Following the horrific case in April of a 15 year-old child under the care of Child and Family Services (CFS) being brutally assaulted while staying at a downtown Winnipeg hotel, Manitoba’s NDP family services minister promised to end the regular practice of placing children under CFS care in hotels. In fact, the NDP said that by June 1, no children under the care of Child and Family Services would be housed in hotels.
While it was an emotional pledge made by the NDP Minister, the unfortunate reality is that past NDP Ministers of family services have made the same promise and not followed through on it. But Manitobans held out hope that this time, the promise would be keep.
Yet, just before June 1, the date on which the NDP promised to no longer house foster children in hotels, the NDP indicated they would again be breaking their promise. Instead of ensuring that children would no longer be housed in hotels while under the care of CFS, it was announced that a new deadline was necessary. The new promise is that the housing of children in hotels would continue until at least December 1.
This is, the NDP Minister said, because the NDP don’t know how many foster children in rural and northern Manitoba are housed in hotels. After years of promises to end housing foster children in hotels, it seems incredible that the NDP have no idea what the situation is for foster children outside of the City of Winnipeg. When the NDP made their emotional promise to end the practice by June 1, how could they not have considered foster children in rural Manitoba? Was the NDP purposely misleading Manitobans or was the Minister really not aware of what was happening in her department after the many years of concern being raised with foster children being housed in hotels.
This came as a surprise to Manitoba’s Children’s Advocate Darlene MacDonald as well. After the NDP announced they would be breaking another promise by missing the June 1 deadline, the Child’s Advocate said that she was under the impression that the June 1 deadline to end the housing of children in care of CFS in hotels was going to be province wide. No doubt the vast majority of Manitobans felt the same way because that is clearly what the NDP Minister of Family Service said.
As troubling as yet another broken promise is by the NDP, what is even more concerning is that foster children in Manitoba will still be housed in hotels. That is both inappropriate and harmful to the children who are relying on the NDP for proper housing and care. And as the promises continue to get made and broken by the NDP, it’s these children who and most negatively impacted.
