First indigenous child advocate named in Sask.

The man who was the government of Saskatchewan’s incident commander after a deadly shooting at a northern school is the province’s new children’s advocate.
 
Corey O’Soup will start in the post in November and is the first indigenous child advocate ever in the province
 
“It means a lot for first nations children that they have somebody to look up too,” O’Soup said.

“They have somebody they can go to as a role model and someone they can trust.”
 
O’Soup is the Ministry of Education’s First Nations and Metis adviser and coordinated recovery efforts in La Loche after two brothers were killed in a home and a teacher and a teacher’s aide were shot at the high school in January.
 
“I’ve built countless relationships with government and First Nations government,” he said. “I will lean on that experience a lot.”
 
Corey Tochor, Speaker of the Saskatchewan legislature, said in a news release that O’Soup has devoted his career to improving the lives of children and youth.
 
Tochor said O’Soup has a personal passion for seeing all children, especially First Nations and Metis children, succeed.
 
O’Soup wants to focus on exactly that in his new role.
 
“Looking at how many are in foster care and how many die in that care… the numbers are pretty drastic for our First Nations children,” he said.
 
O’Soup ran as a Saskatchewan Party candidate for Saskatoon-Riversdale in 2009. He lost to New Democrat Danielle Chartier by 435 votes.
 
O’Soup takes over from Bob Pringle, who was disappointed that his five-year-term was not renewed.
 
-With files from JT Marshall