There are much better ways to spend $66 million
Why did the B.C. government spend $66 million on “consultant” fees and unproven initiatives when there are dozens of established, independent, not-for-profit institutions that assist with aboriginal early-childhood education [“B.C. representative releases report on “lost opportunity” for aboriginal children in care”, web-only]?
If the provincial government is in fact trying to offload responsibility for aboriginal child welfare, it should at least partner with programs like the Aboriginal Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters or the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society. Both organizations provide much-needed services for hundreds of aboriginal people and are drastically underfunded. If this can be accomplished with scarce resources, imagine the possibilities when the government actually knows where our money is being spent.
> Taylor Dong / Vancouver
Overshadowed in this is the matter of how aboriginal and other agencies have been held publicly accountable by the representative for children and youth, Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond, and by journalists.
If there had been consistent public oversight since 2001 and public officials and organizations were held accountable sooner, then we’d be reading about success stories now. More importantly though, kids in care would have received better services.
> Wawmeesh G. Hamilton / Port Alberni
Comments
1 Comments
G
Nov 12, 2013 at 9:55pm
No government has control over the bureaucrats who actually run this Province and this country. The elected officials are overpaid figureheads with no real power. Bureaucrats spend their budgets how they wish, even when it is contrary to policies. Every year $500 million is spent on child protective services in BC, and the number of kids in care hovers around 8,000 or around $60,000 per child per year. The truly obscene thing is how little of that goes towards frontline services: over half of it goes into the pockets of managers and administrators.