The sound of an aboriginal mourning song washed over the legislature grounds Thursday night as dozens came together to remember a Morinville toddler and demand changes to the foster care system she died in.
The candlelight vigil, held on the building's front steps, drew roughly 70 people who came to both mourn the young girl and press for changes to the system where she spent her last two months.
The girl died on March 3 after clinging to life for two days at the Stollery Children's Hospital. After the medical examiner ruled the 21-month-old's death a homicide on March 4, the RCMP launched a formal murder investigation.
Father Jim Holland, who conducted the girl's funeral Tuesday at Sacred Heart Church, told the assembled crowd they needed to become involved in changing the foster care system.
“There is a saying that goes, it takes a village to raise a child and I say to you that it takes a village to save our children,” he said. “If we stick together and work together as a people and not be divided, we can make a difference.”
Holland laid blame for the child's death and the deaths of other children in foster care squarely at the feet of the provincial government.
“It is the policies that our government has issued, it is the policies that our government continues to push upon us that is killing our children.”
The toddler’s aunt spoke briefly, thanking the gathered crowd for their concern and calling on them to keep up the fight.
“We need to come together now before something tragic like this happens again to someone that we love,” she said, chocking back tears.
“It is important that we learn from this and that we speak out for the ones that we love.”
Muriel Stanley Venne of the Métis Mothers of Alberta said the system is putting too much emphasis on removing children from problem homes and not enough emphasis on trying to improve parenting skills.
“They are apprehending more now than they did when the aboriginal schools were in operation. This is a wake-up call.”
Stanley Venne said higher standards and better screening for foster parents as well as more funding and resources for the department are good, but if the province doesn’t fundamentally change the system, children will continue to die in care.
“The system is wrong, it is wrong, wrong, wrong. It has to be turned upside down because they will never have enough social workers at the rate they are going.”
Bernadette Iahtail, with the group Friends of Children in Care, who helped organize the event, said the current system is doing too much damage to children and disconnecting them from their communities.
“I have witnessed families torn apart. I have witnessed children who never got to go back to their communities.”
She said they are not pointing fingers; they just want the system to improve.
“It is not about blaming one another, it is about what can we do together to change things,” she said. “We don't want to see another death, we don't want to see another child get hurt.”
The RCMP has not released the cause of the child's death and the province has declined to release her name citing privacy concerns. The RCMP is asking anyone with any information to contact the Morinville detachment at 780-939-4550.
