At Least She Wasn't A Lesbian

In January 2007 an Edmonton foster mother took her three year old boy to the hospital with serious head injuries. As the situation was investigated she was eventually charged with second degree murder. The trial ended last week and the mother was found guilty of manslaughter.

Around 1997 Alberta explicity banned gay and lesbians from being foster parents after a well known and highly successful foster mother was outed as a lesbian. Children were abruptly removed from homes where they were doing well, and the gay foster parents were told their services were no longer required. Dr. Lyle Oberg, the social services minister at the time told the gay parents that they would have to prove scientifically that they would not harm children because of their orientation. Of course the outcome was predetermined and Oberg lined up the usual collection of pseudo-Scientific evangelical quacks to prove that gays were harmful. All pro gay arguments were ignored.

The fact that the government considers it safer to put a child in a home with a woman capable of this outcome rather than a lesbian parent who had a long term record of success and safety would suggest that their fake family values bigotry actually puts children at risk.

Fast forward to the fall of 2008. Edmonton Strathcona MLA Rachel Notley is gathering more and more evidence that the whole child care system is being seriously mismanaged. Status reports have not been filed for 3 years, and when they are finally filed they are done so on October 14, 2008, the day of the Federal Election. The government's response, not unexpected, is to announce that nothing is wrong, the Minister is doing a great job, and to start drafting legislation to clamp down on information being released.

Janis Tarchuk had an opportunity to turn this department upside down and fix it. But that would have taken courage. Instead the status quo is defended and a veil of secrecy is pulled over the whole mess.

This is not the Alberta I grew up in. Please recommend this post

Alberta Children and Youth Services a Mess

The Calgary Herald is calling for the resignation of Janis Tarchuk, Alberta's Minister of Children and Youth Services. Yes, you read that correctly, the Calgary Herald calling for the resignation of an Alberta Tory cabinet minister. I would have to say this is probably the first time this has ever happened. Usually they defend them.

Alberta Children and Youth services has been in a mess for many years. Rachel Notley obtained the departments quarterly reports (for internal use only) through an Access to information request. The fact that she actually got the reports was really astonishing. Someone wasn't paying attention. Usually the way it works in Alberta is the Government asks for a 50 million dollar photocopying fee or some other deterrent. Neither the Liberals or the NDP have a lot of research money to pay for these searches.

The Annual reports for the last 3 years were all tabled on the morning of the recent federal election, October 14, 2008. Apparently there are some major differences between the interal quarterly reports and the sunshiny cheerful external annual reports.

The interim reports paint a picture of a department that is not meeting the needs of children and youth who are in danger from their parents or other unacceptable circumstances.

According to today's Calgary Herald editorial:

Two separate issues are at the fore. One is the shortage of care facilities for children, as revealed by the quarterly internal reports which the NDP obtained. Non-aggressive children were housed with others labelled as sexually acting-out or aggressive. Sexually abused children were returned to parents who questioned whether the abuse was real. Children were placed with caregivers on whom inadequate background checks were done. Children were forced to remain among others who allegedly sexually abused them. Some children were left in situations where all the adults involved knew and agreed that their needs weren't being met.

The Minister replied to the allegations with the usual stuff about how the issues were not presented properly or something like that. The Premier insists the Minister is not going anywhere and that she is a paragon of child loving virtue.

One thing I'm confused about is that if the reports were filed 3 years late, then why does the Minister say that many of the accusations are not substantiated. Do I understand that to mean that it takes three years to figure out if a child is being sexually assaulted or not?

There will be no resignation. Ms. Tarchuk stares into the camera with her dull Sarah Palin expression knowing she is protected from any kind of accountability. Now that I think about it, I really can't ever remember a Alberta Tory cabinet minister being fired for anything. Please recommend this post