Trial ignores the other defendant — the CFS system

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/12/2008 (6114 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The trial into the torture and slaying of Phoenix Sinclair should have served as a coda to the misery of the young girl’s life.

Her voice was silenced by the individuals she got dealt as parents, devoted as they were to defiling her in life and death.

She was failed repeatedly by a child-welfare system that placed her in the home where she died and then seemingly forgot she was there.

There were bright spots — a foster mother who cared for her, and step-brothers who would try to sneak her food even as they witnessed the malicious abuse dealt to the little girl. Someone took those bright-eyed photos that have become familiar to us all.

But the trial of Samantha Kematch and Wesley McKay doesn’t end the story. In fact, it leaves as many questions unanswered as it resolves.

Key among them — other than what misbegotten collection of evil could cause two people to perpetuate such a crime on a child — is where were those child-welfare workers during the trial?

Forget where they were in the months when Phoenix was being shot with a pellet gun and forced to eat her own vomit. They lost track of her, plain and simple.

But why didn’t the jurors hear testimony from the worker who, acting on a tip, went to check on the child’s well-being and was turned away at the door? What about the person who then decided to close her file?

A justice source told Free Press court reporter Mike McIntyre that the CFS issue wasn’t necessary to determine the guilt or innocence of Kematch and McKay.

That’s true. The CFS workers weren’t on trial.

But they should be.

The death of Phoenix has led to a full-scale examination of Manitoba’s child-welfare system. Changes have been made in how services have been delivered. More changes are planned.

There is going to be a provincial inquest called into the child’s death and CFS will be front and centre there.

That’s still not enough.

More children in care have died since Phoenix. There have been so many — apparent homicides, suicides and accidents — the names blur for even the most interested observer.

In the hundreds of pages of investigations printed since Phoenix was killed, a couple of memorable lines stand out.

First, from the 2006-2007 annual report of the Office of the Children’s Advocate of Manitoba:

"It is a travesty that children have had to die to bring out an environment where change can ‘hopefully’ happen."

Read that line again and feel the vibration of anger that runs through it.

And then this, from the 2006 Honouring Their Spirits death review report, also prepared by Billie Schibler’s office:

"In general, the Review Team found no instances in which worker or agency error led directly to the death of a child. It did find that, in many cases, the lack of available community resources and poor co-ordination between systems created an environment that may have contributed to a death."

Perhaps, once hundreds more pages of reports have been filed, after the inquest is complete and full attention is paid to the children who have died since Phoenix, that analysis will have changed.

The system didn’t kill Phoenix Sinclair or Gage Guimond. They were killed, it is alleged, by family members chosen by the system to take care of vulnerable children.

But their deaths were made possible by the very people who were supposed to do their jobs and ensure the safety of those kids.

When all the trials are over, we may never know the names of those responsible for placing children in danger’s way and leaving them there.

But if justice were truly served, when the final note in Phoenix Sinclair’s sad and sorry life was played, those individuals would be held accountable, too.

lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca