A group working on behalf of foster children is exploring a class-action lawsuit against the Saskatchewan government over a system that’s been labelled as in crisis.
“The liability that’s accrued in child welfare is huge. It’s much greater than the residential school abuse,” said Tim Korol, a former assistant deputy minister of social services who is spearheading the group that would launch the class action.
“I would argue that some of the harm that’s come to these children is deeper. I don’t want to minimize the residential school (abuse). That’s part of the issue.”
The idea of a foster care class action has been floating around the province’s legal, medical and social work communities for a while. It’s now time to hold the government accountable, says Korol, who was hired as a special adviser to the minister of social services in 2008, promoted to assistant deputy minister and then fired in June 2009. A rancher from the St. Denis area, Korol continues to be involved in the child welfare system as an advocate.
“There’s two courts in our land. The court of public opinion and the judicial courts.”
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Korol maintains the court of public opinion hasn’t been effective in holding the Social Services Ministry accountable for the care or lack of care provided to foster children, despite scathing reports by the provincial auditor and the children’s advocate. Even the recommendations made by the Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel released earlier this week are not binding on the government.
“There’s no way of holding the ministry responsible. It’s ultimately the courts in our land that is able to do those sort of things,” said Korol.
He identifies three groups of foster children who could form classes as part of the court case: Those children who were physically or sexually abused; those who have spent years in the foster care system with no plan for permanent placement, such as adoption; and those who were taken from their parents because of allegations of neglect.
“A lot of these children should not be apprehended in the first place,” said Korol, noting neglect is the reason that 60 to 70 per cent of foster children are removed from their homes.
Rather than paying foster parents to provide care to children apprehended from their birth parents, the government should be spending money in ways that help neglectful parents learn to be better parents. He says many don’t know how to parent because their parents grew up in the residential school system and never learned to parent either.
“A (First Nation) elder said true remorse or true reconciliation is not having to apologize twice. It looks like we’re going down that road again with child welfare with apprehend, apprehend, apprehend,” said Korol.
Comparing foster care to Indian residential schools is not a stretch, says a Toronto lawyer who represented the Assembly of First Nations in negotiating the residential schools settlement agreement.
“You have the government standing in loco parentis. This is as true in foster care as it was in residential schools,” said John Kingman Phillips, who also lectures at the University of Saskatchewan.
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