Family Services minister says sorry for GN’s handling of children in its care
Margaret Nakashuk apologizes for her department’s failure to protect children as outlined in auditor general report
Family Services Minister Margaret Nakashuk, apologized to Nunavummiut on behalf of the Government of Nunavut on Thursday for the department’s failure to protect children in its care, according to findings of an auditor general’s report. (File photo)
The Government of Nunavut is sorry that it failed to protect vulnerable children in its care.
Family Services Minister Margaret Nakashuk apologized on behalf of the government and her department Thursday in the legislative assembly, the first day of its fall sitting.
“Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Department of Family Services, I apologize to those children and their families,” she said, adding she is “committed” to ensuring the system will be improved.
In May, Canada’s auditor general Karen Hogan released a report — titled “An Urgent Call to Action” — highly critical of Child and Family Services in the territory covering the period from Jan. 1, 2019, to May 31, 2022.
“The systemic deficiencies highlighted in the auditor general’s report have led to negative outcomes for the children and families we serve,” Nakashuk said Thursday.
“The department of family services fully accepts the findings of the auditor general’s report [on children and families].”
The auditor general’s report was the third, after similarly critical ones were released in 2011 and 2014.
“Over the past 12 years we have painted the picture of a failing system,” Hogan said at the time. “One that is failing the people and, most importantly, the children it is meant to protect.”
The report detailed failures in information sharing, inadequate record keeping and a lack of proper follow-up to ensure the safety of children in the government’s care.
The report noted the department was unable to provide an accurate count of the number of children in care.
MLA Janet Pitsiulaaq Brewster thanked Family Services Minister Margaret Nakashuk for her apology on behalf of the government during the first sitting of the fall legislative assembly on Thursday. (File photo)
On Thursday, Nakashuk outlined progress her department has made on its plan to fix the problems in family services, saying it “involves close collaboration within the territory and regional staff in family services and other government departments.”
She said she hopes to table the strategic plan in the legislative assembly in the coming months.
In the legislative assembly, Iqaluit-Sinna MLA Janet Pitsiulaaq Brewster thanked the Family Services Department for its work so far.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank Minister Nakashuk for that apology. I know that there are many Nunavummiut who will be impacted by those words,” Brewster said, her voice breaking, fighting back tears.
“We know that healing begins with apologies and taking responsibility.”
Tununiq MLA Karen Nutarak added: “I feel Janet’s statement, and I thank Margaret [Nakashuk] as well.”
Nakashuk said she assures Nunavummiut “that my department is taking immediate and sustainable steps to address the auditor general’s report and to ensure that the best interests of our children in our care are in the forefront.
“The department fully understands that this is a crisis and is deeply committed to making the changes that need to be made.”
Alot of people who take foster children are unemployed and use the money for drugs and ahlcohol.
Lotta people who have babies are unemployed and want the babies so they can get child tax so they can buy drugs and alcohol. So family services steps in then the kid ends up in the foster system and then the foster parents only want to foster the kid so they can get money for drugs and alcohol. It’s a vicious circle
And there are some cases where yes a family has more kids then they can support (perhaps they should have tried not having so many, but we are past that point and it is not the kids fault) but they need extra support, but Family services would rather give money to someone else to look after a few of the kids then help the family out without the constant threat of having the kids takin away.
My wife and I would happily foster a child but there is no housing available.
We can afford any one of the houses currently for sale in Iqaluit, quite handily. But I can’t justify paying that much for even the three bedroom when I could move to New York and get a 4 bedroom, 2 bath on 45 acres that I actually own for the same cost. My job even pays pretty close to the same in NY on top of the massively reduced cost of living.
There is going to be an exodus.
Good bye, i am sure you will be missed for a few weeks. but dont worry within the next year or two max everyone you got to know in Iqaluit will have also moved south and you can reminisce about the great adventure you had surviving the arctic…. write a book to share all your knowledge of how horrible and hard it was living up here.
Oh, wow. Did I hit a nerve or what?! Lol.
This place has a collective inferiority complex that would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. I point out a legitimate issue that is holding Nunavut back but you’re so butthurt that this is the insecure, petulant response that I get.
And your response is 100% on brand too.
We will reminisce about our time in Nunavut. Because in spite of all the insecurity, finger-wagging, complaining, and incompetence Nunavut remains a wonderful place to live.
I plan to write a book on this place when I retire, it will be a page turner because people in the rest of Canada will not believe what goes on up here. Now when I tell friends at home stories about up here, they find them hard to believe because the stories are so outrageous. I continually say” its all true”. The book will be called “Frozen Brain”. Please buy it when you see it on the book shelf.
“Im sorry” Thats like closing the barn door after the horses escape. For those of you who cant relate to this saying it means saying sorry just isnt good enough.
Saying sorry is a start to resolving the issue, they need to start somewhere.
“I’m sorry we didn’t do much since the last time we said I’m sorry, just taking a page out the Trudeau handbook.”
Sorry. That’s one word. That’s over used by Government’s, school’s, church’s. And parents. There are poor parenting skills world wide. In Nunavut parenting is a disgrace.
To day is federal child tax day. How much is being spent on food and
shelter, for children.
This is big day for bootleggers and drug dealers. How much money is going in their pockets? Probably more than is being spent on food for hungry children.
It’s called CHILD TAX BENIFIT, ( day)
Not: LETS GET HAMMERED DAY.
There are wonderful Inuit people who do look after their children and themselves.
Just not enough.
There is a powerful undercurrent throughout the country/land and in this time it is directed by leaders who for greed and power feed that system. Peaceful thriving communities is not in their interest, but strife, ignorance, division play well to their short sighted plan for material gain. It is the good VS the evil. You won’t read of it in most of the media but be certain it is there. The West, which we are a part of has been taken hostage by those who sell arms and monger war. But the hope is that their day in the sun is past and a multipolar peace-loving coalition of countries will win the day. It takes some work to sift thru but connections in social issues such as child abuse are in play. Godspeed and courage to everyone doing their best to remedy things. A couple of references I share are Michael Hudson professor and activist and The Grayzone with Max Blumenthal, reporter and activist.