Manitoba government to release report into foster girl’s death on Friday

WINNIPEG – The Manitoba government says it will release a final report Friday into how social services failed a murdered five-year-old girl.

The government has had the final report from Commissioner Ted Hughes for over a month, but said it couldn’t release the recommendations until two byelections were held on Tuesday.

For almost two years, a public inquiry examined the death of Phoenix Sinclair, who bounced in and out of foster care before she was murdered by her mother and mother’s boyfriend.

Hughes was tasked with figuring out how Phoenix slipped through cracks in child welfare and how her death went undiscovered for months.

The inquiry, one of the most expensive in the province’s history, sat for 91 days and heard testimony from 126 witnesses.

The report is expected to be over 1,000 pages long.