Gabe Batstone demands federal child advocate 1 year after daughter's death
Father started 'Teagan's Voice' after daughter found in B.C. in trunk of car
An Ottawa father says one year after his daughter's death in B.C., he's changing his focus from raising awareness of the gaps he sees in Canada's child protection laws to how to fix them.
Most notably Gabe Batstone wants the federal government to put in place a national children's advocate.
"We think that initially a federal children's advocate is an important one because it would have a waterfall effect," he said at a south Ottawa childcare centre on Saturday.
"If we look bigger picture and look 20 years [in the future] maybe it would be more important to have a person whose job it is from now until the end of time to look out for children, it would actually have more of an impact."
Batstone's ex-wife Lisa Batstone was charged with second-degree murder after their daughter Teagan was found dead in the trunk of her car in Surrey, B.C., on Dec. 10, 2014.
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Batstone said he spent a few months mourning before starting the non-profit Teagan's Voice organization to raise awareness of improvements he wants to see made to Canada's child protection laws.
Different legal questions
He said he tried to get primary custody of Teagan in 2012 after Lisa Batstone attempted suicide, but a judge ruled Teagan had to go back to live with her mother a month after she tried to take her own life.
"Interestingly the question (the judge) was presented with wasn't 'should we take this child (from) a safe, happy, loving environment and take her elsewhere,' I think she would have said no," he said.
"The question was 'is there any reason she shouldn't be with her mother,' that's a different question. Little things like that make a difference."
A date has not been set for Lisa Batstone's trial to begin.
Political support
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose, who said she knew Batstone from her time as public works minister and had met Teagan a few times, was at Saturday's event in support of his cause.
"He has done an incredible job of taking what is a very tragic situation in his family and he's advocating so eloquently and forcefully, but very substantively, about how we need to change some of the ways in which the court system deals with family law to protect children better," she said.
Joined with <a href="https://twitter.com/gabebatstone">@gabebatstone</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/MacLeodLisa">@MacLeodLisa</a> to honour Teagan's memory <a href="https://t.co/PkNCxsPUqc">https://t.co/PkNCxsPUqc</a> <a href="https://t.co/jpWAbNzTYm">pic.twitter.com/jpWAbNzTYm</a>
—@RonaAmbrose"I'm 110 per cent behind him and we want to do everything we can in the Conservative party to support the work he's doing in child protection."
The federal Liberals promised to appoint a federal children's commissioner during the 2015 election campaign. Many provinces, including Ontario and B.C., already have one.
Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod, who represents the Ottawa riding of Nepean-Carleton, said she's set up meetings with Ontario government officials to work on better coordination between governments and agencies when it comes to child protection.