Phoenix Sinclair inquiry resumes
Social worker from Fisher River, Man., testifies as hearings get underway
The Phoenix Sinclair inquiry resumed on Monday, following a month-long hiatus, with testimony from a social worker in Fisher River, Man., where the five-year-old girl was killed in 2005.
Commissioner Ted Hughes hit the pause button on inquiry proceedings in mid-March, after ruling that lawyer Kris Saxberg was in a conflict of interest.
Saxberg had been representing 12 clients at the inquiry, including regional child-welfare authorities as well as some supervisors and managers — clients who could be at odds with one another.
Hughes asked the Law Society of Manitoba for an opinion, and the society agreed that there was a conflict.
Some of those 12 clients now have new lawyers at the inquiry, which is trying determine how the child welfare system failed Phoenix and how her murder went undetected for more than half a year.
Phoenix, a foster child who spent most of her life in and out of care, was beaten to death in Fisher River shortly after social workers gave her back to her biological mother, Samantha Kematch.
Both Kematch and Karl McKay, Kematch's common-law partner, were convicted of first-degree murder in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison.
Agency didn't know child was in community
Madeline Bird, who works with Intertribal Child and Family Services in Fisher River, testified on Monday that she made a field visit to check on McKay's sons once.
But when asked if anyone in the agency knew of Phoenix being in the community prior to her death, Bird said no.
Bird told the inquiry that Phoenix's death has hit her hard and she has been feeling "anger, a lot of hurt, a lot of pain, a lot of questions why."
The inquiry was told that while Intertribal Child and Family Services did not interact with Phoenix, staff returned McKay's sons to their mother in Winnipeg after McKay was found to have left them with a babysitter who was wanted by the RCMP.
In the coming weeks, the mother of McKay's sons is expected to testify that she told Intertribal Child and Family Services that Phoenix was not only in Fisher River in 2005, but the child was possibly being abused by McKay.