VICTORIA— Two years after being warned that the almost-$200 million Integrated Case Management system is critically flawed and puts children and families at risk, the B.C. Liberals have failed to fix problems with the system, which has been crashing for a full week.

“These system crashes are putting children in the care of the government at risk,” said Carole James, New Democrat critic for children and families. “Without full, uninterrupted access to the system child protection workers don’t have all the information they need to do their jobs.”

New Democrat social development critic Michelle Mungall noted that in addition to the system crashes putting children at risk, families living in poverty are being left in the lurch as the ministry cannot reliably issue cheques, provide grocery vouchers, or offer crisis grants and other services which are critically important to families in need.

“Families are facing eviction because the government isn’t able to provide them with timely access to emergency services, and the B.C. Liberal government didn’t even tell them why they were not getting help,” said Mungall.

“Instead of spending time and energy trying to hide the problem, the B.C. Liberals should have been fixing it. They need to stop covering-up the problem and fix it.”