Manitoba’s pledge to pull foster kids out of hotels met with skepticism – The Globe and Mail
Apr. 01 2015
Amid intense public scrutiny, the Manitoba government is vowing to remove all foster children from hotels after a serious assault on a teenaged girl who had been placed in a Winnipeg hotel.
Calling the assault a “cowardly attack on a vulnerable child,” Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross said Wednesday she has ordered her department to find “alternative safe places” for children by June 1. “I am deeply troubled that this has happened to a child in the care of [Child and Family Services],” she said. “We have a responsibility to protect children in our care and to provide them with places of safety.”
The pledge comes eight months after the killing of Tina Fontaine, a native teen who died after going missing from her placement at the Best Western Charter House. The woman who raised Tina, her great-aunt Thelma Favel, said she has no confidence the government will deliver on its promise.
