The president of the Yukon Association of Educational Professionals doesn’t have much good to say about the first report into the Hidden Valley Elementary School sexual abuse scandal.

Ted Hupé was scathing in his criticisms of the report released Monday night.

“This report is going to fester with the public,” he said Thursday afternoon.

“Everyone is wincing. This is bigger than Hidden Valley... it’s an indictment of the system.”

Hupé said he was very disappointed in the report penned by Vancouver lawyer Amanda Rogers.

“It spread blame far and wide with no one accepting any accountability and responsibility.”

He said if he was Premier Sandy Silver, he would be outraged at how the debacle unfolded, because he bears ultimate responsibility for how it was handled... or in this case, not handled.

“The report just seems to fall short,” Hupé said. “It does nothing but blame systemic issues.”

He was particularly disappointed to hear there would be no discipline to anyone involved from Silver.

“If low-level people make a mistake like this, such as a principal, they’re usually terminated,” Hupé said.

He was also critical of Silver’s decision to form another commission led by bureaucrats to figure how to implement Rogers’s recommendations.

Silver promised there would be swift action on the report.

The Yukon government, Hupé said, and particularly the Department of Education, has a long history of of creating such commissions, committees and studies. All of which have led to little real action and change.

“When will the leaders of our system actually do anything?” Hupé asked, somewhat rhetorically. “I am very saddened by this report. It’s just disappointing.”

That’s despite the fact that he agrees with at least some of the content and analysis.

Hupé didn’t even take issue with a section of the report that indicated William Auclair-Bellemare was able to fly under the radar for as long as he did before his eventual conviction on sexual abuse charges in 2021.

He now faces seven more charges as incidents involving two more students, after the Yukon RCMP admitted it botched the first investigation last fall.

The report by Rogers indicated Auclair-Bellemare was barely qualified to be an educational assistant.

He worked at the school beginning in 2014, and there were incidents flagged by school staff members over his behaviour. Rogers said those issues were largely dismissed as a lack of training.

Auclair-Bellemare had a Grade 12 education, which is the minimum requirement, and minimal, if any training.

That’s not unusual, Hupé said.

His union represents educational assistants as well, and he said “there isn’t a lot given to educational assistants.”

“Those positions are really hard to fill,” he said. “Well-qualified people won’t take the jobs because of financial reasons, or they wind up going elsewhere, such as daycares, where the pay and conditions are better. The people who do take the jobs aren’t offered much in training after they are hired.”

At the same time, with the shortage of on-call teachers, Hupé said more pressure is placed on educational assistants, who are sometimes expected to lead classes.

“The market isn’t appealing to the well-qualified,” he said. “They are getting disheartened and teachers are getting disheartened.”

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