After years of feeling ignored by the previous Progressive Conservative government, the Manitoba Foster Parents Association says it felt hopeful when the NDP was elected two years ago.
But recent attempts to reach Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine have them wondering if they’ve been blocked, following a reported trend of such behaviour.
Last week, a board member was concerned when she messaged the minister about a memorial event for children who have died in the child welfare system and her email didn’t generate the usual auto-reply.
“(The board member) reached out to me and so I said, ‘OK, I’ll send it through the association email,'” association president Jamie Pfau says.
“I did that. And I sent it to other MLAs as well, received confirmation from other MLAs but not from minister of families. So then I tried with my business account and it went through, and I received a notification from minister of families through an entirely different email that has nothing to do with children and care.”
Pfau says she has corresponded with the minister as recently as April 2024 and doesn’t know why emails would now not go through.
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“That’s anti-democratic as far as I’m concerned. You’re preventing advocacy, you’re promoting silence. It’s a very dangerous path to go down,” says Pfau, who has raised eight foster children.
“I would understand if I used any type of aggressive or foul language or was unprofessional or inappropriate in any way, but I would be happy to share my ‘sent’ folder. There’s absolutely nothing in there that would indicate any type of aggression or abuse or harassment. In fact, I don’t necessarily email her very often. It’s just to shine light on issues that are coming up regularly with foster parents.”
The last she heard from the minister was an emailed letter last year, which Global News has seen.
“Essentially, it’s saying thank you for helping to support children in care but we’re not looking for any particular advice, we’re looking to Indigenous leadership and to decolonize child welfare,” Pfau said.
She didn’t interpret that to mean communication would be cut off to the organization representing caregivers of the 10,000 kids in the system.
Global News emailed Fontaine’s office on July 29 looking for answers about the email situation and received no reply, as well again on July 31 to senior staff in Premier Wab Kinew’s office. After the story aired Aug. 4, the minister’s office responded Aug. 5 that auto-replies are only generated the first time an email is received from an address but not subsequent times.
Her office says “no messages have been blocked” and they have reached out to the Foster Parent’s Association to reopen communication.
On July 10, APTN News reported that Fontaine “had blocked every member of the APTN news team on social media” after the news outlet caught Fontaine in a hot mic moment complaining about having to share a stage with a sign language interpreter.
The outlet reported that it eventually got a statement from the minister that said that “immediately upon learning that journalists were blocked on my social media account I directed staff to reverse the decision.”
Jodie Byram, the Opposition critic for families and accessibility, said this type of behaviour “isn’t unusual.”
“When things get hot, heated or there might be some negative feedback input or comments made, (Fontaine) has a tendency to block all of that, making it very challenging for people who are involved in the child welfare system,” Bryam said.
Manitoba has the highest per capita rate of kids in care in Canada — around 10,000 at any given time.
The foster parents association says it’s imperative to have open lines of communication with the minister.
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