BC commits to public reports on teens placed in hotels after joint review

VICTORIA – BC’s children’s minister says the government will continue to place vulnerable children and youth in hotels in last-resort situations, but aims to eliminate the practice.

A joint report released by Minister Stephanie Cadieux and BC’s children’s watchdog Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond found the government placed 117 foster children and youth in hotels from November 2014 to October 2015.

The report was launched after the body of 18-year-old Alex Gervais was found outside an Abbotsford hotel last September in what is believed to have been a suicide.

The death prompted an outcry by the Opposition New Democrats and among aboriginal and social welfare agencies critical of government policy that put the teen in a hotel with minimal supervision.

The report says placing youth in hotels reveals significant system shortfalls and that such placements should be eliminated entirely.

Gervais was moved to the hotel after the group home where he was staying was shut down, and documents released last year reported concerns about drugs and weapons with the firm that operated several group homes.

BC NDP Leader John Horgan calls it appalling that the number is that many more than Minister Cadieux originally said.

“I guess you can either be called a liar or incompetent. I’ll let the minister take her choice there, there’s no other way to describe it,” says Horgan.

He wonders how Cadieux still has the premier’s confidence with this portfolio.

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