Some parents unsure report on Yukon gov't failure in Hidden Valley sexual abuse case will lead to change

Some Hidden Valley Elementary School parents say they're not confident a new report outlining where the Yukon government went wrong in handling a 2019 sexual abuse case will lead to change.

Of particular concern to parents who spoke to the CBC was the report stating "no one person" was responsible for the failure to notify families about the situation, which they feared would mean a lack of consequences for anyone involved — particularly, people in leadership.

"If a large ship accidentally plowed into a dock, severely injuring a bunch of kids, even if the captain didn't intentionally do it, would they not still be held accountable?" parent Jen Kiess said. 

"Citing there is no policy and their staff are ill-trained should not be an excuse to get away with this negligence."

The report, released by the Yukon government Monday night, is the result of an independent review by lawyer Amanda Rogers, whom education minister Jeanie McLean hired in the fall in the face of mounting community and political scrutiny. 

At the heart of the review was the fact that education officials didn't tell parents about an educational assistant at Hidden Valley who was arrested in November 2019 and later pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a student in his care.

Instead, most parents found out about the situation last July, when the CBC reported on a lawsuit filed by the victim. The story drew outrage from families and also led police to identify two other alleged victims who had been missed in the original investigation. 

Rogers' review found that while the RCMP were ultimately responsible for not identifying other potential victims at the time, the Yukon education department still should have communicated with parents. However, a series of policy and communications failures across the education and justice departments and the Public Service Commission resulted in no information being shared with the school community. 

Premier Sandy Silver, at a press conference Tuesday, said the government had accepted the report's seven recommendations on how to prevent the situation from happening again, including better training and on-boarding for education staff and creating a policy on how to respond to serious incidents at schools. Work began "immediately" on the recommendations, Silver said, and an implementation action plan is set to be delivered to cabinet by Feb. 18. 

'I want, desperately, to be proved wrong here' 

Kiess said that while she supports the recommendations, her faith in the government to implement them is weak because the makeup of higher-ranking education employees is still largely the same as it was in 2019.

Even though the report found there was no cover-up or malicious intent on the government's part, Kiess said she still believes there should be tangible consequences for people who were in charge when the failures happened.

"In not removing people who have acted incompetently while employed in key leadership positions, this government is further cultivating its culture that it is OK to act incompetently as long as you meant well," she said. "We expect better from our leaders."

Another parent whose child's name is protected by a publication ban said she was "pleasantly surprised" that the government shared Rogers' report with parents the same day it was delivered, and that it was good to have a detailed overview of what had happened within departments.

However, she said she had similar concerns as Kiess when it came to accountability and called for former education minister Tracy McPhee, who's currently justice and health minister as well as deputy premier, and deputy education minister Nicole Morgan to step down or be fired.

"A senior official who contributed to the decision or the lack of a decision should be held responsible because that's why they get paid the big bucks, you know?" said the parent, who the CBC is not naming to avoid indirectly identifying her child.

"[If] you have big responsibilities, you have big consequences when things don't go well, that's with any line of work that you do."

(The report found McPhee was not provided information on communication, or lack thereof, with parents, but that in hindsight, leadership "ought to have more proactively inquired into the department's response." Morgan was heavily involved in the file, personally signing off on briefing notes for McPhee as well as the letter terminating the educational assistant's employment.)

Kate Davis, whose child worked with the educational assistant before he was removed from the school, said she strongly agreed with the recommendation to provide education staff with more training, and particularly with how to properly meet the needs of children with special needs.

However, she said that wasn't enough, and neither were the apologies from politicians — she, too, wanted to see consequences for people involved in the decisions that led to the present. 

"I don't think it's one person. I think it's a whole bunch of people that clearly have screwed up in order for this to get where it's at," she said, adding that as a parent of a child with special needs, she was particularly disillusioned because she's seen the education system fail her child over and over again.

"I want, desperately, to be proved wrong here… I just really hope and pray that changes are made, and I'm so scared they're not going to be."

'The buck has to stop somewhere'

Ted Hupé, president of the Yukon Association of Education Professionals, the union that represents the territory's teachers, said the Rogers report should have gone farther in singling out the people responsible.

"I felt that the report spread the dirt so far and wide that no one individual feels dirty or looks soiled," Hupé said. "There were so many examples of systemic failure that it really saddens me that we're seeing how the Department of Education has failed students."

Hupé said he's skeptical that a committee of deputy ministers will fix anything. 

Yukon Party Leader Currie Dixon said the report doesn't offer much that wasn't already known, but that even if Rogers found no one person responsible, McPhee should still resign because she's responsible for what happened under her watch.

"The buck has to stop somewhere in our system of government," Dixon said. "The buck stops with the premier and the minister, and since we know that the premier wasn't even aware, it has to stop with the minister."

"In my view, it's beyond clear to me that the minister must resign and or be kicked out of cabinet immediately by the premier." 

NDP Leader Kate White declined to comment on Dixon's call for McPhee to resign because the problems at Hidden Valley began while the Yukon Party was in power.

White also said she disagrees with calls to find individual politicians and bureaucrats responsible, because there are three more reports on Hidden Valley still to come. The Yukon RCMP, as well as the territory's ombudsman and its child and youth advocate are all investigating.

"I think that's going to be hard for people to hear because they want accountability," White said. 

"I think we've seen other processes in Canada where governments have had to atone for mistakes," she said. "And what we're going to watch now is hopefully the government responding in the right way and taking ownership of those mistakes and making sure that they don't happen again."