A woman from Labrador is demanding to know why child welfare officials didn't listen to her warning about a young boy's home life, just weeks before he died in a house fire.

Her complaint is raising new concerns about child protection services in the province.

Christine Tremblett of Happy Valley-Goose Bay says child welfare officials didn't do enough to help the children who died in a house fire in the community in 2008. (CBC)

Christine Tremblett of Happy Valley-Goose Bay is speaking publicly for the first time since the fire in June 2008 that killed Matthew Gear Allen, 13, and four others, including a five-year-old girl, who were in the house at the time.

The children died in hospital in St. John's, the day after the fire.

Investigators said the blaze, which raced through a two-storey home causing significant damage, was accidental, possibly caused by a lit cigarette. Police said at the time alcohol may have been a factor.

Tremblett, who lived across the street from the boy's family, said she saw the troubles Allen faced long before she approached social workers three weeks before the fire and offered to take him in.

"I told them, like, I said, 'I'd even take this boy,'" she told CBC News.

"I kept a blind eye for too long and I was doing this for the best interests of Matthew. There was quite a bit of drinking going on, and I know there was drinking going on for two days prior to my phone call [to social workers], and like I said, I had enough. He was too beautiful to be having to see these kind of things."

Five people died after fire swept through this home in Happy Valley-Goose Bay in June, 2008. (CBC)

On the night of the fire, Allen's mother took him to someone's house where there was a gathering.

During the evening, the RCMP arrested his mother, who had been drinking.

The police said that when they took her away, they talked with child protection workers and jointly made the decision to leave the teenager at the house where the party was happening.

He was still there when the fire broke out.

Tremblett said that to this day she has no idea what Child, Youth and Family Services did about her complaint. No one at the department got back to her.

After his death, she started looking for answers.

She eventually took her concerns to the staff at the office of the child and youth advocate.

"They were just asking me questions and questions, and they just said, 'Christine, why didn't you call us?' Well, I didn't know. I thought I called the right people when I called Child, Youth and Family services."

Call from youth advocate

After that initial call, she didn't hear anything from the advocate's office for months, until one day she got a call from the youth advocate herself, Darlene Neville.

"I shared what I could with her and she was going to meet with me again, and I don't know if that's going to happen now that she's not there."

Neville was suspended from the job in August of this year, after the government said it had received complaints from staff about her management style.

She was involved in several high-profile cases, including the fatal Labrador fire that she said her staff believed did not warrant an investigation.

In a news release issued weeks before she was suspended, Neville explained that her staff had decided months before to not investigate the death of Allen. She said her staff didn't tell her about Tremblett's complaint and the internal decision to not take it any further.

Liberal Leader Yvonne Jones said it is time for the truth to come out.

"I think the Matthew Gear [Allen] case was a case where if reports that were made had been acted upon, that child may not have died in that fire," Jones told CBC News.

She said there should have been an immediate independent review of the case.

Tremblett agrees with Jones.

"I was really, really hurt and upset because I feel that if Child, Youth and Family Services had to do their part, I feel that little Matthew would still be with us."

'Has nothing changed?'

The department was created in the fallout of another case involving the death of a child.

Shirley Turner drowned her son, Zachary, in 2003, before taking her own life.

A damning report found that social workers did not use critical analysis in the Turner case, and that Shirley Turner received far more attention from social workers than her son did.

A followup report said the child protection system in Newfoundland and Labrador had been neglected for years, and that it was surprising there hadn't been more tragedies like the death of Zachary Turner.

"The department of Child, Youth and Family Services was great window dressing. But when you open that window, there's kids still out there in this system and nothing has changed for them," Jones said.

Kathleen Kufeldt, a child welfare expert who was once the chair of child protection at Memorial University, also has questions about the death of Allen.

"The big question it raises for me is, 'Has nothing changed?,'" she said to CBC News. "We've been saying for years — not just myself, but others — have been saying that it's time child welfare realized the child is the client."

The department of Child Youth and Family Services has turned over the file on Matthew Gear Allen and Christine Robinson to the office of the child and youth advocate to help in its investigation of the deaths.

But 18 months after the fatal fire, Tremblett still has a lot of questions.

"There should be answers … the system failed … big time."