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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Phoenix inquiry wanders
The inquiry into the tragic death of Phoenix Sinclair has needlessly expanded its mandate to re-examine the well-travelled links between poverty, substance abuse and social conditions that cause family breakdowns and lead children into the care of the state.
Inquiry lawyer Tracy Walsh said the commission needs the information in order to make recommendations on how to protect children.
Ms. Walsh, however, also recognized the child-welfare system is not responsible for the conditions that lead children into care, which is exactly right.
There are scores of authoritative reports on these matters, but they really have no immediate relevance to the central questions that need to be answered at the inquiry. So why go back there?
Phoenix was in and out of the care of child welfare agencies for most of her brief life. In June 2005 at age five, after years of horrible abuse and neglect, she was killed by her mother and stepfather, who were convicted of first-degree murder.
It took more than nine months for child welfare workers to discover she was dead, even though the little girl was still technically in the care of the state, having been returned to her mother in the months before her death.
The questions that need answering are straightforward:
Why did the family's case worker or workers not discover the abuse, which might have been evident if the girl had been seen? And why did it take so long to discover she was missing?
It's in the public interest to know if gross negligence was a factor, or if the system was understaffed and overworked to the point that case files could not be kept current. If administrative oversight was weak or lacking, that, too, is something that needs to be understood. Were case workers required to see their clients in person on a regular basis? If so, why didn't that happen in this case?
The answers to these questions will not only shed light on why Phoenix suffered so horribly for so long, they will help to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
The inquiry does not need to reconsider the larger social issues that may have caused Phoenix's parents and caregivers to be inhuman monsters. Nor does it need to solve the poverty problem or the unique challenges of aboriginals.
Its prime mandate is to discover how and why Phoenix was ignored for so long, and what can be done to reduce the opportunities for such a tragedy again.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 26, 2012 A10
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