Stephanie Cadieux, Minister of Children and Family Development, defended the timing of her election-day news event at the time, saying she simply released it as soon as it was ready.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
The B.C. government response to a damning report about how its child-protection system failed an aboriginal teen was an important story that just happened to be overshadowed by other news, Minister of Children and Family Development Stephanie Cadieux said Tuesday.
After reviewing the internal government e-mails that shaped the response, the opposition New Democrats reached a different conclusion: Scheduling the government's announcement on the afternoon of Oct. 19 – federal election day – was a cynical attempt to get uncomfortable news out the door when British Columbians were focused on voting and election results.
"The Premier's office wanted the report dumped on election day," NDP MLA Mike Farnworth told the legislature. "It was done in the most cynical of ways."
The provincial government took five months to prepare its reaction to the Paige report, which chronicled the life of a girl who grew up in violence and neglect, despite 30 child-protection reports, and her death of a drug overdose at the age of 19. Ms. Cadieux defended the timing of her election-day news event at the time, saying she simply released it as soon as it was ready.
But the minister struggled to explain this week why internal government documents – detailed by The Globe and Mail in a story published Tuesday – show her staff was forced to rush the response to meet a deadline "desired" by the Premier's office.
"There is no bad day to do the work of government and there will always be things in the news that conflict with things that are unexpected, things that we can't plan for that overshadow other important news," Ms. Cadieux told reporters Tuesday.
She said she had not read the correspondence between government communications staff, released as a result of a Freedom of Information request and posted to the government website, showing her ministry planned to announce its response to the Paige report on Oct. 21, but bowed to pressure from the Premier's office to change the date.
Matt Gordon, assistant deputy minister of corporate priorities and communications operations, told the various ministry communications officials that the Premier's office wanted a government-wide, "corporate response" to be released sooner: "Monday is very much desired."
Mr. Gordon did not explain in the e-mails why the timing had to change, simply that the Oct. 21 date was a "no-go." That prompted Jeff Groot, then director of communications at the Ministry of Justice, to question the rush: "Is there an urgent reason that this has to be announced? Sorry, I don't have that context?"
Although no answer was revealed in the FOI package – communications staff are conscious that their e-mails can be subject to FOI requests – the new date was adopted and staff scrambled to reach their ministers and stakeholders for approval.
Ms. Cadieux said she was unaware of those conversations taking place between the communications staff. "I was pushing to get it out earlier than that. So when the opportunity came for that day, I was pleased to get it out."
She noted that the author of the Paige report – the Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond – had been supportive of the government's response.
However, Ms. Turpel-Lafond was critical this week after reading the e-mails that she said show the government's timing was a "cynical calculation."
Justine Hunter