No Accountability: NDP Hires CLBC Architect to Review Its Own Failures
Victoria, BC – Kristina Loewen, Conservative MLA for Kelowna Centre and Critic for Social Development and Poverty Reduction, is raising serious concerns about the integrity of the government’s latest review into the Community Living BC (CLBC) home-sharing program, calling it “deeply compromised” after it was revealed that one of the reviewers helped create the agency being reviewed.
The review follows a coroner’s inquest into the tragic 2018 death of Florence Girard, a woman with Down syndrome who died of starvation under government-funded care. Her caregiver was later convicted of failing to provide the necessities of life.
Rather than launching an independent investigation into what went wrong and how to prevent another tragedy, the government has hired Tamar Consultancy, whose principal Dr. Tim Stainton was a founding architect of CLBC and has received research funding from the agency.
“You don’t get accountability by asking the architects of a broken system to investigate their own blueprints,” said MLA Loewen. “Florence’s death demands a real, arm’s-length investigation, one led by independent experts with no ties to CLBC.”
At the time of Girard’s death, current CLBC board chair Shane Simpson was the NDP minister responsible for the agency. Now he’s defending the choice of Stainton to lead the review.
“This is a slap in the face to families who have been begging for change since 2018,” said Loewen. “They deserve justice, not recycled insiders and closed-door reviews.”
Reann Gasper, Conservative MLA for Abbotsford-Mission and Critic for Child Care, Children and Youth with Support Needs, also criticized the government’s approach.
“This should be a moment of reckoning—not a bureaucratic box-checking exercise,” said Gasper. “Florence’s story is heartbreaking. It should have triggered a serious overhaul, not another vague, taxpayer-funded review that avoids the hard truths.”
The Opposition is calling on the NDP government to cancel the current review contract and launch a truly independent inquiry into the home-sharing program—one that fully addresses the 15 recommendations made by the coroner’s jury.
“Every delay, every deflection, puts more vulnerable people at risk,” added Loewen. “Florence’s life mattered. We must act like it.”
“This isn’t the first time the NDP has handed public money to well-connected insiders under the guise of ‘expert reviews.’ From hiring Penny Ballem to paper over the crisis in health care, to bringing in Michael Bryant to manage chaos on the Downtown Eastside, the pattern is clear,” said Gasper.
“The NDP keeps hiring expensive insider consultants to confirm what British Columbians already know: nothing in this province is working. Instead of meaningful reform, British Columbians get recycled insiders and vague reports while services continue to fail the most vulnerable.”
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