The Alberta NDP says the province should be releasing more information about the case of a Morinville toddler who died last week while living in foster care.
NDP MLA Rachel Notley sent a letter to Children and Youth Services Minister Yvonne Fritz this week demanding the department release more information about the 21-month-old’s living situation before her death.
The toddler died in hospital on March 3 after spending two days at the Stollery Children’s hospital. Her funeral was yesterday.
The RCMP became involved in the case before the child died in hospital and a murder investigation remains under way after the medical examiner declared the child’s death a homicide on March 4.
Notley believes the length of time the child had been in foster care, the number of other children in the home and the type of foster care the child was in should all be part of the public record. She believes all of that information is important because they have been factors in previous cases where a child died while in foster care.
Previous cases where children died in care have involved children who were only recently placed into foster care or homes where there were already several children.
The foster care system also has a special type of placement called kinship care, allowing family members to care for children, and Notley said previous cases have shown the province is less diligent in screening in those cases.
Stuart Elson, a spokesperson for the department told the Gazette last week that all of the information is kept confidential to protect privacy rights and to avoid interfering with either the department’s investigation or the RCMP’s.
“There is an investigation process going on right now, there is two — there is our own internal process and also the police investigation, so out of respect for that process we can’t talk about specifics,” he said. “We have a responsibility to protect the personal information of families.”
Notely said the legislation is very specific, preventing the government only from releasing information that might indentify the child, biological parents or caregivers. “None of this information violates the act, none of it.”
She said the government is deliberately misinterpreting the act to obscure the truth. “It is very convenient for the ministry to err on the side of caution, because it protects their image at the expense of getting information out.”
She said given the provincial budget plans to cut more funding to the department, information is crucial to understanding the challenges it faces.
“We are in the midst of debating a budget that would cut $27 million from foster care.”
The police are still appealing to the public for more information.
Anyone with any information on the case is being asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or the Morinville RCMP at 780-939-4550.
