Baby Mac's parents say their 'family is broken' as sentencing for daycare provider resumes

The sentencing for the operator of the unlicensed daycare in East Vancouver where a toddler died five years ago resumed Tuesday.

In April, Susy Yasmine Saad, who ran the Olive Branch Daycare, pleaded guilty to failing to provide necessaries of life to nine children, including a 16-month-old boy named Macallan Saini, also known as Baby Mac.

The names of the other eight children and the witnesses are protected by a publication ban.

On Wednesday Mac’s parents both delivered heartbreaking victim impact statements.

“Mac’s death has shattered me in a million pieces,” said the toddler’s father, Chris Saini.

“I can’t trust anyone. I think everyone is lying to me. I walk around this world like a living, breathing, walking dead,” added a tearful Saini.

“On Jan. 18, 2017 I dropped my happy baby off at a daycare and next time I saw him he was laying on the floor. I knew he was dead,” said Mac’s mother, Shelley Sheppard.

“I missed out on who he would have been. He would have just turned seven years-old. I still look for him,” she added. “I am broken, Chris is Broken, my family is broken.”

Baby Mac's parents filed a civil suit in 2018 alleging Saad's daycare was overcrowded and that their child was left unattended before choking on an electrical cord.

According to a police report, officers responded to a 911 call at the daycare in January 2017 and found Saad had been caring for five children who were all under the age of 18 months.

Under B.C. law, unlicensed childcare providers are only allowed to care for a maximum of two children, other than their own, with few exceptions.

A previous CTV News investigation uncovered that health inspectors had determined Saad broke the law by having too many children in her care on four separate occasions.

In an agreed statement of facts signed by Saad, she admitted she did not intend to follow those laws, and deceived parents by only providing care to children too young to communicate the nature of the care.

She also did not allow parents to enter the home during operating hours, and required a 15 to 20 minute warning from parents for pick ups.

Saad was initially charged with two counts of failing to provide necessaries of life and one count of fraud over $5,000 in connection with the Saini case.

Other parents who made victim impact statements acknowledged while the pain and suffering they have endured is nowhere close to that of Mac’s parents, they’re still severely traumatized.

“I still look at my daughter sometimes and feel repulsed and like a traitor for sending her somewhere so unsafe,” said a woman who can only be identified as K.S.

“I was so depressed I couldn’t focus or care for my daughter safely.”

“Survivor’s guilt is real. There is not a single day that goes by that I don’t think of the family that lost Baby Mac,” said the emotional father of another child.

The Crown is asking for a two-year prison term, while the defence is scheduled to make its closing arguments on Wednesday.

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Andrew Weichel and Tahmina Aziz