Yukon government releases plan to fix failures revealed in review of Hidden Valley sexual abuse case

The Yukon government has publicly released a 23-point action plan on how it will fix the policy, oversight and communications failures identified in a report on the its handling of a 2019 sexual abuse case at Hidden Valley Elementary School.

The plan, delivered to cabinet on Feb. 18, was shared with Hidden Valley families before being made public on Thursday. It's in response to a government-ordered independent review that confirmed the government ought to have told parents about an educational assistant who sexually abused a student in his care, but, due to systemic shortcomings across multiple departments, never did.

Instead, most parents only learned William Auclair-Bellemare was arrested and later pleaded guilty to one count of sexual interference after the CBC reported on a lawsuit filed by the victim in July 2021. 

Police have since identified two other alleged victims. The situation triggered four separate reviews or investigations into police and government conduct, including one ordered by Yukon Education Minister Jeanie McLean. 

That review, conducted by lawyer Amanda Rogers, resulted in a final report containing seven recommendations. Premier Sandy Silver said at a press conference Feb. 1 that the government had accepted all of them, and that he'd asked the deputy minister of the executive council office, Stephen Mills, to create an implementation plan. 

"We recognize that there were serious gaps in the inter-agency response to the 2019 incident at Hidden Valley Elementary School," Silver said in a press release about the plan being made public. 

"We are committed to fully implementing the recommendations from the Independent Review Report and improving government-wide policies and procedures."

McLean was not immediately available for comment.

The plan's introduction says implementation of the 23 key actions will "require a concerted effort and co-ordination across multiple departments and agencies," including the public service commission, executive council office, RCMP, Women and Gender Equity Directorate and the departments of health and social services, education, justice and highways and public works. 

The actions themselves, which will take between under a month to a year-and-a-half to implement, include:

• finalizing communication guidance and procedures for informing parents and families about school incidents; 
• creating an agreement between the departments of education and health and social services and the RCMP on investigating of child abuse;
• requiring all school staff to take training on the prevention, detection and obligation to report suspected child abuse and suspicious behaviour;
• developing public service value and ethics code;
• creating an advisory committee of Hidden Valley parents;
• and enhancing opportunities for public servants to work in different departments in an effort to reduce silos within government

The plan says a committee of deputy ministers, including Mills, education's Nicole Morgan, the Public Service Commission's Paul Moore and justice's John Phelps, will be responsible for overseeing progress. 

Three Hidden Valley-related reviews or investigations — one by the Yukon child and youth advocate and another by the Yukon Ombudsman on government conduct, and one on the Yukon RCMP's 2019 investigation — are still underway. 

The plan says the key actions may be updated based on the results of those reviews, as well as input from a Hidden Valley parents' committee.