A retired judge slammed British Columbia's child protection system on Friday, calling it an unstable mess because of budget cuts and a revolving door of senior leadership.

Ted Hughes' report says that when the B.C. Liberal government came into office in 2001 with a mission of getting the province out of deficit, significant budget cuts to ministries crippled the child protection system.

"I don't think there's any doubt that the core review of 2001 and 2002 took the knife too far," Hughes said at a news conference Friday after releasing his 172-page report.

Hughes' review of the system found there had been too much change to preserve a solid foundation, noting there were nine ministers, eight deputy ministers and seven directors of child protection all within the last 10 years.

Hughes made 62 recommendations in his review, including the B.C. government create an independent child and youth representative who would report independently to the legislature in the same way the auditor general and the ombudsman do.

The office would combine the work of the child protection officer and the child advocate. The Liberals eliminated the advocate position and consolidated the work under the child protection officer and the coroner.

The Opposition NDP has repeatedly called for the reinstatement of a children's commissioner.

Stan Hagen, minister of children and families, praised the review, calling it "fair and thoughtful."

"We will spend the coming days looking in detail at Mr. Hughes's recommendations and his plan," Hagen said in a news release. "We will move expeditiously, but carefully."

If the government doesn't do anything soon, Hughes said he will take his message across the province and shame the government into action with speeches.

Hughes, the province's former conflict commissioner, was appointed to investigate the situation late last year, which followed the controversy surrounding the death of 19-month-old Sherry Charlie.

The toddler was beaten to death by her uncle in September 2002 while in the care of an aboriginal child welfare agency working with the government.

Ryan Dexter George, 32, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2004 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The government was forced to admit that 715 child deaths -- the vast majority of which did not involve children in government care -- had not been reviewed properly.

Premier Gordon Campbell said late last year that budget cuts were not to blame for the upheaval in the ministry. He instead blamed the transition process aimed at bringing child death reviews under the purview of the coroner.

Hughes, 78, said he wouldn't accept the child representative job if offered.

He also made several recommendations on aboriginal children in care since there are so many Native youths in that situation.

The aboriginal children recommendations include:

• At least one of three senior positions in the representatives office be an aboriginal person with experience in child welfare;
• The provincial government should collaborate with aboriginal people to develop a governance structure for the aboriginal child welfare system;
• Provincial and federal governments should provide aboriginal agencies with modern information technology and the same training opportunities as are offered to ministry staff;
• An aboriginal emergency response team should be formed to help an agency facing a crisis such as the death of a child; and
• The government should recruit more aboriginal people to work in the Ministry of Children and Families.

With files from The Canadian Press