It’s now time for questions, and if the member has a copy of that book, I’d love to read it.

I recognize the member for Thornhill.

Nepean.

Thank you, and through you, Speaker, I was just going to add that the measures contained in the Supporting Children’s Futures Act would, if passed, create a safer environment for every child out of home care. We won’t get into the specifics of profit or not-for-profit. It helps every child.

I was going to talk about the Ontario Ombudsman. It’s an important safeguard that provides rights to children of youth in care. Young people in care already have the right to contact the office of the Ombudsman; however, that’s contained in the Ombudsman Act rather than the Child, Youth and Family Services Act. And since children’s aid societies and service providers are governed by and most familiar with the CYFSA, the status quo leaves a potential gap where a youth may not even be aware of their rights.

This bill proposes to entrench details about this right and remove any lack of clarity for the rights with respect to the Ombudsman. Does the member opposite not support giving young people a stronger understanding of this right to the Ombudsman?

Nepean, okay, Ottawa-Nepean—

When she got to be the minister, she was in charge of actually breaking down and closing the child and youth advocate office, and she said that she would be responsible, she would be the greatest child advocate that they could have. What we saw and what I mentioned when I started my speech was the Global News and the APTN investigation which shows that the abuse in foster homes is continuing. So the question is, does the member from Nepean actually take responsibility for all of the abuse that’s taken place, in part because of the loss of the child and youth advocate office?

I’ve only got a minute and a half left and I want to get to the solutions that we’re proposing. What we would like to see in this bill is getting rid of for-profit delivery. There should be no profit in looking after children. Profit should not be the motive. If you are going to dedicate yourself to looking after children or dedicate a company to looking after children, the children’s welfare has to be the first and only priority.

We also need to restore the child and youth advocate office. That’s an important thing to do. And we need to, as my colleague from Ottawa—

Interjection: Ottawa West–Nepean.

I think this bill—as the members opposite have said, there are some good things in it, but it does not go nearly far enough. With this bill, if this is the only action this government takes, there are going to be many more children like the one I started the story with, who are in foster care, who end up in very, very dangerous situations.

There were 200 complaints in 2023 to the Ombudsman’s child and youth unit by children in care. When the child and youth advocacy office was in play, they received an annual 2,000 cases per year. So there’s 1,800 fewer cases reported to the Ombudsman’s office than there were to the child and youth advocacy office. And the question is: What is happening to those children?

What you’re saying about high-needs children—high-needs children require a lot of care, and depending on the needs of those children, it can be very expensive to look after them. The funding for those children is simply not there. You cannot ask a family to take on a high-needs child and dedicate themselves to that if it’s not possible to do it and if the child needs more care than what’s possible to deliver, especially if the funding is not there.

One of the other recommendations coming out of this for this bill is an increase in funding, particularly for the care of high-needs children.

That the government is expanding that to include ECEs and other professionals who are in care of children, that makes good sense. But at the same time, the government needs to provide funding and also restore the children and youth advocacy office so that those children have an advocate on their side when things happen.

Thanks to the member from Spadina–Fort York for his question. He raised several points that are of interest to me. Our local children’s aid society has come to me and said, “We cannot find foster parents for high-needs children. It’s too hard.” And let me be really clear: There are some really good foster parents out there who are compassionate and caring, and this is not an easy, easy job.

So they’ve had to either create their own model of care for these high needs, which they’re not funded for, or they become reliant on these privatized agencies who say they specialize; however, we don’t have eyes on those agencies. And that’s the key piece: the oversight piece.

There are good intentions with this legislation. It may be good, but at the end of the day, you need to have eyes on these homes and eyes on these children. What does the member say to that?

Did you?

It’s a pleasure and honour to be able to speak to this bill today, Bill 188. Certainly, I don’t profess to be an expert in children, but I’ve had some experience. Some people say I’m still living that experience, working my way up to adulthood, but that’s a debate for another day.

I want to, first of all, commend the minister for bringing forward this initiative because obviously I’ve known this minister for some time now and I’ve got to see how he works, and I really appreciate, in his work in this ministry, how he continuously and incrementally has always put the welfare of children and youth at the top of the priority list.

We do appreciate that, Minister, and this bill is no exception to your commitment, and that is appreciated not just by myself and all of the members in this caucus, but, I do believe, the members on the other side. I think that I heard, if I’m not mistaken, notwithstanding the comments from the member from—is it Spadina–Fort York?

I say this as a person who came from a family—or comes from a family; it’s not like the family has kicked me out or anything. I come from a family of 14 children. Well, you can imagine all of the dynamics that exist in a family of 14 children. You know they say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, we were a village unto ourselves, with all of the challenges and the pleasures and everything else, and the wonders that come with that, growing up in a large family like that.

One thing that you do learn is that even when you don’t want to, you’d better get along. You’d better try to get along, because there are enough battles in a large family. It’s just like a big caucus. You’re supportive of one another, but there is a competition as well. That’s the way teamwork plays out. It will happen tonight on the ice in Toronto, as well, as the Leafs take on the Boston Bruins in game 3. I’m looking for another big performance by world-class superstar Auston Matthews.

One thing that my wife and I have always agreed on—we don’t agree on everything, and she always wins the things that we don’t agree on, but that’s another story too. But one thing we do agree on is the importance and the absolute priority of our children. We’ve talked about it. You do a lot of things in this world, and at some point you leave this world. We’ve often talked about it, that the only really amazing, wonderful, important thing that we have done is brought our children into this world and we have raised them, because when we leave this world, that is literally the only thing that Vicky and I will leave behind.

It doesn’t matter what I did here. It doesn’t matter what she did; it doesn’t matter what I did. It doesn’t matter if I even won the 1977 home run championship in the North Renfrew baseball league—

Those things don’t really matter. It doesn’t matter that I released a couple of CDs to support hospitals and long-term-care homes in my riding. What matters is our children, and without our children, there wouldn’t be our grandchildren, and so on and so forth—we have no great-grandchildren yet; as you can tell, I’m not that old.

But I really like what I’m seeing in this bill from the point of view of prioritizing the protection of children and youth. One of the items in the bill, one of the clauses or whatever in the bill, is requiring early childhood educators to have the same reporting requirements as teachers would have, for example, in reporting suspicion of abuse. Because if we’re not going to protect the children, then we don’t have much of a future, do we?

Now, I can tell you that I’m old enough—and, Speaker, you’re not that much younger than me—that we know of instances growing up where people have failed to report issues of abuse because they’re afraid of the repercussions upon themselves, particularly in small communities where everybody knows each other. This requirement that will become legislated under Bill 188 takes away that fear because it’s now an absolute requirement. It isn’t because you wanted to do this, to report so-and-so or whatever that you suspect there may be abuse; it is because it is now the law. You are required to report the fact that you suspect that there’s abuse going on in this group home or some other facility. That is a huge step forward in protecting the children and the youth in our society, those that are under care.

I know we don’t have a lot of time when we’re speaking on these issues, but there’s another aspect that I wanted to touch on as well, Speaker, and I hope I get this right. Let’s just say that you and I were in a group home at one time, that we were in care. Today, you and I are not allowed to talk about that. We are not free to talk about our experiences while under care.

I can talk all I want about my childhood experiences, about all the good, the bad and the ugly—oh, there was a movie under that name; I think I was the “ugly” part. Absolutely, Speaker, we can talk about those. We have that freedom to speak on any of those subjects we want and divulge what we choose to and withhold what we choose to. But if we were in a home, in a care setting, under the current laws we’re not allowed to talk about that. I mean, it’s like wiping out—how many times have people who know me in here heard me talk about experiences I had growing up?

I hear the member’s passion in this, and absolutely, we must end for-profit child care. There’s a litany of abuse that’s been happening. There’s the reports that come out about what’s been happening, that these for-profit child care providers are generating profits, that they’re actually making money on this, on the backs of these children, and they call the children “cash cows.” They’re accumulating real estate assets from the taxpayer dollars that are supposed to be going to children’s care.

We need to get the profit out of child care, foster care. We need to make sure that all organizations that are looking after children, that their first and only responsibility is the care for those children, not for generating profits for their owners.

We’re seeing it also with Chartwell, the seniors’ home in Mississauga that’s being shut down. We’ve got 200 seniors being evicted because this company, a real estate investment trust, wants to renovict those seniors so they can make more profit. It’s appalling. The government should not be supporting, either for children’s care or seniors’ care, for-profit corporations.

Further questions?

Through you, Speaker, there are new enforcement tools with Bill 188 intended to hit at the finances of service providers who choose to provide poor-quality care. This bill takes critical steps towards making sure there’s no profit in providing poor care to children and youth in this province.

One of the measures of the bill is to provide an order that funding be returned when a child in care has not received the level of service expected, so this is providing a better outcome. This measure would be supported and strengthen the financial record-keeping. Does the member opposite agree that measures such as these put children first by making sure that every dollar invested in this care results in high-quality care?

A few.

Speaker, if you seek it, you’ll find unanimous consent to see the clock at 6.

And I don’t just mean in the debate chamber here, but I mean sitting in a social setting, in the caucus lounge or whatever. You’ve heard me talk about those many, many times, because I have many experiences to talk about when you come from a family like mine with 14 children. We have four children and 12 grandchildren; those are not my childhood experiences, but I can talk about anything I choose to.

Well, in the case of someone who is under care, they can’t talk about them. But, should this bill pass, Speaker, they will be free to talk about those and speak about those experiences to anyone they choose. That is like having a yoke and a cone of silence all at one time lifted off your shoulders, so that you are now free to speak about your childhood experiences.

Speaker, I know I only have a little bit of time. I thank you for this time and appreciate the minister bringing this bill forward.

I get the rhetoric from the other side. This is the way they work. It doesn’t matter how much we invest in children; according to them, it will never be enough. But the next question in question period will be: “Why do you have a deficit of $9.8 billion? You’re spending too much money.”

Speaker, children are our priority and will always be. Thanks for the question.

Isn’t the ability to speak freely really what democracy is all about? Isn’t the freedom to speak freely what our founding fathers and people like my father went to war to defend?

I say to the member, in our house, the kitchen table really was the place of all conversation. You could have a conversation just about anywhere in the house, but the kitchen table was where people really spoke freely and where all the best decisions were made. I grew up in a home where I had the ability to speak. And our children have always been able to speak about their experiences and their concerns.

Being able to speak freely—that’s something we are giving to children who grew up in care. This bill gives them that freedom.

She’s right: 44% is an unacceptable number. That’s why we’ve got $3.8 billion in the Roadmap to Wellness and other monies—

Questions and comments?

Further debate? Further debate?

Mr. Parsa has moved second reading of Bill 188, An Act to amend the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 and various other Acts. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Second reading agreed to.

Minister?

Orders of the day. The member for Chatham-Kent–Leamington.

MPP Hazell moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 184, An Act to amend the Metrolinx Act, 2006, the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act and the Shortline Railways Act, 1995 with respect to transportation / Projet de loi 184, Loi visant à modifier la Loi de 2006 sur Metrolinx, la Loi sur l’aménagement des voies publiques et des transports en commun et la Loi de 1995 sur les chemins de fer d’intérêt local en ce qui concerne les transports.

I thank the member for his very energetic comments. And 14 kids—wow.

He talked about something that actually touched me. He talked about the ability to speak freely. Imagine being a child in care, or once in care, and not having the ability to speak or provide personal information about their life, which is so impeding, when you think about rights as a human being. I’m just wondering if you’d like to talk about that a little bit more—about having their rights kind of taken away from them.

It was with great interest that I listened to the member’s debate, because the member spoke quite a bit about accountability. I think it’s important that we have some accountability for what’s happening in the child welfare sector, because we have a funding formula that’s completely broken.

The children’s aid societies across the province have a deficit this year that’s not being eliminated. Last year, they got one-time funding only to eliminate the deficit, and they don’t have the resources they need to provide sufficient quality care to children who need care. So across the province, we have kids who are in hotel rooms, Airbnbs and even offices, which is not a good place to provide care for a child, especially not when the child has complex mental health or physical health needs.

My question to the member opposite is: Where is the funding to actually provide good-quality care to children who are in care in the province of Ontario?

There are some good aspects of Bill 188, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act.

I want to share a statistic in this House from a few years back: 44% of youth in care graduate from high school compared to 81% of their peers. I think that speaks loudly to the lack of supports that we have both in the care system and also in the education system.

I will say it over and over again: Mental health has to be a priority here in Ontario. And how do we do that? We do that by having the caring adults, the caring professionals in place who also have culturally relevant training to support our diverse Ontario youth.

Will the government commit to more funding for our education system and our care system so it can actually care and function—

To the Standing Committee on Social Policy, please.

Pursuant to standing order 100, the member has 12 minutes for their presentation.