Alberta legislation would "draw curtain" over child welfare: NDP
Last Updated: Saturday, November 15, 2008 | 7:40 PM ET
The Canadian Press
Embarrassed by a recent controversy over the delayed release of child welfare reports, the Alberta government will likely move next week to keep them secret in the future, an NDP critic says.
Rachel Notley, an NDP member of the legislature, said Saturday the provincial government is expected to introduce legislation on Monday that would make it nearly impossible for the public to get information about children in government care.
That information is contained in annual and quarterly reports by Alberta's child and youth advocate — reports that the NDP has used to highlight problems in the system.
"They're drawing the curtains on what's going on in our child welfare system. They're shutting down the transfer of information and sort of putting it behind closed and locked doors so nobody can keep track of what's going on," Notley said.
New rules would prevent access to reports: Notley
Opposition parties have used freedom of information legislation to gain access to these reports.
But NDP officials say, under proposed new rules, access to such reports under the privacy legislation would be cut off.
That information could then only be released by the minister, something Notley suggested isn't likely.
Preventing freedom of information requests on such reports would prevent the public from finding out what kind of problems exist in the child welfare system, Notley said.
That means the Alberta government won't be held accountable for its problems, she added.
"We know already that the system is not working, and the government gives us vague assurances that they're going to fix it. But if they know we have no tools to hold them accountable, then we can assume that it's probably not going to get done," she said.
Last month the provincial government released annual and quarterly reports dating as far back as 2005 after the NDP launched a freedom-of-information request.
Calls for resignation
There were calls for the resignation of Janice Tarchuk, the province's child and youth services minister, after she tabled three annual reports from the children's advocate, all at once and on the same day as the federal election.
The reports outlined a litany of problems with some of the roughly 9,000 children in government care.
They included the chronic use of face-down restraints and allegations of peer-to-peer sexual abuse in which the victim and abuser remained in the same placement.
Tarchuk said last month she was concerned that one of the reports was delayed by as much as three years.
She said she had asked John Mould, the children's advocate, for a more timely release of the reports in future.
Mould also said in an interview last month that he chose to focus his office's resources on advocating for children in care, and "miscalculated" the consequences of not releasing annual reports.
The NDP said it only learned of these provisions in the proposed Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Amendment Act on Friday after going through some briefing notes.
Government officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
