Confused about the government's five-year-old effort to transform the way the province's most vulnerable children are protected?
Well, you're in good company because it appears the civil servants responsible for acting on those changes are too - so much so that their boss felt the need to address that confusion just before the holidays.
In a 1,539-word missive sent on Dec. 21 and obtained by Public Eye, Lseley du Toit, Children and Family Development deputy minister, wished her underlings the "warmest season greetings" and then went onto to provide them with a list of 15 points meant to "clear up" some of the "uncertainty" surrounding that transformation effort.
Among those points: According to du Toit, her so-called practice change initiative won't "under any circumstances weaken our protection of children."
But, she added, it is "unfair" for the ministry to "overemphasize the child protection component" of its work."
Du Toit then stated the ministry's work will be "strongly focused on 'the child' and 'the family' which is neither a child-centred [n]or family-centred" approach.
Whether any of those points have helped clear up the uncertainty at the Ministry of Children and Family Development remains to be seen. It certainly didn't for us.
But it perhaps explains why the ministry is appointing a new stakeholder relations director this month to help sort all that internal confusion out.
Sihota's pay disclosure never written down
Senior provincial New Democrat officials were told about party president Moe Sihota's controversial stipend within weeks of him winning that office. But Public Eye has exclusively learned that disclosure was, in an unusual move, never written down.
The stipend - which is being paid using a "generous, earmarked gift from the labour movement" - became controversial because of secrecy, contributing to the downfall of party leader Carole James.
New Democrat legislators waited almost a year before being officially informed about that arrangement - even though, according to dissident MLA Jenny Kwan, James knew about it much earlier.
Such "back room deals should have no place in today's politics," Kwan charged in a statement released last month to the media, adding the arrangements for the stipend were "not done in a transparent manner."
But Gerard Janssen, the chair of the New Democrats' oversight committee, has told Public Eye that Sihota and the party's provincial secretary, Jan O'Brien, did advise senior officials about the $76,500 presidential pay arrangement in January 2010.
"Unfortunately, Jan just thought it was a discussion" rather than a meeting, explained Janssen - who is responsible for examining the party's financial records.
So the disclosure wasn't written down, "and then it was just forgotten for meeting after meeting."
Janssen said he didn't personally attend the meeting in question.
The former cabinet minister and caucus whip couldn't say whether that meeting was limited to the party't table officers or included members of its larger provincial executive.
New Democrat spokesperson Michael Roy declined comment.
Janssen also said Sihota has not submitted receipts for reimbursement since being elected president in November 2009.
Sean Holman is editor of the online provincial political news journal Public Eye (publiceyeonline.com). He can be reached at [email protected].
