The B.C. government has revealed that investigations into 713 child deaths were halted when it shut down the B.C. Children's Commission three years ago .

That's much higher than the figure of 80 released by B.C.'s chief coroner earlier this week.

Solicitor General John Les (File photo)
Solicitor General John Les (File photo)

"Clearly that's unacceptable to me. It's unacceptable to me as the solicitor general. It's unacceptable as a parent, and as a British Columbian," says Solicitor General John Les, who disclosed the figure in Victoria on Thursday.

Les had said earlier he knew nothing of this until a month ago.

Then on Monday, B.C.'s Chief Coroner Terry Smith dropped a bombshell, disclosing that about 80 children's deaths had not been reviewed. The next day, Les said he had just learned the real figure might be significantly higher.

NDP Children and Family Development critic Adrian Dix (File photo)
NDP Children and Family Development critic Adrian Dix (File photo)

The 713 deaths did not get secondary reviews by the Child Death Review Unit. The majority – 439 – were investigated by the coroner, but 274 children who died of natural causes didn't even get that level of review.

Les says there's obviously been some sort of disconnect between the government and the coroner's office. And he promises that all the deaths will now be reviewed properly.

NDP critic Adrian Dix calls the new figure "staggering" and says the government is clearly guilty of negligence, since it shut down the Children's Commission and cut the budget of the coroners service.

"They eliminated the Childrens Commission, they eliminated the Children's Advocate...and then they cut the budget of the coroner," he says

"These were not by accident. These were public policy decisions of the government. This was negligence, and we don't need a government minister to provide more explanations, more defence, more systemic blame.

"The blame is clear. It lies with the premier. These were intentional public policy decisions and they were wrong."

Dix says this demands an independent investigation – not one by the minister and his staff.

The solicitor general says there's no evidence budget cuts had anything to do with the failure to complete the child death reviews.



Premier Gordon Campbell (File photo)
Premier Gordon Campbell had admitted on Wednesday there was a "systemic breakdown" in the government plan to have the coroner's office take over the files on children's death reviews.

Following the release of the numbers from the coroners service on Thursday, Campbell was asked what message he had for the families of the dead children.

"Every one of these deaths has been investigated. The issue here is, have they gone through a second stage investigation and they will all go through a second stage investigation," he says.

"And what I have to say to the families is, I'm sorry if they've been waiting. Clearly there was a problem, and we're going to fix it."

In fact, more than a third of those deaths – all of them from natural causes – were not investigated by the coroner. And none of the 713 had a secondary review by the Child Death Review Unit.