“the type of petty clawback mentality that is not associated with success.” Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond
I am usually of the view that government is a positive thing. This is not an especially popular opinion in my neck of the woods. However, I believe government is how we can best combine our individual resources to provide a collection of amenities and services, all of those wonderful things that we as citizens agree are for the greatest good. Generally, Health, Education and Transportation top the provincial list.
Lots of smaller items sometimes get lost, or undervalued, in the topsy-turvy, occasionally competitive world that is the B.C. political arena.
It may be that the needs of those young people who have come under the ostensibly protective wing of the Ministry of Child and Family Development are seen by some within and without government as having been met simply because the state has intervened.
Like all young people, like all of us, really, the youth who are need of State protective services at some point in their lives also often need some measure of guidance, respect and support well into adulthood. We know full well that being in the care of the State can frequently be an off-road excursion. The struggle to complete high school, to even attend school is sometimes a daunting task. To go beyond all that, to attend post secondary training of any kind, requires resilience and resolve. And, most of all, support in all of its meanings.
Lori Culbert’s article in the Vancouver Sun on September 26 spoke eloquently about this topic and left no doubt about the mean-spirited thoughtless act of Government to strip youth of bursary money.
When I was writing Like a Child to Home, my working title was Next of Kin. My intention in using that rather overused title was that I thought it conveyed how I view the relationship that government often has with young clients adrift. There is a bond, a kind of institutional kinship.
Clearly my view, as expressed in my letter to the Sun and published on September 30, is not shared by the Christy Clark Liberals. For them, it appears that young people in care and formerly in care are simply debtors, worth a small investment but not much more. Thankfully, others, a growing number of educational institutions and caring groups the likes of the Adoptive Families Association of BC, have an awareness of the struggle facing these youth and have stepped up even as government steps back into the shadows of punitive reward.
The Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, continues to fight the good fight against an intractable system that seems to find it awfully difficult to simply do the right thing.
