Phoenix sinclair inquiry news

The Manitoba government is coming under fire for waiting until two byelections are held before releasing a final report into how social services failed a five-year-old girl who was murdered by her mother and stepfather. The Manitoba government says it has received the final report from a public inquiry into the death of a five-year-old girl who spent much of her life in foster care.

The public will have to wait until the new year to hear recommendations from one of the most expensive inquiries in Manitoba's history. Aboriginals need more control over child welfare, education and other social programs because government efforts have largely failed them, a Manitoba inquiry was told Monday. One of Manitoba's largest child welfare authorities says changes made since the death of a five-year-old girl have made the system one of the best in Canada.

Seven years have passed since Phoenix Sinclair was murdered and hidden in a shallow grave in Manitoba. On Sept.

At the time of her death, Sinclair was under the supervision of Child and Family Services. Province responds to Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry, pledges to help keep more kids in homes. Another time, he came at her with a machete. Social workers were sometimes unaware of who was taking care of Phoenix — usually it was friends of the family or relatives, for days or weeks at a time.

The father was told to undergo alcohol counselling before he could get his daughter back. American shoe brand Vans has a new "sustainable approach" with the launch of the Eco Theory collection. Grassroots' website conveniently adds your vaccine passport to Apple Wallet, Google Pay. A design from the U.

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The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. This website uses cookies to personalize your content including ads , and allows us to analyze our traffic. Browne and her boss also drafted a letter to the social worker handling McKay's family file. McKay had a long, spotty record of domestic abuse and arrests for assault.

At the time, he was living with a woman and their two daughters. CFS records indicate McKay frequently beat his partner and she often tried to cover for him, lying to doctors. In , McKay was supposed to complete a program for domestic abuse. But he missed a crucial session. When he turned up in Browne's office, he was rude and belligerent.

In a public inquiry as ambitious and long-running as the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry, there are bound to be days when minutiae is the order of the day. Today was one of those days. Her testimony was essentially a re-tread of what we heard the day before from social worker Tracy Forbes -- but with a few distinct differences.

Forbes was asked to check in on Phoenix in May when the agency learned she was again living with her mother, Samatha Kematch. Forbes had a difficult time getting in touch with the girl and there were two-week lapses in her attempts at contact. She told the inquiry that was because the unit was overworked. That, she said, wasn't usual procedure back then. So what would Forbes's boss say? Parsons agreed that the unit was overworked, but she said under-staffing wasn't the only reason. Experience is a great teacher, but it is also a merciless one.

Forbes was working in Intake and was asked to suss out the little girl's safety. The agency had just learned Phoenix was living again with her mother, Samantha Kematch. The concerned tip came from an Employment and Income Assistance worker who was asked to process a request to add Phoenix's child benefit to Kematch's budget.

Forbes testified today that at the time, the unit she was working in was cleaved in half by sick leave. Three social workers were off, leaving three others to do the work of six.

One of her previous statements, entered into evidence at the inquiry, compared her situation to running on a spinning wheel. Forbes said she tried repeatedly to make contact with the little girl and her mother over the next few months at weekly and bi-weekly intervals.

There were concerns Phoenix was in a high-risk situation, but Forbes -- pressed for time -- had few weapons in her arsenal. All she could do was leave cards and send letters to Kematch, a woman with severe cognitive problems. Confusing, contradictory, and occasionally very loud. Phoenix Sinclair's godmother, Kim Edwards, was under cross-examination today.

McKinnon tried to wrestle straight answers from Edwards: Where did she live while looking after Phoenix? When did she move out of her Selrkik Avenue home? When did her relationship with Rohan Stephenson dissolve? But Edwards wasn't about to say uncle. Edwards, deeply mistrustful of the Child and Family Services CFS system, refuted almost all the evidence in agency records. Yesterday, she threw around terms like "outright lies. Edwards leaned forward. Kim Edwards is a flamboyant woman: full of passion and drive.

That much I know from watching her every day at the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry. Day in and day out, she sits there, tightly coiled, furiously writing notes during other witnesses' testimony. I have seen her shake her head in disgust at the witness stand. I have seen her compact body practically vibrate in rage. But all during these proceedings, she has remained silent. That is, until today.

Today she unleashed her fury at the child welfare system. Edwards clearly has a lot of anger around how the CFS system failed Phoenix. She detailed the times she called CFS, worried that Samantha Kematch had absconded with Phoenix, and her bitterness when she was told it was no longer any of her concern. Edwards forcefully countered CFS records that detailed the contact workers made with her. She said those records were false and demanded to know how CFS workers could "write notes about things they didn't do.

As a reporter, I occasionally go nuts when someone changes my copy and inserts an inaccuracy. Often it's a mistake from a well-meaning colleague transferring a radio script to a TV script to the web. But sometimes it results in errors that ultimately make you look bad. I have to admit here that I do make my own mistakes. But every now and then I find myself wearing someone else's mistake, and it's not very fun.

This is perhaps one of the factors at play in the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry's "altered file mini-drama" that has been playing out over the last two days. Social worker Debbie De Gale testified that she clearly remembered checking a hour response time on a safety assessment form she filed on Phoenix Sinclair in May She also testified that the accompanying Crisis Response Unit CRU intake file was missing two important pieces of information.

She believed the documents had been altered. De Gale didn't directly blame anyone for removing the information in the CRU intake file. However, she did point fingers when it came to the safety assessment downgrade -- directly at Diana Verrier, her supervisor at the time.

Indeed, Verrier's initials are clearly visible on the form next to to the assessment downgrade. Today, Verrier testified that she had no independent memory of that time, but when she looked at the forms it seemed to her she was merely making a correction -- not altering a response time.

Social worker Debbie De Gale was soft-spoken, but her testimony at the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry today was explosive. We heard from that witness this morning. Concerned, S. Debbie De Gale picked up the phone. De Gale testified it was the second time that day someone would call her about Phoenix's safety -- an "aunt" had also contacted the CRU and indicated that she was worried Phoenix might be at risk.

De Gale's job at the CRU was to assess cases and decide whether action was merited and, if so, how quickly. At the time, response times varied based on the level of risk in the safety assessment: high-risk situations begged a response within 24 hours, medium-risk situations required a response within 48 hours, and low-risk situations within five days.

De Gale pulled out some of the history on Phoenix's family and promptly checked the box marked 24 hours. That form, De Gale told the inquiry, was later altered. It was a dramatic moment, to be sure, made all the more so when inquiry counsel Sherri Walsh produced the original document -- scribbles and all. Witnesses in a court -- or in this case, an inquiry -- don't come wrapped like the perfect Christmas present, meeting all the expectations of both giver and receiver.

Memories can fade and people sometimes make poor choices. Then, they are suddenly forced to air those decisions, sometimes from years past, like wet laundry Rohan Ron Stephenson, who appeared before the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry today, was one of the few bright lights in the short life of Phoenix Sinclair -- a present whose wrapping was a bit tattered and the ribbon hanging off, but containing a real gift from the heart.

At Stephenson's house, they partied sometimes. People smoked pot. He worked nights and was often exhausted. But that has nothing to do with how much he cared for the little girl and how he tried to make his home a safe place for her. Stephenson is a well-spoken man, able to put into words what many could not say on the stand.

He talked about being part of the "marginalized part of society": people who don't have much, don't trust authority, and don't get respect from many other people. He also forgot a lot of details. They just weren't important to him at the time, and he didn't remember them. Stephenson did admit that he lied to CFS workers. He didn't come clean about his relationship with partner Kim Edwards ending, and the dynamic in his house was therefore changing. This blog post is written by the CBC's Sean Kavanagh, who is covering the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry this week: Today the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry took a step back from files and notes that aren't there and workers and supervisors that can't remember.

The inquiry focused instead on a father, his struggles to be a decent parent, and the daughter he lost. To say the cards played to Phoenix's biological father, Steve Sinclair, weren't very good would be a fair statement. One of the coincidences that happen in small place like Manitoba: a case worker that worked with Steve as a child also briefly worked on Phoenix's file. On the stand today, I never heard Sinclair ask for pity, or lash out in anger against the system, or even really condemn Samantha Kematch, Phoenix's biological mother, for what she did to the little girl.

I heard a guy describe his daughter in the way that most fathers do: what she liked, what she wore, how she moved, how she laughed. Ingram oversaw the Sinclair file in early and appeared at the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry today.

Last week, the inquiry discovered that notes on the Sinclair case made by several CFS supervisors could not be found To be fair, a policy directing supervisors to maintain notes on discussions about cases came into effect on March 1, , just weeks after the Sinclair file crossed Ingram's desk.

Ingram admitted later that he didn't adhere to that policy specifically, even after it came into effect. Even if he is honest about where his notes went, it's a shame that Ingram saw fit to shred them. In his testimony today, he virtually had no memory of the case, his part in it, and what decisions the CFS worker under him had made. This blog post is written by the CBC's Sean Kavanagh, who is covering the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry this week: I covered much of the legal wrangling leading up to the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry, but this was my first full day sitting and listening to the testimony.

Since the inquiry began, much has been made of notes going missing and some people's memories being poor. Instead, it's like the steady drip of a leaky faucet, and each drop seems to show just how big the crack was that Phoenix fell through. Phoenix, we learned, was returned to her biological father, Steve Sinclair, despite misgivings from the CFS supervisor on the file. Heather Edinborough told the inquiry that a psychiatric assessment was never done on Sinclair. She felt it wasn't his substance abuse that was an issue, but his inability to "attach" to his daughter Phoenix.

But neither the drinking nor parenting issues was compelling enough to stop CFS from returning Phoenix to the custody of her dad. That didn't last very long. After a week of guarded testimony, hearing from Heather Edinborough was a breath of fresh air. The former Winnipeg Child and Family Services supervisor took the stand today. The Phoenix Sinclair file landed on her desk after the girl was apprehended from her father, Steve Sinclair, in June , following a wild drinking party.

She had heard good things about an aboriginal social worker named Stan Williams. Williams used aboriginal cultural traditions with clients throughout Winnipeg's North End. Edinborough figured Sinclair would be more trusting of a man who also shared his heritage.

From the start, Williams dug into the new family file. Edinborough recalled how passionately Williams advocated for his new client. That, she testified, was a mistake. Phoenix Sinclair's life was a revolving door of social workers and caregivers.

As we mine the case notes, many characters come and go. Today the sad little tale of her baby sister, Echo, unfolded again. Echo was born April 29, At the time, Phoenix had just turned one. Shortly after Echo was born, her parents split.

Case notes reveal that one night in June, Samantha Kematch came home to Steve Sinclair with a hickey on her neck. Kematch had taken up again with her ex-boyfriend and the father of her first child, a little boy who became a permanent ward of Cree Nation Child and Family Services. The break-up was increasingly volatile. Police were called to their Magnus Avenue home on a report of domestic violence.

Kematch alleged that Sinclair assaulted her. Sinclair told social workers that Kematch had absconded with the child tax credit and gone drinking. He said Kematch was boozing all the time and was out of control.

Police charged Sinclair with assault. While police sorted the matter out, Echo was left in Kematch's care. Rather, we heard more about the events that slow-marched her to her eventual death. It wasn't a social worker who ultimately crushed the child's skull against a cold cement floor, but increasingly we're hearing exactly what the agency did and did not do to ensure her safety. Chief-Abigosis's testimony was notable mainly because of its lack of answers. Her notes betray a lack of evidence that she ever tried to contact the family until February It was noted that she only ever successfully visited the family home twice in the entire time she managed the case file -- a period of eight or nine months.

Today we heard more from the woman who supervised Chief-Abigosis. Angela Balan's delivery was even, flat, almost monotone. She was composed, methodical in her answers, often pulling out her glasses to consult the evidence before giving her carefully-weighed answers. It was that exacting behaviour that made me occasionally mourn the loss of Balan's supervisory notes.

There's little doubt they would have been immaculately detailed. It is astonishing how casual an admission it was: a blink, and you'll miss it moment. Measured and understated, she described how meticulously she maintained her supervisory notes: they were type-written and stored in blue binders, so that social workers could easily access and reference them.

That's when Derek Olson, the inquiry's senior associate counsel, dropped the bomb. Is that the same with your notes? Balan matter-of-factly replied, "That's what Mr. McKinnon has advised me that they weren't able to locate.

Gordon McKinnon, the lawyer for Manitoba's Department of Family Services, says the department conducted a diligent search for the notes but could not find them. McKinnon maintains those missing supervisory notes won't have a big impact on the inquiry because most of the information will likely appear in case files. Not surprisingly, Olson took a slightly different tack, calling it a difficult situation.

Memory can be an elusive thing -- especially a decade after the fact -- but today's witness testimony bordered on amnesia. Just two months earlier, little Phoenix was handed back to her biological parents, Samantha Kematch and Steve Sinclair, albeit with strings attached.

Winnipeg Child and Family Services was worried enough about Pheonix's welfare to require the young couple to sign a service agreement with the agency. One of the main points they agreed to was to have regular visits with a social worker.

The file wasn't assigned to another worker until it landed on Delores Chief-Abigosis's lap that November. The family had Phoenix home a full two months at that point, without a single visit from an assigned social worker.

The case file Chief-Abigosis inherited held many cautionary notes about the potentially combustible family dynamic at play, but the social worker couldn't recall reading over any of those details.

It's a familiar theme at these proceedings: too many cases, all of them complex, many of them closed without being fully resolved. Today the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry heard from two longtime employees of Manitoba's child welfare system: Laura Forrest and Roberta Dick. Their testimony a study in how the weight of the demands on the system crushed their ability to function. Forrest started on the stand yesterday and outlined her frustrations in trying to get a hold of Steve Sinclair in She was the social worker tasked with checking in on Phoenix's well-being, after the child showed up in hospital that February with an object that had been lodged inside her nose for three months.

Forrest said she tried five times in three months to make contact with Steve Sinclair. She left her card at his house but got nowhere. Today Steve Sinclair's lawyer, Jeff Gindin, asked her why she didn't try harder. Why, he wanted to know, didn't she contact other family members or people from Sinclair's circle of friends? And why didn't she try to make contact with Sinclair on the evening or the weekend? Obviously you're pointing out that I haven't," replied Forrest, who had earlier told the inquiry she sometimes juggled upwards of 40 cases at a time.

Forrest, in fact, pushed back a number of times as Gindin questioned her. Rational and collected through most of her time on the stand, at these moments it was evident she is frustrated with the microscope her work is now under.

It was just a handwritten little list that was entered into evidence at the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry today, but it packed an emotional punch: - One pair of pink panties, washed and hung to dry. These were the only items three-year-old Phoenix had to her name on the night she was apprehended by child and family services CFS workers in We don't yet know the circumstances of her apprehension. Perhaps she had more clothes and there just wasn't time to pack them when the workers came for her -- today at the inquiry, we heard that's often the case.

Either way, it's a sad list that somehow makes the little girl seem smaller and more vulnerable. At that point, Steve Sinclair, the girl's biological father, became her primary caregiver. But in February , someone identifying himself only as a "godfather" took Phoenix to a local emergency room. There, doctors removed a pus-filled and foul-smelling object from inside her nose.