In the end, this is all about a little girl

There had better be a honking big photo of Phoenix Sinclair on display in the Winnipeg Convention Centre's Pan Am room this morning.

Those gathered for the inquiry into the circumstance of the child's 2005 murder -- lawyers, judge, media, child-welfare workers and curious spectators -- need to remember this was a beautiful child failed by the depravity of her mother and stepfather, and by the missteps of the system sworn to protect her.

In death, Phoenix became a symbol, both of human depravity and of the need to have a child-welfare system that puts the protection of children ahead of all other concerns.

Her murder is the reason for the years of legal wrangling, game-playing, opinions and investigation. For all the fancy words and dancing that will go on as the inquiry unfolds, she's still what matters most. She had no voice when she was alive. She needs one now.

The commencement of the inquiry was still in question at press time. Appeal Court Justice Marc Monnin has not ruled on a challenge from the lawyer for a group of aboriginal child-welfare authorities to force inquiry commissioner Ted Hughes to release the transcripts of interviews with 140 individuals. Most are child-welfare workers.

If Monnin rules in favour of the child-welfare authorities, the inquiry will be put back on ice.

There will be no winners at the conclusion of the inquiry. Her survivors may have some answers. Some CFS workers may feel vindicated; others may have their culpability laid bare. But at the end of the day, there is only Phoenix, a child with warm brown eyes and raven hair, a little girl tortured to death and dumped. It was nine months before she was known to be missing. Without the decision by her brave stepbrothers to tell what they knew, it's impossible to know if she would have been found.

Phoenix died in 2005. She was five. Her murder called a halt to her short life of abuse and torture. Her mother and stepfather are serving life sentences for her killing.

She was buried on a warm April day in 2009, the same day she should have turned nine. Instead, a tiny white coffin holding her skeletal remains was slid into a hearse and driven to Brookside Cemetery.

Before her funeral service began, children in pretty dresses and clip-on ties raced through the hall. Clusters of mourners, most intimately involved in the dead child's life, others just strangers drawn to say goodbye to the tortured girl, filled the folding chairs.

The nation was held in thrall as the details of the child's death and her abandonment were unravelled. That April day, there were only tears.

The path to this inquiry has been filled with obstructions. First, the murder trial was held. Then the inquiry commission has to go to court to see confidential child-welfare files. Next came the legal manoeuvring that continues today.

The union representing social workers didn't want their names or identities released, claiming it would affect their ability to do their jobs. The MGEU also claimed the province had no right to call the inquiry in the first place.

The challenges went on and the clear picture of a battered child slipped out of focus. At her funeral, Phoenix Sinclair's stepmother said she had "skin like a China doll."

As the inquiry starts, let Phoenix remain its centrepiece. The mandate of the inquiry has spread to include an examination of poverty, homelessness, substance abuse and most other social ills on record.

It reminds me of the Southern CFS Authority's report into the 2007 death of two-year-old Gage Guimond, killed while in their care. They referred to the slain toddler as "a warrior for change," attempting to imbue his death with some sort of greater spiritual relevance. Like Gage, Phoenix was a child who was killed when the people who should have been taking care of her didn't. All the king's lawyers and all the king's social workers can't put either of them back together again.

Make that photo of Phoenix a big one. All of us in the inquiry room need to understand the cost of failure.

lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 5, 2012 A4