Charges laid in toddler’s 2017 daycare death
Boy was 16 months old when he lost life at unlicensed, unregistered operation
The parents of Baby Mac, who died at an east Vancouver daycare more than three years ago in a case police called “gut-wrenching,” say they are relieved the daycare operator has been charged.
Sixteen-month-old Macallan Wayne Saini, son of Shelley Sheppard and Chris Saini, died on Jan. 18, 2017, inside an unlicensed and unregistered daycare on Kitchener Street near Commercial Drive.
Yasmine (Susy) Saad, 41, has been charged with two counts of failing to provide the necessaries of life and with one count of fraud over $5,000, Vancouver police said Thursday.
“Shelley and Chris are pleased and relieved to know that criminal charges have finally been brought against Ms. Saad relating to the horrific and preventable death of their infant son, Macallan, while he was in Ms. Saad’s custody,” John Rice and Tony Leoni, their lawyers in a lawsuit against Saad, said in an email.
“Criminal proceedings, though, will never bring Baby Mac back home to them. Given that there are now concurrent criminal and civil proceedings before the courts, the Saini family has no further comments at this time.”
After the death, Baby Mac’s parents and others called for changes to the daycare system, resulting in a searchable database that a non-profit child care advocate said doesn’t go far enough.
“We don’t want our sweet boy’s death to have been in vain,” Sheppard and Saini wrote in 2017. “The daycare system in British Columbia needs massive reform.”
“The details of this file are just gut-wrenching,” Const. Tania Visintin said. “As nothing can take away the pain of losing a child, we hope the family can find some closure knowing that charges have been laid.”
Visintin said the fraud charge was related to elements of deceit involving the operation of the daycare and how it was presented to a number of other families whose children were enrolled. She could not elaborate.
When asked why the investigation had taken more than 3½ years, Visintin said investigators initially had presented a number of different charges to Crown counsel and were in communication over which charges would be most effective and had a higher likelihood of conviction.
“The threshold was different for each charge, there were certain elements needed to be met for all these different charges now that were presented,” Visintin said. “So investigators did have to go back and look for other evidence, so all of that took time.”
In September 2018, Sheppard filed a lawsuit alleging negligence by Vancouver Coastal Health, the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Saad, and the owners of the property.
B.C. requires anyone caring for more than two children not related to them to obtain a licence.
Since the death, the province created a searchable database of licence-not-required child care providers — those with two or fewer children or exempt from licensing regulations — with any complaints against them, to provide “information regarding facilities which have been substantiated to be in contravention” of provincial law, according to the Health Ministry’s website. It has 63 daycares listed, but some of them have since complied with regulations and are no longer in contravention.
“These service providers are not monitored or regulated,” it says. “As such, they may present an increased risk to the health and safety to those who receive services from them.”
Pam Preston, executive director of Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre, a non-profit, government-funded agency that helps parents find daycare at no charge to the parents, said the databases were designed to help parents learn more about a daycare.
But she said because a daycare isn’t listed “doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a problem. It may mean it’s because no one has complained about it.”
As nothing can take away the pain of losing a child, we hope the family can find some closure knowing that charges have been laid.