In her role as executive director of the Home Sharing Support Society of BC, Trina Plamondon gave testimony at a coroner’s inquest this week into the death of vulnerable disabled woman Florence Girard.
HSSSBC offers support to caregivers in Community Living BC’s home share program – who are paid to provide round-the-clock care to people with developmental disabilities.
CLBC, a Crown corporation, paid HSSSBC $520,000 in contracts and grants in the last fiscal year, and $562,000 in the year before that.
CTV News has learned Plamondon is romantically involved with John Stinson, CLBC’s vice-president of service delivery and innovation.
“I have a conflict of interest wall between that so I can’t comment on it,” Stinson said when asked about the relationship by CTV News.
Selena Martin, a paid caregiver in the home share program, runs an organization called the Home Share Family Caregivers Alliance, which also provides outreach to caregivers but does not receive government funding.
“It makes me wonder when the relationship started,” Martin said. “People are in relationships, that’s fine. But is this best practice? I’m not sure.”
According to CLBC, Stinson proactively declared the relationship in 2022 after Plamondon expressed interest in applying for the position with HSSSBC, which CLBC created.
“According to the policy, conflicts of interest must be proactively declared to our human resources department, and exceptional ones require CLBC CEO approval,” the Crown corporation said in a statement.
It added that in line with the policy, Stinson does not participate in any discussions or decisons regarding HSSSBC.
Girard, who had Down syndrome, starved to death in the home of paid caregiver Astrid Dahl in October 2018.
Dahl was convicted of failing to provide the necessaries of life and received a 15-month sentence, but did not actually spend any time behind bars.
Over eight days of testimony, multiple witnesses have told the coroner’s inquest the funding CLBC provides to caregivers in its home share program is insufficient.
Records show Stinson’s pay and benefits at CLBC totaled $286,962 in the fiscal year 2023-24 – $65,477 more than he was compensated the previous year.
Combined, CEO Ross Chilton and four vice-presidents at CLBC were paid a total of $1,433,422 in salary and benefits last year.
Down Syndrome BC president Tamara Taggart, whose 17-year-old son has Down syndrome, told CTV News she was surprised to hear of the relationship between Plamondon and Stinson.
“We are here talking about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities living in government care,” said Taggart. “I think we have this culture of indifference. And it starts at the top with that.”
When the last witness at the inquest finished testifying on Wednesday, presiding coroner Donita Kuzma gave jury members their instructions so they could begin deliberating Thursday morning.
They are charged with determining a cause of death for Girard and coming up with recommendations that could prevent similar deaths from happening in the future.
