Letter: How can 18 young people dying after CFS intervention not be the biggest story of any day?

By Letter to the Editor on October 30, 2024.

Dear editor,

In Oct. 22’s paper on page A8, a headline read, “Eighteen young Albertans died while receiving intervention services since April. Sixteen were Indigenous.”

Firstly, I didn’t understand why this wasn’t front page news. Over the course of five months from April to August of this year, 18 young people died after intervention by Alberta Children and Family Services.

The youth are dying after an intervention by CFS. Remember, the intent of interventions is to save these young people, yet they are dying in care.

Even one death per year, of a child in care, would be cause for alarm, but this is more than three children per month in Alberta.

But that is just this year. Let’s look at last year. In the first eight months of 2022-23, 56 young people died after intervention by CFS. And 49 died in care in 2021.

Is this why the article was buried on page A8 instead of leading the news on the first page? Have the deaths of young people in care become normalized to the extent that this is not the shocking front page news that it should be?

My argument is it still needs to be front page news to shake us out of our complacency. We all need to act and let our provincial government know that rather than inventing imaginary problems – like the U.S. Department of Defense leaving chemtrails over the skies of Alberta – they need to be actively preventing the very real problem of the deaths of children in care in our province.

If our government is incompetent to this degree, then truly, someone needs to lose their job.

Under the watch of the United Conservatives in Alberta, CFS doesn’t have the management capacity to protect our youth. How has the economy of Alberta been mismanaged to the extent that we cannot even access sufficient funding to protect the most vulnerable in our society?

This level of incompetency can surely be considered criminal. Step down, UCP. You are not up to the job.

All Albertans deserve a competent, decent government capable of protecting the most vulnerable – our young people.

Anna Hansen

Medicine Hat

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