The Canadian Press
Chinta Puxley
WINNIPEG—Manitoba is changing how it counts the number of children in its care to exclude hundreds of cases such as Tina Fontaine’s amid concerns it is being unfairly compared to other provinces.
The 15-year-old, who was killed in 2014, was placed into the care of Child and Family Services voluntarily by her guardians.
Unlike other provinces, Manitoba counts voluntary placements in its total number of 10,293 children in its care.
But changes are being made to how the numbers are reported publicly.
The province no longer will include children who voluntarily are placed in care as part of the overall number. When those 700 are removed, the official number falls below 10,000.
It also will exclude kids who are brought into the system under new customary care legislation, in which children at risk of apprehension are placed with a family member in their community.
Both will be reported in a separate category.
Manitoba has continued to come under fire for the large number of children in its care.
It also is facing a provincial election in April and the First Nations’ children’s advocate is calling the changes a “deplorable” election ploy.
“Children’s lives, human lives, are reduced to be ploys in their campaign tactics. It’s deplorable,” charged Cora Morgan.
Family Services minister Kerri Irvin-Ross said Manitoba is just levelling the playing field.
There is a world of difference between apprehension and a voluntary placement, she noted.
“They’re reaching out to us and saying, ‘Please come and help us.’ They can come at any time and say, ‘I want my child back,’” Irvin-Ross remarked.
“It’s very different than a case of a child coming to school with bruises and Child and Family Services being called . . . and feeling they have to apprehend for the child’s safety.”
The number of kids in Manitoba’s care has jumped 55 percent since 2006. Almost 90 percent are indigenous.
The province has one of the highest child apprehension rates in Canada and seizes an average of one newborn baby a day.
Neighbouring Saskatchewan—a province of a similar size—has about 4,000 children in care.
Alberta and B.C. each have more than 7,000 kids in child welfare.
Irvin-Ross said the number of Manitoba children in care is troubling, but comparisons to other provinces are unfair because they don’t include voluntary placements in their totals.
She added the province is focusing more on supporting families and keeping them together.
But Morgan called the changes crass self-preservation designed to “distract us from the calculated theft of children for the last 15 years.”
Conservative critic Ian Wishart said other provinces do not count kids who are placed voluntarily into care because there are so few of them.
“They’re trying to make it look like they’re reducing the number and making progress downward but, the reality is, they are still responsible for that many kids in one form or another,” he reasoned.
“It’s a bit of an exercise in public relations, to put it bluntly.”
