A top bureaucrat has refused to give the government's independent child protection watchdog any further personal briefings about her poorly understood effort to massively overhaul the way British Columbia's children are protected.
But the bureaucrat's boss, Children and Family Development Minister Mary Polak, has said the children and youth representative is getting information about that four-year-old initiative - just through other channels.
The sole briefing that did take place between the representative, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, and the minister's deputy Lesley du Toit, happened on Aug. 20, 2009, according to records obtained by Public Eye via a freedom of information request.
But it was only set up after repeated requests by the watchdog dating back to at least Feb. 26 of that year - if not earlier.
"I have anticipated receiving this briefing since 2007," Turpel-Lafond stated in one letter, writing in another that her staff had been told, "This is an initiative flowing from [the deputy's] office and that only you are able to provide the information."
She also advised du Toit "a project of this magnitude, long promised and intended to make significant change affecting programs for vulnerable children and youth, will require my oversight."
In response, du Toit wrote she had "no record of any request for a briefing" any earlier than February - having previously blamed the election and the "period of time both of us had been away from the office in the spring" for the delay in meeting.
The deputy then went on to clarify "one last time" that monitoring of the "day-to-day operations of the ministry, matters related to staffing, budget management, direction I give to ministry staff, and the changes to operations and policy" is "outside the role of the Representative."
As a result, according to du Toit, any briefings on such topics "will provide very broad, high level information on these matters without going into details."
It's unclear whether the deputy was referring to Turpel-Lafond's request for a meeting to discuss the ministry's so-called "practice change" initiative or another topic.
But Turpel-Lafond later described her briefing with du Toit as having been a "good introduction" to that initiative.
So, three months later, the representative asked du Toit for a "further and more detailed briefing on the ministry's practice framework."
To which the du Toit replied: "I will not be providing you with any further briefings on the Practice Change."
The deputy minister's Dec. 4 letter then went on to list the places where the representative could find information about that initiative, including government websites, written reports and whatever her ministry tells the legislature's standing committee on children and youth.
In an interview with Public Eye, Children and Family Development Minister Mary Polak found no fault in du Toit's refusal to give further briefings to Turpel-Lafond.
"We're receiving requests or sometimes orders [from the representative] to do briefings on things to an extent that would make it extremely difficult for a deputy minister of a ministry like this to have just the time to do it as often as the representative requests," said Polak.
Instead, on Nov. 27, Polak said she and Turpel-Lafond arranged to have the representative's deputy and the ministry's chief operating officer discuss du Toit's initiative on an ongoing basis.
"At some point Lesley has to be able to say, 'Look. This isn't a practical way to go forward. There's too much information and too much going on for that to be handled through a briefing.' So what she's saying is a briefing is not an appropriate way to do this and it isn't. And I agree with that."
Sean Holman is editor of the online provincial political news journal Public Eye. He can be reached at [email protected].
