CKNW Editorial
for June 14, 1999

Children and Families Minister Lois Boone must go and the Premier must find someone with brains and jam to run this ministry.

This is one of the most important ministries in government – and surely its most testing. It’s better to jam the whole thing back into a big welfare ministry as it once was than raise and dash hopes as the NDP have done by giving families and kids their own ministry and then messing it up.

Both Cynthia Morton and more lately Joyce Preston, able and independent officers appointed to help identify problems and deal with them, have dumped all over this ministry and, by logical extension, its minister. She simply does not have the confidence of those she is mandated to serve.

It was not all that long ago that we didn’t think much about children and families – we didn’t think we had to. Wasn’t everyone born into a pleasant two-parent family where they were brought up well fed and well educated and with a strong moral base from which they would become ideal citizens?

Oh, there were some juvenile delinquents … and of course some orphans which the state and private money took care of. There were no native children in trouble, of course, because Indians were all tucked away on reservations and their children really didn’t matter did they?

Our society was a long time coming into the real world and I would like to give credit to this government for finally facing our responsibilities – but I can’t because it took a number of tragic cases, especially the Matthew Vaudreuil case and the Thomas Gove report before it moved.

But it did move. It raised enormous expectations. Things were going to get better and for a while it seemed as if they would. But they haven’t.

Last Fall our program, through the Unofficial Opposition, looked at the ministry. There was little to boast about. More noise had been made, that’s true, but the reality was that nothing really had changed. Social workers were badly overworked – many more were needed. The spirit amongst those in the ministry matched those they served – it was terrible. Children were still unacceptably at risk with scores of unexplained deaths. Parents felt threatened by the system as they had in the past. But clearly there was one problem that transcended all others – there was no leadership.

Last Fall the minister, Lois Boone, responded to our request for an interview as part of the Unofficial Opposition’s look at her ministry. We heard over and over from her what her ministry was going to do to the point where I exclaimed in frustration What have you done!! When are these reforms and changes to actually happen?

Just before I went away Ms Boone was my guest again … apart from the obligatory accusing me of having a right wing agenda, nothing had changed. I might just as well have played a tape of her earlier interview … the two interviews were indistinguishable from one another in lack of substance.

This isn’t good enough. There are still a few, I suppose, who think that this is all mollycoddling the leeches on society. These people are, happily, fewer on the ground but as many as there are must be delighted with the ministry of Lois Boone because it has failed utterly to meet its mandate and has failed because the NDP government has not put into it the leadership and resources it needs while at the same time discouraging the private charitable section from filling in the vacuum.

There are magnificent public servants in the system … as a grandfather of a special needs youngster I know that from personal experience. But they are unbelievably harried and overworked – and dare I say it, underpaid. Our society has a huge problem in this area and it is a problem which, if not properly dealt with, costs society 8 or 10 times as much as it would it the problem was properly faced at the beginning. Neglected, badly treated children turn into hugely expensive adults. This isn't a case of doing charity – though it’s that too – but of saving money out of future budgets.

The most tragic part of this maladministration is that it raised such hopes. Families in need and their families and friends thought that the government meant it when they said they would do something.

The sad fact is that there simply may not be anyone in that lamentably untalented NDP caucus with the brains and gumption to handle this job. Even if that is so, Premier Clark must try to find someone. Lois Boone must go before it gets any worse – anyone would be an improvement.