Eminent Victorian Ted Hughes was perturbed by the reaction to the encyclopedic report he delivered this year on the horrifying death of a five-year-old native girl in Manitoba.
There was plenty of shock value in the circumstances of the murder, and the youth-care system’s entirely futile efforts to watch over the child. The Manitoba government promptly accepted his recommendations for fixes in that regard.
But people seem so inured to the problem underlying the case that there is little shock left. The problem is the gross over-representation of aboriginal children in child-care systems across most of the country. Hughes explored that critical issue, but that part of his report didn’t get the attention he thinks it needs.
Phoenix Sinclair was beaten to death by a stepdad after a hellish life that almost defies description. Her story had close parallels to the Sherry Charlie case in B.C. in 2002, when the 19-month-old girl was beaten to death by an adult male in the home. That tragedy led indirectly to Hughes’ appointment to an inquiry that recommended the changes to the child-welfare system that have been in effect for seven years.
Hughes has a record of accomplishment that stretches back much further than that. But his B.C. child and youth review in 2006 earned him huge credibility in that field, which is why the Manitoba government retained him to lay bare the full Phoenix Sinclair story. His work on the compensation hearings for residential school survivors also contributed to his reputation.
His report landed in February. Reflecting on the aboriginal over-representation, he said cross-Canada research shows First Nations children are taken from their homes in far greater numbers, “not because they are aboriginal, but because they are living in far worse circumstances than other children.”
He cited reasons that have been offered for years — loss of identity, cultural dislocation, conditions on reserves, all of it rooted in the residential school experience and the colonial legacy.
The upshot is entrenched, hopeless poverty. Hughes said the challenge is beyond the reach of a child-welfare system, or a ministry or even a single provincial government.
He urged Manitoba to take the problem to the Council of the Federation meeting. Premier Greg Selinger is moving on that issue, but Hughes thinks it needs a helpful push.
So he turned to it again in a Victoria speech this week to staff of the representative for children and youth. The problem is as obvious and remarked upon in B.C. as elsewhere.
Just this week, for example, it was noted that 40 per cent of those in custody at the soon-to-be-closed Victoria Youth Custody Centre are aboriginal. The aboriginal custody rate is declining, but the non-aboriginal rate is declining more steeply.
And Paul Lacerte, from an association of native friendship centres, gave a committee of MLAs on Wednesday an exhaustive account of the over-representation problem in all facets of youth mental health in B.C. Natives are “massively over-represented” in foster care, and the levels of mental health-related problems across the board are sky-high.
Hughes noted in his B.C. report that aboriginal children are 9.5 times more likely to be taken into care. He said the general trend of over-representation is similar across Canada. Representative for children and youth Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond noted that 53 per cent of children in care are aboriginal, but only 5.4 per cent of the population identify as aboriginal.
Hughes said the general problem is treated almost as a non-issue, and accepted simply as the status quo.
But he has a mind to change it, starting with a plan to elevate the concern to the agenda of the provincial premiers’ meeting in August. He’s about to turn 87, and he and his wife, Helen, have taken on more causes than there is room to list.
He assured me this will be his last crusade. Based on his track record, it will be worth watching, and one B.C. should join.
