Widow sues child and family services for wrongful death of husband

In April of 2017, Cora Laich’s husband, Simon Grant, was beaten to death in his La Ronge restaurant by a youth whom the two had helped support for months.

Laich is now suing the Lac La Ronge Indian Band Child and Family Services Agency Inc. (ICFS) for wrongful death caused by negligence.

She was on Gormley on Tuesday to talk about the case as well as the series of events that led to the death of her husband at the hands of the youth they referenced as ‘W.’

“He was very close (to us). I had been thinking a lot about that in the past week and how he confided in me so many of his stories about being in foster homes and the abuse that he has received,” said Laich. “And now he was being put into a home with Simon and (my) care and we had to battle to get anything for him.”

Laich said she was the only one who seemed to be able to calm him down when he would “rage.” And even though there was sometimes friction between the boy and Simon stemming from discipline, the boy would always come around and say he knew what Simon was doing was best for him.

“He knew that whatever I did or said was for the betterment of him because he had seen what Simon and I were doing for him,” Laich said about the informal foster scenario that saw the youth under their care for about 11 months.

During that time Laich said she made many calls to, and had to “fight tooth and nail” with, the ICFS to get the youth the aid he needed.

The ICFS is under contract with the Ministry of Social Services to care for all of the children within the Lac La Ronge Indian Band’s jurisdiction. According to Laich, it had only provided the youth with $514 to live off for more than four months.

“Simon said, ‘How do you expect this 16-year-old boy to survive off of this?’ Their first fight was he’s not going to school. If he’s not going to school he doesn’t get his allowance,” Laich said about their meeting with ICFS about the boy they found malnourished and living in a tent across from their restaurant.

“Simon was like, ‘How can he go to school when he isn’t even mentally capable because he doesn’t have food? He doesn’t have shelter. How do you expect him to go to school? This is backwards.’ ”

In a statement of defence, the ICFS denied the claims of negligence made by Laich’s lawyers, and vehemently denied a claim it was warned by RCMP that the teen threatened to harm Grant.

Laich reached her breaking point when she said they found out the youth was selling drugs out of her home. After a call to the ICFS, they were informed the boy the service would be finding him a new place to live.

“He seemed OK about it and Simon and I went to the restaurant. All of a sudden he comes upstairs and threatens my daughter, he rages and says he’s going to kill her and ‘Your parents are going to pay for doing this’ to him. And so my daughter called 9-1-1 right away,” she said.

“So (the RCMP) got ICFS on the phone (and) management said he needs to find his own place. The RCMP said, ‘No, we can’t leave a 17-year-old standing out here in the snow.’ ”

According to Laich, the ICFS took the youth to a family member who said they didn’t have any room for him. A few days later he was in jail in La Ronge after being involved in a break and enter.

“He had never ever been in that situation in his life, criminally, and here he is now, six days out of our care and he is now in the criminal justice system,” said Laich, who continued to say the youth, after being released from courts, sent more threatening messages directed at Simon to her daughter.

“Then it was the Saturday before Easter Sunday that Simon was attacked. So virtually 11 days of criminal activity, of threatening messages and he just definitely set out a plan to do something to Simon.”

Laich said she was “bewildered” by the amount of turmoil that they got from the ICFS for advocating for the youth. She can’t help thinking about the children who have to advocate for themselves.

“How far are they getting?” she said.

The next step in the lawsuit’s process is a mandatory mediation between Laich and representatives from the ICFS. She said that will happen sometime in February or March.