B.C.’s representative for children and youth plans to step down at the end of the summer, after less than two years on the job.
Bernard Richard, 67, said he’s returning to New Brunswick to be closer to family and help support an Indigenous child-welfare initiative in that province.
“In the end, family is the reason we headed west in the first place and it is the reason we have decided to head back east,” he said. “An aging father, lonely grandchildren and divided loyalties became too compelling to ignore.”
Richard, whose father is 93, said he loved the work and will continue to work in the same field in New Brunswick.
“But home is home,” he told reporters. “My first language is French. I miss being able to go to the post office, the hockey rink, the store and speak French every single day to everyone I meet.”
Richard was named the children’s watchdog in November 2016. He served in an acting role before his official appointment to a five-year term a few months later.
By announcing his departure now, Richard said, the legislature will have nearly five months to find a replacement before he leaves on Aug. 31.
“Hopefully, a new representative will be selected soon enough that I will be able to support the transition in leadership,” he said.
NDP MLA Nicholas Simons, who chairs the standing committee on children and youth, thanked Richard for his service.
“Your time here was not as long as we would have hoped, but it has been valuable,” he said.
“I think your approach has been appreciated.”
Richard said his main accomplishment was resetting the strained relationship between the representative’s office and government officials. Former representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond noted in her final report that then-minister of children and family development Stephanie Cadieux had refused to meet over the previous 12 months.
“Clearly, when I first arrived, every meeting I attended there was a kind of tension that wasn’t healthy,” he said. “I really saw my role quickly as re-establishing trust between our office and primarily [the Ministry of Children and Family Development].
“And that, I think, has happened.”
Richard said he met with Liberal and NDP ministers, as well as their deputies, to establish working groups on difficult issues, recommendations and care planning. “They call me and I call them, so there are good communications.”
Richard said he would advise his replacement to take advantage of the office’s independence. “Mary Ellen was supreme at doing that; she was an amazing representative for children and youth. So it was hard to follow in her footsteps.
“But you also have to maintain a level of balance,” he said. “It’s never personal. Systems operate in the way systems do and they’re imperfect, and bureaucracies are imperfect. So finding ways to make progress happen is more important, sometimes, than making a point. That’s what I think I’d like to pass on.”
Richard said he has no immediate plans to retire. Instead, he has agreed to support an Indigenous child welfare initiative in New Brunswick that is based on a model of service that he helped develop before coming to B.C.
