welfare system.

Larivee said she’s pleased with the work of the panel so far and the collaboration she is seeing around the table.

She is also confident it will be able to pull together recommendations to improve Alberta’s child death review process within the next three weeks.

Calgary-Shaw NDP MLA Graham Sucha is also on the child intervention panel and Thursday made a passionate plea for all parties to work together to protect children in government care.

“It is clear that our system can, and must, be improved,” he said.

“While we feel many things when we see these photos and hear these stories, we must never feel hopeless or helpless, because we have work to do. All of us.”

While we feel many things when we see these photos ... we must never feel hopeless or helpless.

This picture of Serenity, a four-year-old First Nations child from central Alberta, was taken on Sept. 24, 2014, at the Stollery Children’s Hospital. The abused, emaciated little girl died a few days later.