As renewed scrutiny grows around the death of 15-year-old Wally Rich, Newfoundland and Labrador’s child and youth advocate says the situation is a tragedy, and her office’s ability to investigate is held up in bureaucratic limbo.Rich, from Natuashish, died by suicide while at a group home in Labrador in May, nearly three years after the provincial government promised an inquiry into Innu children in care.Jackie Lake Kavanagh, the child and youth advocate, said any ability to do her own investigation into Rich’s death is on hold, as by law she cannot look at or investigate a matter until the Child Death Review Committee has completed its own review. She has yet to receive a file from that committee, she said, and added the awaited inquiry is also standing in the way.She wants to see if Rich’s case will be included in that inquiry, which will determine whether she can proceed with her own investigation. That’s one more reason she feels the years-long delay for the inquiry is unacceptable.”When you look at the sense of urgency, this should have been happening already, and Innu children are struggling in the system and this is a prime example of it,” she said. Kavanagh said it’s inexplicable to her how the province hasn’t moved ahead with the inquiry yet. “This inquiry was committed more than three years ago, and if you look back beyond that, the Innu people were demanding and asking for that inquiry before it was committed. So, it goes back much more than three years,” said Jackie Lake Kavanagh. “I think the piece that they want is, they want answers, they want accountability and they want reconciliation, and they’ve said that. And I think those are very reasonable requests to make.”Troubling statisticsAs of March, there were 165 Innu children in provincial care. It’s clear to Kavanagh that Rich is not the only one who encountered problems with the system.”It’s not unique which is really, really tragic,” she told CBC Radio’s St John’s Morning Show.Her office is seeing troubling statistics in the province.Legislative changes to the Child and Youth Advocate Act in 2018 meant her office has to be notified if a child is critically injured or dies while in care and custody, or within the last 12 months of care and custody.”Between April 1, 2019 and the end of September this year, we have had 75 reports, and 60 per cent of those have been around suicide attempts or suicide ideation,” Kavanagh said. “That’s really, really significant in this little province of ours.”Kavanagh said Indigenous children and their communities have been marginalized for a long time, and the impact of intergenerational trauma is working its way through younger generations. She said Rich’s death is heartbreaking, and it’s part of larger, systemic issues that are pervasive across Canada.”When you look at the situation across the country, in fact, between 10- and 24-year-olds suicide is the second leading cause of death, and that is really, really troubling,” Kavanagh said.”I think all of us should be left with a whole sense of unrest about that.”Kavanagh said a lot more work needs to be done, particularly a plan dedicated to youth and children in the province’s suicide prevention strategy as well as services dedicated to Indigenous children based in their culture. Where to get help:Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1-833-456-4566 (phone) | 45645 (text) | http://www.crisisservicescanada.ca/ (chat)In Quebec (French): Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553)Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868 (phone), Live Chat counselling at www.kidshelpphone.caCanadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisisRead more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
