Children’s Advocate Act gets nod from PCs, but faces time crunch

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This article was published 02/12/2015 (3269 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A bill that would broaden the mandate of the Office of the Children’s Advocate got a qualified thumbs-up from the Progressive Conservative Opposition as it was introduced on Thursday, but the Selinger government still faces an uphill battle getting it approved before the spring election.

PC Family Services critic Ian Wishart said the government’s second attempt at expanding the role of the advocate — as recommended nearly two years ago by a public inquiry — is a much better effort.

“I am encouraged by what I see. I’m looking forward to the (public) hearings on this one,” he said.

But with only three weeks left in the session (Feb. 24-March 15), there’s not a lot of time for MLAs to do their due diligence in examining a complex bill, Wishart said.

As reported previously by the Free Press, Bill 16 (The Children’s Advocate Act) would increase the independence of the children’s advocate’s office, allowing it to investigate a greater range of serious incidents involving children.

With its passage, the advocate would be able to probe serious injuries as well as child deaths, and the scope of the investigations would not be limited to child and family services. They would also extend to children’s dealings with the justice and health systems.

Furthermore, the advocate would have greater discretion in making its findings public.

The expanded role of the Office of the Children’s Advocate was recommended by retired justice Ted Hughes nearly two years ago in his report into the death of Phoenix Sinclair, a child who was murdered while in care of CFS.

In late spring, the Selinger government introduced an earlier version of the bill, which was generally panned as inadequate. By early September, Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross took the unusual step of withdrawing the first bill and announcing it would be replaced by a more comprehensive measure.

But the timeline for getting it passed before the April 19 election is tight, and Irvin-Ross knows it.

She said her department will brief the Opposition on the bill on Friday.

Irvin-Ross said Thursday the government always intended to expand the role of the children’s advocate as Hughes recommended, and the first bill was always considered a first step in the process.

But she said the government found after further discussions — both internally and with outside agencies — that it could move more quickly than it initially thought.

“It was a lot of work (within) the department, amongst the authorities and the agencies and the children’s advocate herself,” Irvin-Ross said of the legislation introduced Thursday.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca