Manitoba government still working on finishing list CFS recommendations from Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry

It’s been more than four years since the inquiry into the death of Phoenix Sinclair released its report.

Sinclair was five years old when she was killed by her mother and stepfather.  She was in the care of Child and Family Services and during her short life, was involved with 27 different social workers.

In January, 2014, an inquiry made 62 different recommendations on how the province could improve Manitoba’s child welfare system.

Scott Fielding, Minister of Families, said the province has completed most of the changes but didn’t have a time frame for when the remaining five would be done.

“Ninety per cent of the recommendations out of the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry have been acted upon. When we took office that was about 29 per cent,” he said.

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“If you look at the numbers that we inherited over 11 thousand children in care — that’s an unacceptable number of children in care so that’s why we need to reform the system.”

Right now there are 10,714 children in care and 834 case workers, which is a 1 case worker to 25 cases formula.

Indigenous leaders are once again calling for an overhaul of CFS after another girl in their care, Tina Fontaine, died.

Through CFS, Fontaine was housed in a Best Western Hotel in Winnipeg. But she left the hotel and was reported missing on Aug. 9, 2014.

On Aug. 17, Tina’s body was pulled from the Red River near the Alexander Docks.

Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Arlen Dumas said the CFS system failed Fontaine.

“There’s supposed to be processes and procedures in place to look after people who are at risk. When you look at pictures of Tina Fontaine, even though she was a little girl at 15 years old, she looked 10,” he said.

He added he’s worried about the current number of kids in care.

“If this could happen to Tina Fontaine, this could happen to each and every one of them.”

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Currently the province isn’t launching an internal review on how Fontaine slipped through the cracks.

“The person that should be held responsible directly is the murderer,” St. Boniface MP Dan Vandal said. “If it wasn’t Mr. Cormier, the murderer is on the loose in Winnipeg or somewhere else in the country.”