Nova Scotia's Opportunities and Social Development Minister Barbara Adams says that clarifying and strengthening privacy laws better protects children.Kelly Clark/The Canadian Press
The Nova Scotia government intends to broaden its publication ban on identifying children who have been in the child protection system to apply even after they have died. The new legislation is more restrictive than laws in other provinces and experts condemned it for decreasing accountability and blocking public scrutiny.
The amendments were introduced last week by Opportunities and Social Development Minister Barbara Adams under Nova Scotia’s Child and Family Services Act. She said in an e-mail that clarifying and strengthening privacy laws better protects children.
“Strengthening and clarifying these protections helps prevent deeply personal details of the lives of children and youth from being shared in ways that could cause further harm – to them, to grieving families, or to other children connected to the situation,” she said.
The amendments to the law were introduced 10 months after Jack and Lilly Sullivan disappeared from their Nova Scotia home and as the family’s interactions with the child protection system have come under scrutiny. Lilly, 6, and Jack, who was 4 at the time, have been the subject of an RCMP major-crime investigation since May, although they have not been declared dead.
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Ms. Adams’s predecessor, Scott Armstrong, told The Globe and Mail last year that he was reviewing a child protection social worker’s involvement with the children.
The proposed expansion of the ban means that if the children are deceased, the media would be prohibited from reporting on their child protection case. The ban gives the minister sole discretion over lifting it.
Ms. Adams has repeatedly cited ethics and privacy laws as her reason for declining to answer questions about the case. She did not cite Jack and Lilly in her e-mail explaining the proposed change and explained that the amendments came out of a review of the law in 2021.
The Globe’s reporting has centred on how in the months before the children disappeared, a provincial child protection social worker investigated a report of suspected abuse or neglect at Jack and Lilly’s rural home in Lansdowne, N.S. The Globe also reported on safety issues inside the children’s home – drug abuse, multiple black eyes on the children and alleged physical abuse of their mother.
At a standing committee this week, the Canadian Media Lawyers Association and the CBC objected to the proposed changes, saying they restrict openness and are a serious departure from the norm in Canada.
“They are unjustified limitations on the freedom of the press and the freedom of information; would decrease accountability; restrict public scrutiny of provincial agencies; permit the possibility of future harms to children, and limit a family’s ability to speak out publicly about a child who has died while in contact with Children and Family Services,” wrote lawyer David Hutt, who represented the groups.
Regarding the case of Jack and Lilly, where there is immense public interest, Mr. Hutt said in an interview, “We do need to find a balance between privacy and accountability.”
The law in Nova Scotia currently prohibits the publication of information that identifies a child who is subject to a child protection proceeding.
University of New Brunswick law professor Christian Whalen, who is also New Brunswick’s former child and youth advocate, described Nova Scotia’s proposed changes to the law as “troublesome developments.”
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He pointed to previous cases in New Brunswick that have led to positive reform, such as the 2004 death of toddler Juli-Anna St. Peter, which led the child and youth advocate to make formal recommendations, including that child protection workers receive more education on detecting neglect.
In Juli-Anna’s case, despite multiple reports to child protection services, a formal child protection investigation was never launched. Her mother was eventually convicted for criminal negligence causing death.
“These are issues typically that need to be tested, and if government is really going to hold the line and insist on a gag order around reporting on incidents like this, then I think those laws need to be tested in the court,” Prof. Whalen said during an interview.
“For a jurisdiction like Nova Scotia to double down and throw more of a cloak over what is already a very closed system, that’s troubling.”
University of King’s College media law professor Lisa Taylor said the bill is a “staggering” restriction that does not improve the privacy or safety of children, insults the judiciary, and undermines the media’s ability to deeply interrogate situations where things go gravely wrong.
“It just diminishes the existence of the child and it feels very self serving for anyone to suggest this is in the child’s best interest,” she said.
“It shields the system from scrutiny of where it dropped the ball and where it failed children.”
Prof. Taylor said public interest in the case of Jack and Lilly remains intense 10 months after they disappeared. “I have a hard time imagining that the average Nova Scotia voter can say ‘Yeah, less insight into what happens when vulnerable children go missing or die.’”
In his submission to the provincial committee on Monday, Mr. Hutt raised the case of Nova Scotia toddler Isaiha Surette, who was killed by his mother in 2020 after he was returned home from foster care. The mother, April Wendy Marie Surette, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in December, 2025.
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Had the proposed amendments been in place, the public would be prevented from knowing the identity of his killer because the proposed publication also shields the identities of any parents or foster parents.
Identifying people accused of crimes is a cornerstone of Canada’s open court system, Mr. Hutt said. The proposed ban protects the identity of those who have a relationship with the deceased child and who may be accountable for what happened. Moreover, he added, a deceased child’s identity needn’t be protected because they would no longer be subject to stigmatization and emotional harm.
He also said requiring parties to request consent from the minister to identify a dead child is demeaning, removes agency from parents, and has a direct impact on the open courts and the rule of law in democratic society.
“There is nothing to suggest a minister’s decision will not be influenced by outside factors, rather than being based on impartial and objective criteria,” Mr. Hutt wrote. “For instance, how will the minister exercise this discretion to permit or restrict openness if the minister’s own agency may be implicated?”