The man who was 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 to,” O’Soup said Thursday. “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. He also coordinated recovery efforts in La Loche after two brothers were killed in a home and a teacher and a teacher’s aide were fatally 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 O’Soup has a personal passion for seeing all kids, especially First Nations and Metis children, succeed.
It’s that same focus O’Soup hopes to bring to 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 his five-year-term was not renewed.
-With files from JT Marshall