The number of children-in-care forced to call hotels “home” is disturbing. According to the government’s own statistics, the number of children in hotels across Manitoba is well over 100 on a regular basis, and on August 31st of this year, 166 children were placed in hotels. This is a dire situation and one which requires immediate action.

Last week the government announced that it was increasing care rates for foster parents, which came as welcome news. We have been pushing government for increased rates so that more loving parents would be encouraged to become foster parents. The Manitoba Government gave this increase in rates, but failed to tell Manitobans the whole story. The government failed to tell us that it was keeping the Federal Government’s $100 a month National Child Care Benefit instead of passing it on to foster parents who are in need of this money to provide care to foster children. On the one hand our Child and Family Services Minister was seen to be providing increased funding to foster parents and on the other hand was seen to be clawing back the federal benefits available to foster parents by keeping the federal money for general revenue of the province.

What has the province done with this extra money that should have gone to foster parents? Well since then, the NDP has been spending millions of dollars on election campaign ads. Why would this government spend money to blow its own horn instead of launching an immediate campaign to recruit more foster parents in Manitoba? An election must be coming!