Community Living BC: Broke & Languishing

As we’ve written about many times before, services to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families are in severe crisis in BC, through the actions of the BC Liberal government. It is a travesty, gross negligence and a human rights violation of epic proportion, which brings shame to the BC government. Remember, they are the ones who wrote this:

Goal #3 - Build the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, those with special needs, children at risk and seniors.

A recap. One of the brain trust involved in devolving Community Living services (part of MCFD) was Doug Walls, Gordon Campbell’s relative by marriage. Mr. Walls and his Liberal appointed Steering Committee created the blueprints for the Crown agency Community Living BC. Mr. Walls was awarded taxpayer money, which, by the way, has never been located, nor is it clear whether he provided the government any of the services he received the contract for. The audit by PriceWaterhouse Cooper has of course disappeared from the government website, but they of course they didn't find anything of a criminal nature, just that he had some "influence" on government officials. Hey, interesting, they're the same auditors for the ICBC scandal and a whole lot of others ones we've never even heard about.

At the time MCFD gave him the contract it was known to government officials he was being investigated by the RCMP in Prince George (since 1998) for fraud over $5000 against the CIBC. Gordon Hogg, then Minister of Children & Families resigned over this & Chris Haynes, Deputy Minister was fired, but I'm sure he received a sweet parting package. Walls was also quite close with Shirley Bond and was the former BC Liberal riding association president in Prince George. He pled guilty to fraud and was given a conditional discharge, isn't that meaningful? Has anyone checked to see whether he's gotten any new MCFD, or CLBC contracts since he was caught out? That might be an interesting Freedom of Information & Privacy request. Geeze, at one time all he had to do was write his own cheques and submit them to his buddies in the BC government and life was all good.

No jail for former B.C. official over bank fraud
Last Updated: Friday, March 9, 2007 11:57 AM ET
CBC News
A former senior provincial government adviser with close ties to the B.C. Liberals has been handed a conditional sentence after pleading guilty to bank fraud.

He admitted he defrauded the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce of more than $5,000 in a scheme that included writing bad cheques.

Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government later hired Walls to revamp B.C.'s interim Community Living Authority.

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Another Special Prosecutor means More Questions for Campbell
David Schreck. Strategic Thoughts. January 17, 2004 .

Late on Friday afternoon, the time for "taking out the garbage", the Campbell government announced the appointment of another special prosecutor. This time the investigation involves Doug Walls, the Premier's relative by marriage, a former President of a provincial Liberal constituency association, and the acting CEO of the Interim Authority for Community Living.

Read more about the BC Supreme Court ruling against Walls, his relatives, his co-accused and all of the little companies they set up.

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BTW, Rick Mowles, CEO of CLBC also wears the hat of chief bargaining agent for Community Social Services Employers’ Association (CSSEA). He was appointed by CEO, wait for it…by the BC Liberals to help devolve CLBC. Some of us might be forgiven for thinking he might have been in just a teensy little CONFLICT OF INTEREST when he was involved in negotiating infrastructure and operational funding for the new agency AND being an Employer representative. Doesn’t seem to have bothered Mowles, or the Liberals much, which kind of speaks volumes.

The parent in this media story hits the nail on the head about the ass backwards way child welfare is administered in BC (and other provinces). Instead of being proactive, providing adequate respite, in-home support and an adequate living wage to parents on income assistance (not this family) MCFD & CLBC pay foster parents thousands of dollars a month (which they deserve) but deny parents adequate financial, or caregiver support until the caregivers burn out and have no choice but to put their children in very, very expensive foster, or institutional care. It’s fiscal incompetence and systemic negligence and frankly stupidity which keeps the child welfare system in a crisis-driven state. Any business person reading this, or anyone with common sense would recognize that this is the kind of financial management that leads to businesses going under rapidly. CLBC's budgets are often shot at the beginning of their new fiscal year and we understand they may be cutting even more corners to keep afloat. If this was a business, it would have been bankrupt within a year of operating.

CLBC has been asked to keep waitlists since they began operating, July 2006 and here we are in 2008 and they are still unwilling to do so at all for some services and spotty ones at best for others. It is an unmitigated public services disaster and a gross failure of the governments' fiduciary duty to our most vulnerable citizens. This isn't even getting into the many, many systemic problems facing the agencies who recieve buckets of

Community Living discussion paper

The BCGEU, the union that “represents” CLBC workers held a forum and released a discussion paper, on the state of Community Living services in BC which was written with a great deal of stakeholder input.

Apr 7 '08
"Despite a strong mandate and shared vision, the system is failing."
That's one of the findings in a discussion paper on the state of community living services in the province of British Columbia that was produced by the BCGEU.

The paper, "Exploring Solutions," was prepared as a result of interviews and two separate dialogues bringing together workers, employers, advocacy groups, and family members to discuss their experience of community living services in B.C.

A key part of the paper was an analysis of the current situation involving people with developmental disabilities:

"The provincial authority (Community Living BC) provides support and services to only 28% of the 36,000 adults British Columbians with developmental disabilities. There are more than 1,300 eligible individuals on waitlists."

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Community Living Forum - May 4, 2007
Representatives from unions in the community social services sector, family groups and employers attended this forum to look at issues around Community Living BC.
Click here for webcast.
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B.C. cuts respite for family of severely disabled child:
Parents say Campbell government biased against families who look after their own
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 10:01 AM ET
By Kathy Tomlinson CBC News

The parents of a severely disabled B.C. girl are accusing the provincial government of neglecting the needs of disabled children and their families....

There is no way to tell how many parents are waiting for government help, because Community Living B.C. doesn't compile its waiting lists provincially. "We don't have any of that information," said Mowles. "The waiting lists would be kept in a local office — or local contractors would keep that — so we don't track that information."

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Interestingly, David Schreck was calling on the Auditor General to review CLBC back in 2004. It doesn't look like that has ever happened and they are even in worse fiscal conditions these days. I hope stakeholders consider making a formal complaint and request for investigation into the fiscal and operational management of this Crown agency. I'm quite sure there are some interesting things to find that would be in the public's interest to have brought out into the open.