Sudbury Children's Aid remains silent on $90K hotel bill

Morning North6:29Is there a culture of secrecy at the Children's Aid Society?

The Children's Aid Society has yet to explain a $90 thousand hotel bill singled out in last year;s auditor general report. Some say that at just part of the culture of secrecy at the CAS. The CBC's Erik White joined us with more.

The Children's Aid Society of the Districts of Sudbury and Manitoulin continues to be silent on a $90,000 hotel bill racked up by its former director.

Four months after being called out by Ontario's auditor general, the agency has ignored CBC's requests for a fuller explanation.

Former executive director Colette Prevost, who now heads the CAS in York Region, has said she has paid back the money that was spent inappropriately, but has not elaborated. 

Neither has her successor at the Sudbury agency Elaina Groves or the chair of the organization's board, Tannys Laughren.

Children's aid societies are private organizations, run on public money, but are not covered by freedom of information laws or open to investigation by Ontario's Ombudsman.

As of last week, they can now be investigated by Ontario's child and youth advocate, Irwin Elman.

"Bringing fresh air into a house that's been shuttered for hundreds of years and drawing the drapes and letting sunlight in," he said.

Those investigation reports will be made public, but the advocate cannot lay charges, only make non-binding recommendations.

Also, Elman can only investigate complaints involving child welfare and not how the children's aid manages public money.

He says citizens who think the children's aid needs to be more accountable should keep the conversation going with their elected officials.

"Systems themselves as institutions find it very difficult to change. Perhaps that's because we ask our institutions to be solid and strong and resistant to change so that we can count upon them," he said.