Nunavut’s child advocate gets beefed up budget for next three years

Sherry McNeil-Mulak, Nunavut’s child and youth advocate, reveals her office’s priorities for the next three years in her first annual report to Nunavut’s legislative assembly, tabled Feb. 25. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut’s children and youth advocacy office, which opened in Iqaluit in September 2015, will get a hefty increase in its budget for 2016-17 as the office ramps up its services, according to a document tabled Feb. 25 in the Nunavut legislature.

After a budget of nearly $1.6 million for 2015-16, children and youth representative Sherry McNeil-Mulak will have at least $2.1-million — or about 36 per cent more — to work with annually for the next three fiscal years, beginning in 2016-17.

That’s according to the first report her office submitted to the legislative assembly, a business plan for 2016 to 2019.

Nunavut MLAs passed the Representative for Children and Youth Act in the assembly in 2013, and appointed McNeil-Mulak to a five-year term in that office in June 2014.

Under the act, the representative is meant to advocate for the rights of children and youth in Nunavut, and provide them with support in accessing government programs.

The tabled report includes an update on McNeil-Mulak’s 2015-16 activities, including:

• staffing five office positions in Iqaluit;

• training staff in Inuit societal values, child rights and suicide-prevention strategies;

• completing an inventory of child and youth programs currently offered by the GN;

• monitoring the government’s implementation of recommendations to its child and youth services made by the Auditor General of Canada in 2011 and 2014; and,

• integrating elder advisors into the office’s duties.

According to McNeil-Mulak’s business plan for 2016 to 2019, her office will continue monitoring the government’s implementation of recommendations made by the auditor general.

Going forward, the children and youth representative said she plans to build her office’s capacity to meet requirements under the RCY Act, including:

• in 2016-17, developing the critical injury and death review component of her office and training staff in alternate dispute resolution and media;

• in 2017-18, finalizing the critical injury and death review component of her office and acquiring additional resources for her office’s development; and,

• in 2018-19, providing input to MLAs on the operation of the RCY Act.

Under the Act, McNeil-Mulak’s office is required to advocate on behalf of individual children and youth, advocate for systemic change where necessary and to raise public awareness of her office’s mandate.

The Representative for Children and Youth office faced some opposition in 2013 and took years to get established, with some MLAs worried the government was creating a powerless “mouthpiece.”

But when the office opened in September 2015, McNeil-Mulak said her office would provide important support and recognition for the rights of children and youth.