Ontario let Neveah down. Now we must act

It’s been said the opposite of love isn’t hatred, but indifference. And indifference seems to be the only thing that four-year-old

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There's much we still don't know about why Neveah was returned to her mother's care or what steps Children's Aid took to try to protect her. But we do know that a system that understood from her earliest days that this was a child in trouble could not keep her alive.

Neveah, a child found dead in a Toronto dumpster in 2022, received in abundance in her too-short life.

As the Star’s Wendy Gillis and Jennifer Pagliaro have reported, Neveah was born May 18, 2017 in York Region, the fourth of six children eventually born to a woman with an extensive history with Ontario’s child-protection agencies.

Before Neveah’s birth, care workers found evidence of drug use, unsanitary conditions and safety hazards in the mother’s home. Toxicology reports taken at Neveah’s birth were positive for marijuana. So, the regional Children’s Aid Society obtained a court order and, at five days old, Neveah went to live in a foster home.

A year later, her mother gave birth to another child, and he joined Neveah in the same foster home when he was five months old.

At two, Neveah was diagnosed with global developmental delays and deemed non-verbal. Within a year, she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.