B.C. Minister Stephanie Cadieux defends track record after Plecas report

B.C.'s Minister of Children and Family Development is defending the track record of her ministry, but agrees with yesterday's scathing reportthat highlights the complexities of the ministry and the need for more funding.

Minister Stephanie Cadieuxsaysrecent negative commentary on the MCFDis inaccurate.

"While there is commentary that it's been a terrible time in the ministry for those years, the statistics don't show that," she said.

Former deputy minister Bob Plecas's report says that a four-year plan needs to be implemented immediately at the Ministry of Child and Family Development and should contain a funding commitment to turn the system around.

Plecas was tasked with the review following a B.C. Supreme Court judgment in July that ruled the province's child protection service abused its authority in a case involving the physical and sexual abuse of children, which ultimately allowed a father to molest his child while the toddler was in the ministry's care.

• Read the full report from Bob Plecas
• B.C. child protection system slammed for lack of accountability, leadership, funding

MinisterCadieux joined Rick Cluff on CBC Radio One's The Early Edition to share her reaction to the report.

Having read Bob Plecas' report, what changes would you want to make right away?

I agree with the report in that there's a number of recommendations that will take a great deal of time to roll out. The first ones I think that are important, from my perspective, is beefing up our quality assurance system, strengthening the office of the director of child welfare.

I think our front line still needs more support more people, more staff. I think there's a realization that staff on the front lines are having trouble meeting their caseloads and providing the support they need to to kids and their families. And the support of that staff, in terms of training and back-end supports, we really need to do more of that.

Why is it taking a report to finally get it to your level and the government to understand that there's been a problem in this ministry for some time now?

I think there have been lots of things we've been told over time, from lots of different sources. And I think they're valid. We've been working as fast as we can to address a lot of those things.

We've also had the reality of status quo budgets more or less. Our ministry has seen increases in the last couple of years, but modest, certainly. And it's time, it's time to make those investments. I agree with that.

And I think this report provides some insight into some of the complexities into the work that we do in child protection and how we need to realign some of the structures in the ministry to allow for that work to be done in a better way with more consistent oversight.

Plecas says there is a culture of blame within the ministry that exacerbates problems. He points the finger at the media and B.C. Children's Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond for constantly putting the ministry under a negative spotlight. What is your reaction to that?

Certainly as the minister I feel that, when tragedies happen. I think where I see the challenge, to some degree the same way as Bob in that, there's a rush to find a reason for something tragic that's happen, and in that rush, sometimes from the public or media perspective, I understand why that rush is there. But the reality is that we have a very complex system that also has a number of review process in place to get those answers and that takes time.

But when we, the ministry, broadly, is attacked, regularly, for not doing this and not doing that, it takes away from the opportunity to actually get to the bottom of what happened, to make sure it doesn't happen again. That's challenging work, it takes time and it takes a toll on the social workers on the front line, who try to do the work and who then second-guess the very difficult decisions that they need to make on a daily basis.

There have been several casesthat have raised questions about how this province is caring for the children it's charged with caring for some have occurred under your tenure as minister. Convince us that you have a vision for how to ensure cases like this don't happen again.

The sad, sad, tragic reality is that that happens under the work that we do, the ministry's work, and it happens; children die outside of government.

It is tragic when it happens and when they're in government care there is obviously a need to take a strong serious look at what happened and why and look at try and put in place processes and services to prevent that from happening. That's why we have multiple review processes in place to look at each and every one of those things and an independent representative who has the opportunity to review those as well.

Do you share Plecas' concerns about the role of the Representative for Children and Youth?

I find his comments on that very interesting, in that I do think one of the challenges that we face as a ministry is the complexity that arises from trying to implement all of the recommendations under constant scrutiny. That is challenging.

But the role of that representative was put in place for that purpose. And certainly, while I understand what Mr. Plecas is getting at, it wasn't intended that that review role be there for as long and it ultimately would be taken over by the ministry we're certainly not in a place to do that. Whether we will ever get there, remains to be seen. But I certainly think putting in place those quality assurance measures in the ministry as he is suggesting is valid.

This report has also drawn the ire of first nations leaders like Doug Kelly, who says that indigenous leaders were not adequately consulted. When aboriginal children make up more than half of the population in child protection services, doesn't it stand to reason that indigenous leaders and communities would be consulted?

This review was strictly looking directly at the legislation, the policy, the processes and practice within the ministry in terms of how we do child protection and if we should be doing things better. It wasn't intended to look at the issues of First Nations and how we interact with First Nations, how we work with First Nations kids. [For] that work, we've asked special advisor Grand Chief Ed John to help me take a look at how can we do a better job working with First Nations.

As well, we have a relationship with the federal government as it relates to First Nations kids that has been challenged over time. It's a huge issue, but one that this report was not looking to address.

Given the criticisms this report has garnered, will you be amending any aspect of the planPlecas has outlined?

I think there's a lot of things that we need to go ahead and do. So I'm looking forward to my deputy putting together a team that will start to look at pulling together the strategic plan and how we're going to move forward on the recommendations. We look forward to budget day to see how much support we have going forward to do that work. It will need to be significant if we're going to move forward with these recommendations and as quickly as I hope that we will.

I think the piece of the report we haven't touched on at all we're talking about privacy issues and the ability to have the select standing committee play a larger role in having access to information around these tragic cases to gain confidence in the work the ministry's doing and the work that's been done by the various reviews when one of these tragedies happen. I'm very hopeful that the members of the opposition in government would want to move forward on those recommendations.

John Horgan, B.C. NDP leader, says it's time for you to step aside as minister of this portfolio. What is your reaction to that?

John's been saying that for a long time so I'm not surprised. He has a right to his opinion, but it's not his decision to make. I'm very committed to this ministry, to the work that needs to be done in this ministry, I've brought, these last thee years, a great deal of stability.

While there is commentary that it's been a terrible time in the ministry for those years, the statistics don't show that. The work we've done to stabilize the ministry, to stabilize ICM [Integrated Case Management], there's a lot more work to do and I'm committed to getting it done.

This interview has been condensed and edited. To listen to the full audio, click the link labelled:Minister Stephanie Cadieux responds to Plecas report.