RAY FERRIS LETTER TO THE EDITOR ABOUT PLECAS

Bob Plecas

If you didn’t know or haven’t read it, please read CBC’s article on Bob Plecas criticism of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. This is not what Premier Clark expected.

B.C. child protection system slammed for lack of accountability, leadership, funding

Ray Ferris, former employee of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and now determined critic of that same ministry had written on Tuesday, December 15, 2015 11:08 AM a letter to the editor of the Times Colonist, and the subject was Bob Plecas.

Premier Christie Clark

Mary-Ellen Turpel Lafond

Ray Ferris’ Letter:
            "Premier Christie Clarke would not have picked Bob Plecas for the job, if she had thought he might rock the boat. Plecas makes the same old mistake as Gove and Hughes and many before them. He thinks that you can find administrative fixes for non-administrative problems. Ever since I started work for the BC social services in 1957 inexperienced and untrained workers have been thrown into difficult and stressful work. This has always been the main cause of high staff turnover. Supervisors who gave good training and mentoring had much better staff retention rates."

            "Unless staff training and mentoring is made a top priority, there is no point in adding more untrained staff. Also it will no longer be necessary to farm out skilled work which could be done by trained social workers. This would save much money."

Then to the following people, Ray wrote the paragraph below, and I am surmising that he was not holding me responsible as he was the others but rather sending this to me as an observer/reporter.
Nicholas Simons: Nicholas.Simons.MLA@leg.bc.ca;

Doug Donaldson: Doug.Donaldson.MLA@leg.bc.ca;

Carole James: carolejames@shaw.ca;

Ron Unruh: ronunruhgallery@gmail.com;

Ray wrote the following qualifying letter.

            "I am grateful to Bob Plecas for opening my eyes. So you people were responsible for the mess in the children’s ministry all along. Apparently you were in a conspiracy with Ms. Turpel-Lafond. I completely had the wrong end of the stick. There is one thing that puzzles me though and I do wish that good old Bob could explain it to me. That is that the children’s ministry has been in a mess as far back as I can remember, long before any of you were on the scene. Every previous watch dog who tried to do a job got fired. Joy McPhail got just as frustrated as Grace McCarthy before her in trying to fix things. In those days the ministers still had illusions that they actually had some power."

            "Anyway, I shot this off to the editor of the TC today. Sometimes they do print my letters."

Ray can be reached at mailto:rtferris@telus.net