Inquest into starvation death prompts calls for shakeup at Community Living B.C.
Organization which oversees care for developmentally disabled people facing criticism
A B.C. disability advocate is calling on the board of Community Living B.C. (CLBC) to step down following an inquest into the starvation death of Florence Girard, a woman with Down syndrome.
CLBC, the province's Crown corporation that oversees the care of developmentally disabled people, was created in 2005. It is in charge of caring for 29,000 British Columbians with disabilities such as autism, fetal alcohol syndrome and Down syndrome.
It also faces a separate call from an employees' union for its services to be brought back under government control.
Girard, 54, weighed about 50 pounds when she died in 2018 in the Port Coquitlam home of Astrid Dahl, a caregiver funded through CLBC.
Tamara Taggart, president of the advocacy organization Down Syndrome B.C., said the inquest proves that CLBC's board is not fit for its job and that the organization needs a fundamental overhaul.
"It starts at the top, and the people at the bottom, if you will, are not being supported in any way, shape or form," she said.
"There have been complaints for two decades now from families and caregivers about how no one listens to them."
After the week-long inquest into Girard's death, a jury made 11 recommendations to CLBC, including better pay for front-line caregivers and changes to support family members of a vulnerable individual who want to care for their relative in their home.
Taggart says the organization's budget is $1.7 billion, one-third of the entire budget for the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction and claims there is little oversight of CLBC's activities by the government.
"We do know that the five-person executive team has seen their compensation grow, while developmentally disabled individuals and their home share providers are grossly underfunded," Taggart said.
Taggart said she doesn't think CLBC will follow through with the coroner's inquest recommendations and said the board was complicit in presiding over a "terrible situation" and should resign.
In a statement, the CLBC said that none of its current board members were on the board in 2018 and that by law, the board must include representation from people with developmental disabilities, family members of those who receive services funded by CLBC, and Indigenous people.
According to its website, more than half of the organization's current board members are representatives of those groups, and it has more than a dozen advisory groups and committees made up of community members from across the province.
"CLBC's management is working with the board to further strengthen accountability and safety," the statement reads.
It also said that its staff and management salaries are "in line with or lower than other public sector organizations."
Call for more government control
B.C. General Employees' Union (BCGEU) president Paul Finch argues the problems with CLBC run deeper than the governance board.
BCGEU, which is currently in contract talks with the province, has around 800 members working at CLBC.
Finch said those employees have complained about a toxic work culture at the organization, and the issue has been ongoing since CLBC was formed 20 years ago and assumed its responsibilities from the ministry.
He thinks CLBC's responsibilities should return to being under direct government control once again. The union's members who work for CLBC, he said, feel that even if the Girard recommendations are fully implemented, they will not address wider issues within the organization.
"Frankly, this is seen by parents, caregivers, and front-line employees as an unnecessary added administrative layer of bureaucracy that leaves parents exhausted, and obviously, the clients are not getting the full support they need and deserve now," he said.
According to the BCGEU, since 2019, CLBC's executives have seen pay increases ranging from nearly 40 per cent to just over 75 per cent, while front-line workers have only received a 19 per cent pay bump.
B.C. government figures show the CEO and four other executives at CLBC had an average annual compensation of $286,684 in the 2023/24 fiscal year.
The CLBC rejects the notion that its staff aren't satisfied with the organization.
"Like any other organization, we have our challenges — workload and stress are the top ones," said CEO Ross Chilton.
"But our staff are incredibly committed to their work ... [and] the staff turnover rate at CLBC is less than three per cent this year. That speaks volumes. Our employees aren't leaving CLBC."
Minister says community care model needed
Following the Girard inquest, Chilton provided an "unreserved apology" to Girard's family, friends and loved ones and said the organization had failed the B.C. woman's family.
In a statement, CLBC said it welcomed the recommendations and said it was committed to taking concrete actions to strengthen the delivery of home sharing services.
Sheila Malcolmson, B.C.'s social development and poverty reduction minister, said that CLBC had improved its standards for monitoring home-share arrangements since Girard's death in 2018.
"We are reviewing the recommendations, and it is my expectation as [minister] that CLBC further strengthen accountability and safety," she said in a statement.
When asked whether the government would consider bringing CLBC back under government control, she said the organization was created so that families and people with lived experience could have a greater say.
"Before CLBC, people with disabilities were institutionalized," she said.
"I have heard from people with lived experiences in my community that we cannot afford to go backwards."
With files from Karin Larsen and On The Coast