B.C. commits to public reports on teens placed in hotels after joint review
VICTORIA — British Columbia is aiming to eliminate its practice of placing vulnerable children and youth in hotels, but the children’s minister isn’t making any commitments about when that may happen.
“I can’t commit to that today,” Stephanie Cadieux said Wednesday. “I don’t think that would be reasonable.”
Cadieux and B.C.’s independent children’s representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond released a joint report that revealed the housing of youth in hotels is more widespread than originally reported.
The report resulted from a review launched after the body of 18-year-old Alex Gervais was found outside an Abbotsford, B.C., hotel last September in what is believed to have been a suicide.