Improving how British Columbia cares for its most vulnerable children and youth has long been a goal for Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons and now he will be positioned to make that happen.
While he was not invited to join premier John Horgan’s cabinet for BC’s newly formed government last week, Simons, a career social worker turned politician, has been asked to chair the BC legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth.
“Politics sometimes doesn't always come out the way you want it to," said Simons, "but I'll take full advantage of the opportunity given to me."
The role of the committee is to ensure an awareness of child-welfare issues in the province and all the services serving children, said Simons.
A key task of the committee will be to continue to hear the reports from the current BC representative for children and youth, Bernard Richard.
According to Powell River Child, Youth and Family Services board chair Hugh Prichard, Simons is particularly well suited to lead the committee.
“It's a great thing for children and youth and families in the province to have someone who has frontline experience,” said Prichard. “That's an integral part of what he will bring to advance the government's strategy for children and youth.”
Inclusion Powell River executive director Lilla Tipton said that appointing Simons to lead the committee is a wise choice by government.
“It's totally an appropriate appointment and one that will support our community to do the work we're doing, in terms of making sure the children in our community are well looked after and have all the opportunities that they need to grow to be healthy adults,” said Tipton.
Prichard said his board is “encouraged by decisions that would seem to suggest a more careful and analytical understanding of what the actual issues are, and what things can actually be changed.”
While this will be a first for Simons chairing the committee, he sat as a committee member between 2006 to 2013. In February of 2006, Simons was selected to join the first iteration of the standing committee, which was formed as a result of the now-retired judge Ted Hughes’ report into the failings of BC’s child welfare system following the 2002 violent death of 19-month-old Sherry Charlie, an infant in foster care.
Simons said that the past provincial governments have not done enough to address underlying social problems, such as BC’s child poverty rates, factors that contribute to parents neglecting or mistreating their children.
He added he would like to see more support for children in care who are currently aging out of the system at 19 years old, and more support for foster families.
The standing committee is made up of sitting MLAs from both sides of the legislature. Simons said that the committee will announce its full membership by early September.
