Vancouver (Vancouver Sun) — The chief of Sto:lo First Nation is accusing B.C. Premier Christy Clark of practising a “double standard” of accountability in the death of an 18-year-old man in government care.
Alex Gervais fell from a fourth-floor window of an Abbotsford hotel on Sept. 18, and children’s representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond has said it’s believed he killed himself.
Chief Tyrone McNeil of the Sto:lo Tribal Council says in a letter to a legislative committee that Clark vowed consequences for an aboriginal agency she accused of not following policy in Gervais’s death.
But McNeil says Clark is refusing to hold social workers and a director at the Ministry of Children and Family Development accountable in a case where children were sexually abused by their father.
McNeil says the premier defends social workers who fail to protect children but then vows consequences when an aboriginal agency is involved.
He says a legislative committee must refer the case to the children’s representative for an investigation because Clark’s comments have corrupted a review of Gervais’s death.
