Charlie case piles up doubts about children's ministry

VICTORIA - Jamie Charlie was three.
His sister, not yet two, had just been beaten to death in the home that was supposed to be a refuge. The man who did it, the father in the home, claimed that Jamie had pushed his sister down some stairs. The boy was set to grow up thinking he had killed her.
Except days later an autopsy found that the severe injuries couldn't have been produced by a fall. The RCMP was called, and the ministry of children and families. Both children had been placed in the home by a First Nations' agency working under the ministry's authority.
Then a criminal record check arrived, too late for Sherry. The man who killed her had a long record, including violent offences. When Jamie and Sherry were sent there, he was still on probation for assaulting his wife.
The ministry launched its first investigation. At the least there was a dark cloud over that Port Alberni household.
But two months later the next steps in Jamie's tough life were being decided in provincial court. Usma Family and Child Services, acting for the director of child protection, needed approval to apprehend him, and decide on where he should go.
And despite all the warning signs, the plan was to leave Jamie in the home where Sherry died - despite the suspicions, the history of violent crime and other concerns.
Worse, the judge didn't get the real story. The court was told only that Sherry had "passed away" in a "tragic accident." That was by then known to be untrue.
Victoria Times-Colonist reporter Lindsay Kines uncovered the information, the latest revelation in the discouraging saga of Sherry's death.
The ministry's first response was to suggest that this really wasn't a ministry problem; it was something for the First Nations' agency to deal with. Its social worker made the court appearance.
Children and Families Minister Stan Hagen quickly moved beyond that position. The agency acted on behalf of the director of child protection. The government remained responsible.
But four days after the news broke, the ministry said it had searched the files and didn't know about the court hearing, or Jamie's placement. "There are no records in any of the ministry files that anybody realized that this had happened," Hagen said.
That's a bad thing. A critical decision was made, and the ministry had no process for staying informed.
It's even more worrying that despite supposedly thorough investigations into Sherry's death - at the very time the court hearing took place, and over the last three years - the government never found out about the hearing. The court records existed; a call to the agency should have produced the information. Questions about why Jamie was left in the home have been raised publicly by his family, and the opposition.
Yet no one in the ministry had investigated effectively enough to find out about the court appearance, or the misleading information presented on behalf of the director. A reporter had to get at the facts.
It was significant information. Child and Youth Officer Jane Morley immediately asked for permission to launch an investigation into Jamie's placement. Attorney General Wally Oppal is expected to grant her request.
That, along with the coroner's inquest announced Tuesday, means eight investigations are under way into this death.
Less than two months ago Hagen was maintaining that a flawed internal review had provided the needed answers. "The director's review is a complete story from start to finish," he told the legislature.
Since then there have been more and more questions that the government can't answer, and more and more reviews into Sherry's death, and the ministry's work.
Things will go wrong in the ministry, and the results will sometimes be terrible. That's the nature of the work.
But the succession of revelations - each of which seems a surprise to the ministry - raises basic questions of competence, and undermines public confidence.
Footnote: The question now is how widespread these problems are. The decision to eliminate the Children's Commission, without having any effective replacement process for reviewing child deaths, has created the risk that children are falling through the cracks, and that lessons aren't being learned.