My father, a hilarious and charming parent who spent too much of his free time shuttling his kids between karate, acting classes, and dance, was glue for my family. Despite their long-term separation, Howard supported my mother with child support, with reprieve from parenting. His anger aside, his death had immense consequences for our family.

My basement was dark and musty. I shared it with my brother, whose room was separated from us with shower curtains, and was generally a place full of clutter, dust, and trash. My mother’s hoarder tendencies were obvious, noticed also by the social workers and their consistent presence in my home by way of constant threat and occasional support. My mom was no stranger to the policing and predatory practices of child welfare officials. Manitoba’s child welfare system has had a file on her since birth. She was quickly apprehended as a small girl from her Métis mother, and placed into the foster care system. Her trauma bled into every part of my life. I try to answer their questions as best I can. Yes, I flushed her stash. I was frustrated. I didn’t like seeing dealers come by when we didn’t have an option for dinner. I didn’t like feeling abandoned by the only person left alive and committed enough to show up when I needed them.

My memory has never been my best feature, especially with my childhood. The experiences of deep trauma in my life are the ones most easily forgotten. Call it a survival mechanism, but my recollection before age thirteen stands at a few dozen memories. But this night, I remember the police’s reaction. “It sounds like if anyone here’s the parent, it’s you.” With relief, I go back to my game, not sure what to make of what happened. 

It’s easy to feel like a victim when you’ve ended up as a patient. I felt vindicated, like the legitimization of my concerns were realized when formal systems — this time the medical system — came to the table. Patients are so rarely the perpetrator of violence. In the waiting room, I thought to myself that the  walls around my failing childhood poverty were crumbling. Finally, my mother’s failures to show up were apparent. 

While my visit was brief, the ramifications were long-lasting. A cop told me bluntly: “Dylan, your mom doesn’t feel safe with you in the house. You’re coming with us and you’re going to a shelter.” I gathered a few things and went in my pyjamas to the cold outdoors. I was placed in the back of a sterile police car. The vinyl seats were frozen and uncomfortable. I began to feel defeated. I thought the police were there to check up on me. I felt I could trust them by sharing my story, that the police would be there for me. As a Jewish young person, I was told many times that my traumas and truth are a tool for justice. As quickly as I answered the door, I was taken away from my home forever.

The police drove me down to Winnipeg’s inner city. As they dropped me at the shelter and checked me in with the staff, who read the rules to me about drug use, gang violence, and food, my new reality began to set in. I didn’t spend a single night more with my mother after that moment. My next interaction with her was several months later — she tried to pass me a birthday card through my foster parent’s minivan’s window. Without muttering a word, I declined, and rolled up the window. 

The next few months of care would leave me to understand a new chapter in my life. My twin and I were immediately thrust into a precarious world of placements, social worker guardianship, complex paperwork, and inadequate care supervision. Just as quickly as I came into care, I moved  to an overwhelmingly rural and white high school where I was notable for not only being one of few foster children, but being the brown Jew and the effeminate new kid. 

Throughout my teenage years, I experienced trauma and abuse at the hands of those who ought to have looked out for me.
I moved, over and over again. I had workers step in and out of my life. For any teenager, being upended from your life is hard. I took every move in stride, understanding each step as a necessary next rung of a complex ladder towards independence and agency. I was separated from my twin, a sister I hadn’t spent more than a month apart from my whole life. But I knew with each pivot came growth and development, and that the path away from abusive parents to an independent future was the one I needed to be on. I became adept at understanding my survival, at advocating for my needs, and fighting like hell when they weren’t met. My self-preservation toolkit grew. 

It wasn’t until I was twenty that I fully started to wrestle with where I was from. I brought in theory and analysis into my family life in my Conflict Resolution classes, and developed policy and political analysis in sociology, law, and urban studies. I quickly started to piece together my lived experiences as part of an overwhelming web of colonial histories. My mother’s adoption in the 60s, her disconnection from Métis culture, and the constant and pervasive relationship of child welfare officials in her life were no unfortunate coincidences. I was beginning to read my time in care as another evidence point in a yet-to-be inquiry. My experiences in the system were similar to those of so many foster kids.

My real breakthrough happened in my final year. A simple project — choose a social conflict, analyze it, look at the systems and relationships at play — created an opportunity to dive deeply into policy in an expanding niche. I looked into Canada’s child welfare system and found Manitoba’s Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry.

I read through every page of the voluminous text. In detail, the life of a First Nations toddler was chronicled as her parents and family wrestled with the harsh impacts of colonization. Phoenix’s death was preventable and the aftermath rocked Manitoba’s political landscape. Her story and truth became a tool to expose the cataclysmic failures of a system designed foremostly for its own protection. And in it, I read my story.

I was never a toddler born to abusive parents from remote Manitoba. Pheonix’s legacy will always be larger than mine. But this breakthrough gave me the chance to shift my sense of self and what I was capable of. Her inquiry gave me the language of opportunity for systems change, and taught me the power of story, trauma, systemic violence, and advocacy. It taught me that my home life, with all its immense failures and flaws, was a preventable one too.

So as I presented my paper in the middle of this class — a small room of thirty conscious peers, with an extra supportive professor — I presented Phoenix’s story. I was excited about the text, well-prepared, and confident with my findings. And still, my presentation came like a tidal wave. As quickly as it started, I became overwhelmed with emotion and grief. It was like I was in my room again, my first night of care. As I spoke, tears filled my eyes and my rehearsed speech became an encompassing sob. I was struck by the story, totally overwhelmed, and began to see my foster-kid self as a product of a system too. But with Phoenix’s legacy, I saw my own legacy too.