Skahota Meawasige and family will not back down as they seek justice for their loved one while also pushing to have measures put in place to protect other children from similar vulnerable positions.
Tuesday, about 20 people gathered outside the North Bay Courthouse, with some carrying signs that read, "Protect our children," "Mandatory cameras on the school buses," and "Memory, truth, justice!"
They were supporting Meawasige and her young daughter, who recently accused a school bus driver of inappropriate behaviour in an encounter on the first day of school in early September. Two months after the initial contact with the authorities, the North Bay Police Service and the Crown Attorney's office declined to pursue the case.
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"It's been like one failure after another, after another," said Meawasige about the experience for her daughter and family. "It's bigger than that now. Of course, I want justice for my daughter, but the likelihood of this man ever serving prison time for this is incredibly low, and I'm not naive to that. It's about the next kid. The kid after that, and the kid after that who are being put on the buses."
She added, "But, as far as me hitting a brick wall? There's there's no brick wall. I'm going to keep going. I filed, complaints, I'm going to go to the federal judge, I'm in contact with that with our MP's office and with the city council.
"This is about cameras on school buses. This is about people doing their due diligence and making sure that drivers are providing their criminal record checks before they start driving, which is not happening. I've had numerous people reach out to me and say that they have been driving for Alouette for months without providing that."
A request for comment from Alouette Bus Lines went unanswered.
"This is far, far, far from over," Meawasige continued. "It's not even just about my daughter. It's about all of this. It's about all of this because the deeper that you look into it, the more messed up that it's getting, you know, drivers driving around with no criminal record check. No cameras on school buses. No proper GPS systems."
"These people are commuting our children, our babies," she continued. "That should be treated as a very big job. We trust these people to make sure that our kids are safe. And we trust a [school transportation system] to be implementing these things to keep our children safe and they're not even doing that. I got an estimate of about two years for cameras on school buses. Don't you think that that should be attempted to be expedited a little bit? Two years, who knows what happened in two years, look at this town. How many incidents have happened revolving around school buses?"
Skahota's mother, Krystal, said she noticed more life in the eyes of her four-year-old granddaughter recently. Two months later, the family is starting to get little glimpses of their previously happy little girl.
"She was in discomfort for quite some time after physically. And then, of course, emotionally and mentally. She had been just kind of put through the wringer. She wasn't sleeping, she just was not the same little girl from that point."
Krystal acknowledged there has been a lot of controversy about this situation because the police have cleared the bus driver and many believe that's the end of it.
"And you know what? I think that's a very ignorant stance to take because, once again, that little girl's voice is being told that she doesn't matter and what happened to her does not matter. What I can't wrap my head around, is where the communication breakdown happened between the teachers, the school, and the bus driver.
"She wasn't even supposed to be on that bus and the school knew that but they put her on that bus. And, then for her to be missing for over two hours. Two hours. Where's the accountability on the bus company's part? How come there is no accountability for the driver? Why did he go radio silent? For that long? Not answering his phone or his radio or turning back around when he was asked to drop her back off at the school? Where is the accountability for that?
"I understand some places don't have money to implement such things as GPS tracking or video surveillance. I think at this point in 2023, that should be mandatory, especially if they are allowing bus drivers to drive buses just on the premise that they have in fact, paid for a CPIC check."
Skahota continued, "It's about the future. It's about the future of our children. It's about these babies that are sitting here," she said, gesturing to a child in a nearby stroller.
Asked if she gets the sense that people don't believe her daughter's account or perhaps believe she is too young to tell her side, Meawasige bristled.
"For the people that don't believe this story, Those aren't the people that have had to live through this. Those aren't the people who have had to hold my daughter, you know, those aren't the people who are losing sleep every night because she can't sleep, you know, constant night terrors up and down, she doesn't want to take the school bus, those people don't see that."