‘We need accountability’: foster parents, advocates rally for action at legislature

Demonstrators rallied at the Manitoba legislature Friday, calling the abuse and death of children in care a “state of emergency.”

“These things continue to happen,” said Donna Dumas, a former foster parent of a child with special needs.

She pointed to the Aug. 9 death of a four-year-old girl in care on Long Plain First Nation. Two of the girl’s sisters, aged one and two, were hospitalized with injuries. The children’s mother, who was at Friday’s rally, previously told the Free Press she was working to get her kids back in her care after they were apprehended in October 2025.

Family reunification advocate Cheryl Wozniak said the NDP government was expected to help return children to their families.

“That’s why I’m so angry today,” Wozniak said. “We need accountability. We need to start holding these workers accountable for continuously failing these families.”

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said in a prepared statement Friday she’s met with the Southern Authority twice and will be issuing a directive “to ensure the needs, well-being and safety of children are being properly addressed. We must do everything in our power to ensure a tragedy like this never happens again.”

Last week, a foster parent pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the case of a six-year-old girl paralyzed in 2025 after being repeatedly thrown to the floor. Three other children were removed from the Winnipeg home, which was owned by Island Lake First Nations Family Services, an agency of the First Nations of Northern Manitoba Child and Family Services Authority.

“That’s so devastating,” Dumas, a Mathias Colomb Cree Nation member who lives in Winnipeg, said Friday.

An investigation by the Families Department is intended to prevent similar incidents, Fontaine has said. Dumas said the incidents keep happening.

“I’ve raised a lot of concerns just to be told ‘it’s being looked into, it’s being investigated.’ But who are these investigators?” Dumas said.

Denise Pruden, a grandmother from Little Saskatchewan First Nation, said she’s concerned that there’s not enough oversight of child welfare agencies.

“The only time these children matter is when it comes to funding,” Pruden said. “It’s not about the children. It’s not about the Indigenous people.”

She called on Premier Wab Kinew to shift his focus from going after U.S. President Donald Trump on the CUSMA trade deal to keeping Manitoba children in care safe.

“You should be focused over here, not on Trump,” Pruden said. “This should be considered a state of emergency for our children.”

The premier said Friday that child deaths have decreased since the NDP formed government. Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth data show an average of 37 deaths of children in care per year from 2018-19 to 2024-25.

During the 2022-23 fiscal year, the year before the NDP formed government, 50 children in care died. In 2023-24, it fell to 43, and in 2024-25 there were 36 deaths, data show.

Kinew, who took office with a pledge to help every child in Manitoba make it to their 18th birthday, said the promise remains one of the “north stars” of his government. He said it’s the reason a universal school nutrition program was rolled out two years ago and why next week “the biggest curriculum change in recent memory in Manitoba history” will be announced focusing on fitness, diet and health.

Outside the legislature Friday, a mother of seven said she was there to speak up for kids in care and parents who are struggling to get them back.

“When we speak up for them we can get in trouble — they take our visits away,” said the woman, whose children had been in foster care. She fought for 12 years to get her youngest son back after he was taken into care when he was three days old.

“CFS, in my opinion, is just another form of residential school,” she said.

Now 16 and decked out in his regalia, the young man said his Indigenous foster family didn’t observe tradition or customs. Since reuniting with his mom, he’s been learning his language and dancing in powwows.

“I feel more alive, I feel more happy — I feel on top of the peak of my mountain,” said the teen.

“This is what change looks like,” said his mom. “Every child does matter.”

— with files from Gabrielle Piché

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca