To the Premier: 200 seniors are set to be evicted from Chartwell Heritage Glen on July 31 of this year, and this government has not taken the action. The people have been asking for responses; they’re not getting responses from the government. The mayor of Mississauga has written to this government and to seven Conservative MPPs and not received a response.

What we’ve uncovered is that Chartwell, since 2004, has received 75 million taxpayer dollars in subsidies. This is the corporation that is now renovicting 200 seniors. Will this government stand up to Chartwell and demand that those seniors be allowed to stay in their homes?

Interjections.

It points out that Ontario Place has been a cherished public space for 50 years, it has provided recreation and cultural experiences for Ontarians, and it was designed to celebrate the people of Ontario and the ingenuity of Ontarians—including Eb Zeidler, who was the original architect, Michael Hough, who was the landscape architect—and also to celebrate creating the first IMAX movie theatre. And IMAX is a technology that was developed in Ontario.

They’re saying that the plan to lease this out for 95 years to Therme, which is an Austrian spa company, is in breach of the original intention of Ontario Place. It has nothing to do with Ontario and it’s a waste of at least $650 million.

It also talks about how relocating the science centre and destroying that iconic building is also a waste of our tax dollars, another $400 million there. So they’re asking the government to stop the 95-year lease of the Ontario Place site.

I fully support this petition. I will pass it to page James to take to the table.

It gives me—actually, it’s quite sad to present this petition on the one-year anniversary of the permanent closure of Minden—

I’m presenting this petition on behalf of people from Minden that had a permanent closure—Chesley, Clinton, Almonte, Arnprior, Campbellford, Carleton Place, Durham, Hamilton, Hawkesbury, Listowel, Mount Forest, Palmerston, Red Lake, Seaforth, South Huron, St. Marys, Thessalon, Walkerton, Wingham, Fort Erie and Port Colborne. What they are asking for is to keep rural Ontario emergency departments open.

Basically, all of the people who signed this petition live in a community where their emergency room has closed, and they would like the government to take this seriously. They urge the Legislative Assembly to take immediate action to protect the health and well-being of people who live in the rural communities that I just named and to keep their emergency department open.

I support this petition, will affix my name to it and ask Guransh to bring it to the Clerk.

The bill amends the Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act, 2004. The amendments prohibit nurse practitioners from accepting certain private payments or benefits for providing services to an insured person that would normally be provided as insured services in specified settings. Payments or benefits for these services may still be accepted from specified public sources or in accordance with the regulations.

The penalties for contraventions of the act are increased, and a new regulation-making power permits regulations providing for and governing reimbursements of payments or benefits made for these services within six months after the day this act receives royal assent.

It recognizes the fact that we are in a drug-poisoning epidemic across the province and that consumption and treatment sites and safe consumption, supervised consumption sites have been an essential method of keeping people alive.

The members who have signed this—representing many nurses and people who have been impacted by the drug-poisoning crisis—call for immediate funding to reopen consumption and treatment sites, supervised consumption sites in Windsor, Sudbury, Timmins and in any community that requires it to stop the deaths.

I support this petition and am pleased to submit it to page Jessica.

This bill calls on the government to establish a committee to come up with a plan to make the Union Pearson Express affordable, to integrate it into the TTC so it costs a TTC fare to ride; to increase capacity; and to electrify the line. This would be the cheapest mass-transit line Toronto could ever get. It’s very sensible, and that’s what this bill proposes to do.

Mr. Shamji moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 203, An Act to amend the Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act, 2004 with respect to payments to nurse practitioners / Projet de loi 203, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2004 sur l’engagement d’assurer l’avenir de l’assurance-santé à l’égard des honoraires à verser aux infirmières praticiennes et aux infirmiers praticiens.

This petition asks that the rates for Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program be doubled in order to address poverty in Ontario.

I support this petition, and I will be affixing my signature to it and giving it to page Sophia.

Minister of Northern Development.

Supplementary?

The next question.

The Minister for Seniors and Accessibility will respond.

The Minister for Seniors and Accessibility.

The division bells rang from 1153 to 1158.

On May 28, 2024, Ms. Armstrong moved second reading of Bill 191, An Act respecting the establishment of a Childcare and Early Years Workforce Strategy Advisory Committee.

All those in favour, please rise and remain standing until recognized by the Clerk.

Second reading negatived.

The House recessed from 1202 to 1500.

Report adopted.

Report adopted.

Ms. Bell moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 202, An Act to amend the Metrolinx Act, 2006 to provide for a committee to review matters relating to the Union Pearson Express / Projet de loi 202, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur Metrolinx pour prévoir la création d’un comité chargé d’examiner des questions concernant l’Union Pearson Express.

First reading agreed to.

First reading agreed to.

I’ll return to the member for Nickel Belt.

Thank you to the great member from Brampton West for his advocacy towards small businesses in his riding.

The manufacturing industry is the cornerstone of our provincial economy, providing well-paying jobs and driving innovation across a wide range of sectors. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the opposition Liberals and NDP have turned a blind eye to the devastating consequences their beloved carbon tax is inflicting on these small businesses; after all, they chased away companies and lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs.

With the soaring cost of powering their factories and operating machinery to the increased expenses of transporting finished goods, the carbon tax has placed an unbearable financial burden on small manufacturers. In the automotive sector, they’re telling me that if the carbon tax keeps increasing, fewer cars will be sold or repaired and they will ultimately cut staff.

While the opposition seems content to let these vital job creators fail, our government will continue to fiercely oppose the regressive tax that’s crippling—

Unlike Bonnie Crombie and the carbon tax caucus, we believe we owe it to the tens of thousands of Ontarians whose livelihoods depend on this sector to be their fiercest advocate in this House. I call on the Liberals and NDP to scrap—

I beg leave to present a report from the Standing Committee on Justice Policy and move its adoption.

The ayes are 37; the nays are 67.

Bill 159, An Act to amend the Provincial Animal Welfare Services Act, 2019 / Projet de loi 159, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2019 sur les services provinciaux visant le bien-être des animaux.

Bill 185, An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 185, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

I would like to correct my record in Hansard. Yesterday during question period, I said, “Does the speaker plan to run” the election “on more alcohol ... sold in Ontario,” when I should have said, “Does the Premier plan to run the election on more alcohol in Ontario?”

And on a further point of information, I have a response to the Premier for a question I was asked yesterday: I will be running as an independent candidate, and I’ll leave it to the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin to return me.

Deferred vote on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 191, An Act respecting the establishment of a Childcare and Early Years Workforce Strategy Advisory Committee / Projet de loi 191, Loi concernant la création du comité consultatif de la stratégie relative aux préposés aux services pour la petite enfance et la garde d’enfants.

Well, I never had a chance to welcome our great firefighters and the leadership. I love our firefighters. If you have time after the vote, please come down to my office. Pay us a visit right after the chamber.

Thank you. Great to see everyone.

A report came out this morning noting that more and more seniors are winding up homeless and living in shelters. Is this the government’s answer to the families who are here today whose parents are currently being renovicted out of Heritage Glen as we speak? The minister knows there is no other safe housing available that these seniors can afford. The offer of three months’ rent means nothing if you are being ripped out of your home, and it means nothing if you can’t afford month four.

You are the government, you have the tools available. What are you going to do to keep seniors from losing their homes, their communities and their security?

This petition has been submitted by hundreds of constituents from my community in St. Paul’s. It is simply titled: “Demand Real Rent Control Now.”

There are a lot of constituents, a lot of community members in St. Paul’s who are asking for the Conservative government to bring back real rent control, which will help address the housing crisis in Ontario and, of course, in St. Paul’s, along with the affordability crisis that’s impacting St. Paul’s and our entire province, as well as the homelessness crisis. Some of the folks who signed this petition are now living on couches, because they haven’t been able to afford the cost of their rent.

We are asking for real rent control now, so that we don’t have to see St. Paul’s residents go from having rents of $2,500 per month up to rents of $9,000 per month for a two-bedroom condominium in midtown. I absolutely support this petition calling for real rent control, because it is calling for an end to the housing crisis, the affordability crisis and the homelessness crisis created by this government.

Speaker, it is signed by dozens, if not hundreds, of folks, and I want you to know that harm reduction—which this petition is asking for—is health care. The government should address the issue of the drug poisoning tragedy by properly funding supervised consumption service sites in Windsor, in Sudbury, in Timmins—frankly, across our province, wherever they are needed to save lives, and they can do that today.

This petition is entitled “A Future for Child Care in Ontario.” This petition was put together because there is so much risk of child care spaces shutting down in Thunder Bay. The request of the petition is to create an early-years and child care workers advisory commission to develop recommendations on how to support the early-years and child care workforce by addressing staffing shortages, including through a salary scale, increased compensation and improved working conditions.

I fully support this petition. It’s extremely important that these issues be addressed. I will give it to Jasnoor and sign it.

It’s my honour to present the following petition on behalf of Dr. Sally Palmer. This petition is entitled “To Raise Social Assistance Rates.” Across Ontario, people living on social assistance are living in legislated poverty. As the petition points out, the current social assistance rates are well below the poverty line.

It also asks the question: Why was the basic income, instituted during the pandemic through CERB of $2,000 a month, made standard for others, while social assistance is dramatically lower? It points out that rates are unfair, unreasonable and inhumane. It calls upon this government to do the right thing, listen to its common humanity and double social assistance rates.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with page Sophia to the Clerks.

I would like to table this petition on behalf of the Ontario branch of Ostomy Canada. As you know, Speaker, the cost of ostomy supplies has increased a lot in the last few years. The Assistive Devices Program is mandated to reimburse ostomy supplies at 75%. Unfortunately, the reimbursement rate has not changed since 2016. Ostomy in 2016 would cost you about $1,200 or $1,300 a year. It is now double this, yet the grant from the government has not changed.

All the people who signed this petition want the Assistive Devices Program to do what it is mandated to do: that is, reimburse them 75% of the cost of ostomy supplies.

I fully support this petition, will affix my name to it and ask page Jessica to bring it to the Clerk.

Basically, what they want is—there are wild fluctuations in the prices of gas. If you come in my riding on a Thursday rather than on a Sunday, there could be up to 15, 20 cents per litre difference in what you’re going to pay for the price of gas. If you go further into my riding, into places like Levack and Onaping, where there’s only one gas station—or even to Foleyet or Gogama—it’s not out of the ordinary to pay close to $2 a litre for the price of gas.

They know that other jurisdictions, other provinces and other states in the US, have regulated the price of gas. They set a maximum price at which the gas can be sold across the province. That would help the people of Nickel Belt.

This is something that I support. I will affix my name to it, and I will ask page Jasnoor to bring it to the Clerk.

As you know, Speaker, most collective agreements are negotiated without a strike or lockout—that’s about 97% of them—but for the 2% to 3% where strikes or lockouts happen, the use of scabs is really hard on communities and leaves long-lasting hardship in the community.

Anti-scab legislation has existed in Quebec since 1978, in British Columbia since 1993, and at the federal level since yesterday, so they would like this to also exist in Ontario. That’s why they signed this petition to bring anti-scab labour law—the sooner, the better.

I support this petition. I will affix my name to it and ask Sophia to bring it to the Clerk.

This petition is entitled “Raise Social Assistance Rates,” and it’s addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It talks about how social assistance rates, which include Ontario Works and ODSP, are well below the poverty line. The $733 for somebody on Ontario Works is simply not enough to survive in this province. The $1,300 for people with disabilities on ODSP is also not enough. You can barely rent a room for that amount of money, let alone take care of somebody or have somebody live with a disability.

They’ve written an open letter to the Premier and cabinet ministers. They have had this signed by thousands and thousands of Ontarians. They want to double the ODSP and Ontario Works rates. The Ontario Works rates—it has to be more than doubled, minimum. It also talks about how—

I fully endorse this petition, and I will affix my signature and pass it to page Farah to take to the table.

So, again, I appreciate the member summarizing his petition briefly, but I would ask him not to add additional editorial comment or opinion. He can summarize and also indicate the number of the people who have signed the petition, as well as expressing whether or not he supports the petition.

I’ll return to the member from Spadina–Fort York.

It truly is an honour to be able to stand in this Legislature as the member for Hamilton Mountain, as well as to be the official opposition critic for children, community and social services.

When I was first elected, in 2011, I was appointed critic of children’s services at that time. My first experience of the children’s file was to sit in on the Youth Leaving Care Hearings, and what an experience that was. You were here at that time, Speaker. I’m not sure if you had the ability to step in, because many members could and couldn’t—it wasn’t to point any member out; by no means. It was quite the experience. It was down in the main committee room. There were youth from all over the province who were telling their stories. They were sharing their stories. They were singing their stories. They created poetry. They created many forms of ways of being able to share their very difficult stories.

As kids in care, nobody was coming here and talking about rainbows and lollipops. They were coming here and talking about the struggles that they faced within the children’s aid societies, and it was very powerful, and from that came My Real Life Book report, which sat with the Liberals at that time. One of the main features that they had asked for was to create youth leaving care day, and we did that, which was fantastic. It happens every May 14. That day allows us the opportunity to reflect and to reaffirm our commitment to youth in care—because let’s not forget that when a youth comes into care, the government then becomes their parent, and as parents, the government has a responsibility to ensure that that youth has what they need to thrive and survive. We definitely heard from youth at that time that the struggles were real. We heard many stories. And today, 13 years later, we’re still talking to youth in care and from care and we’re still hearing so many struggles.

It’s important that legislation comes before this House, because it doesn’t happen very often that an act is opened—unless, of course, under this government, it’s a lot of housing and building roads. That gets opened a lot, but the youth file does not. The last time that we had a bill under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act was 2017. It’s been many years since we’ve had the ability to debate a very important bill for our most vulnerable youth in this Legislature. It gives me great pride to be able to stand here in my place, be able to advocate further for young people in care and be able to raise their voices to the best of my ability, as should be each and every one of our jobs, and so I do that very proudly.

When we fast-forwarded to 2018 and this Conservative government came into power, one of the first measures that they did was combine the children’s ministry and community and social services. What that did was it took the focus away from kids. To combine it into a very large ministry just allowed the children’s needs to be muddled, to not be the focus. That was terribly unfortunate. That was one of the government’s first measures, to take away that self-focusing children’s ministry.

The next thing they did was they fired the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth. They did that really quickly. They did it pretty much under a cloak of darkness, where he found out—not respectfully, through any interview process or even a nice letter; he found out through the media that his office was being shuttered.

The office of the provincial advocate had the ability to bring forward voices and to raise the voices and allow young people to raise their own voices of their needs. We know that there are a lot of kids in this province with great needs and that structures are important to a child’s best interest. So not having the ability to raise those voices and to hear those voices clearly, quite frankly, stifled the voice of children. That is probably one of the most crass things that this government could have done on their way in the door in 2018.

We had children around the province who found themselves in groups like themselves that allowed that advocacy to flourish, to nourish each other, to stand together so that they weren’t afraid to tell their stories because they were amongst peers who had stories very similar to theirs. All of that advocacy work stopped in 2018 when this government fired the provincial advocate for children. That was really, really unfortunate.

We really didn’t get much from the government after that. We know that, under the children’s file, the autism file exploded. We’ve seen a minister who capped funding, who put age caps in, who really took away a brand new program that had just been put into place and was still working its way in. It wasn’t a perfect program, but it was a pretty decent program that would have seen many more children be able to access services through the autism file. But the same minister at that time blew that up, because it was a Liberal plan and thought that they could do better when, quite frankly, what it did was it collapsed the system even further. Less kids were in service and just did not get what they needed. So they cut the ministry, then they cut the provincial advocate, and they’ve allowed children to just kind of coast as it is.

Bringing it up to today, I’ll go back to the children’s aid societies. For the first time in history, children’s aid societies right across this province are running deficits. Last year, they saw a $15.6-million deficit. For the year coming forward, they’re projecting a $50-million deficit. For the $15.6 million from last year, the government did a one-time bailout, and now, children’s aid societies this year have no idea what that’s going to look like.

So you can imagine the children’s aid—their mandate, their mission, is to keep kids at home with their families, to the best of their ability, but to do that costs money. To do that, they have to ensure that services are available when families are in crisis. Mental health, complex critical care, stress levels: These are the types of things that we’ve seen young people face, which are some of the reasons why they’re taken away from their families. So a family is struggling, the young person has some mental health issues, mom and dad are scrambling to be able to get them services and they’re just not able to.

We know we have 30,000 kids on wait-lists for mental health services in this province and a two-and-a-half-year wait-list. So when a family is not able to get those services and they find themselves in crisis—because when there’s part of the family that’s broken down, as you know, it affects the entire family, not just that child. It affects the entire family structure. There can be siblings who are affected. We’ve heard many stories in several different situations.

Families sometimes find themselves going to children’s aid saying, “Please help me. Take my child. Please get them the services they need. Help our family heal and help us get back on track.” So we see those kids go into care, and they still don’t get the services, because there’s no prioritization for those kids who go into care. That was something that was asked for throughout the amendment process of this bill, but the government shot it down and didn’t think it was important to pass that amendment.

That is a really important piece. Making sure that someone who’s in care—their family is already in crisis. That they’re hitting that priority list, I think, is something that should be fundamental. No child should be separated from their family if there’s no risk to that child: It’s not an abuse case; there’s nothing where the parent is doing harm to the child; everybody is trying to work together, but there’s a health issue in the middle that’s preventing that family from being healthy and safe. To not help that family in their biggest time of crisis—I just think it’s a really big missed opportunity, as well as an extra expense that we already know the children’s aid can’t manage. Like I said, they’re running deficits. That was something that I think was a missed opportunity in Bill 188.

Maybe I should back up a bit. What Bill 188 actually does is it provides legislation that the young person has to be notified of the Ombudsman and that—oh, my goodness; I’ve got so many papers, too many papers. They have to be notified of the Ombudsman and be told how to reach the Ombudsman. Now, that was something that was already in place, but I guess the minister felt that it wasn’t strong enough, and so it’s put into legislation.

What else it does is that it closes the CPIN file so that no one can just punch in a person’s name and have their name pop up and see that they were in the children’s aid society for any portion of time in their life. This is critically important, and I congratulate Jane Kovarikova and Child Welfare PAC, who worked really hard to get that legislation before us and to make that come true.

Imagine being a young person. We were all young people. We all did things that we’re probably not proud of. It could be a big thing; it could be a small thing. But everything is written into a person’s file by a third party, by another adult. And then when that person is possibly trying to get a job within the children’s aid society, maybe they want to adopt a child, anything for any reason, the person’s name can be typed in and come up and then, all of a sudden, you’re a red flag because you’ve been a kid in care.

These aren’t criminals. They’re kids who were taken from their family for whatever reason, and they should not be treated in any way that reflects the fact that they were in care. Even if a youth has a criminal record, that record is sealed at the age of 18, and so now, today, due to this legislation, that will seal those records, which is super important.

What this bill also does is that it strengthens the licensing act for group homes—critically important to ensure that there are heavier fines and that there is possible jail time for those who offend against children who are put into group homes.

If we get into the group home section of what group homes are like today, I can tell you that adding 20 inspectors, which is important, is not going to be enough. It’s not going to be enough to actually change the land of the group homes.

We know that there are so many for-profit, unlicensed group homes in the province of Ontar io, and we have heard horror stories come from those homes. One of the amendments that we had asked for to strengthen that was to ensure that, when an inspector does go to a home, the kids are home. That’s not much to ask for. There’s no sense in going at 11 o’clock in the morning when the kids are all expected to be in school, right? To ensure that a young person is able to speak in privacy when that inspector was there, instead of having fear of reprisal and being scared to speak out in front of, possibly, whoever works in the group home; to ensure that people who work in group homes actually have credentials, because we’ve seen and we’ve heard—right in Hamilton—young people working in group homes. One story was of this young woman, barely 20, in charge of 15-, 16-year-old boys who really ran over her and did whatever they wanted. But there was talk about appropriate clothing of the young woman and appropriate behaviour of the young woman.

This is a young woman who’s applied for a job, and it’s our responsibility as adults and as legislators to ensure that the people who apply for those jobs and the people who get those jobs have the proper credentials, understand youth with mental health, understand the lay of the land, are able to have a control system and an adult-over-child capacity in group homes like this. Instead, the house was complete chaos at all times of the day, with many complaints from the neighbourhood and the community about what they’ve seen and what concerned them from that home. So that’s a prime example.

We also know of group homes who have locked windows. They have removed doors from bedrooms. We have seen fires. We have seen deaths. We have had young people die by suicide and been missing for six months and nobody looked for them. That was just pretty much on the same property back in a field. These are the things that we have seen in our group homes.

So just to add 20 inspectors and no actual teeth around them, other than a fine—by the time you get to a fine, it’s too late. It’s reactive instead of proactive. And I think that’s what we were really hoping to do. We brought several amendments forward trying to strengthen the bill, and yet, the government found it necessary, time and time again—every single one of them, actually—to vote against them.

And it’s really unfortunate because we had no issues with this bill whatsoever. Sometimes it’s just really great to work cordially together and to say, “I support this legislation,” and to be able to continue to talk positively about it, but independent officers of the Legislature as well as former youth in care had given us several ideas of where it wasn’t enough.

The Ombudsman laid it out. He literally did the work and had the amendments written out: By adding, “Where a child wants to enter into an agreement under this section and a society decides not to enter into an agreement, the child shall be informed, in language suitable to their understanding, of the existence and role of the Ombudsman of Ontario and how the Ombudsman could be contacted.” So as soon as a person goes into care, they should have an automatic, “Here you go. This is how you reach the Ombudsman,” and when you leave, just like when you leave a job, you have an exit interview—“Here’s, again, the information that you need.”

One of the other amendments that we asked for was that—and we all know this to be true: Young people aren’t necessarily picking up the phone to call anybody. They live in a digital society, right? We know that everything young people do is typically a text message or an Instagram or somewhere—and that’s how they proceed. Many young people don’t pick up the phone. Some parents will say, “My kid will never call me. The only thing I ever get is a text message.” So how do we ensure that we’re getting this information to young people and that we’re giving them the ability to text in, to send that message in and not have to pick up the phone to call, which many of them wouldn’t do. Unfortunately, the government voted that down too.

We asked for information to be given in a person’s language to ensure that the language was suitable to the young person’s needs. That was voted down. They were just amendments to tighten up the bill that was already there, to truly ensure that young people have the ability to be heard and that they had the ability to know what their rights were in their own language, and that the government voted that down I think is absolutely shocking. I offered the committee members to take a five-minute recess so they could go and confer with staff, to see if they could support an amendment like that, but they refused that also. I tried to help them, but they didn’t even want that.

“The CYFSA should be amended to require all employees of youth justice facilities to co-operate with investigations conducted by a children’s aid society”—that was a proposal that the government also turned down, and that was a request of the Ombudsman. Any time that a person comes into contact with that young person, those adults should be responsible to speak out. That was turned down by the government. That was the Ombudsman. You’re giving the Ombudsman powers, but you don’t want to give him the rules around it and the tools around those powers to be able to do his job well. I think that’s a complete missed opportunity by this government.

Really, just for the sake of, they think that they put out a bill and that it’s right—well, colleagues, how many bills have we seen put in front of us that the government has had to retract, or put a new bill forward? There have been several, and I believe the animal bill, the PAWS bill, that’s currently in front of us is another example of just exactly that. We’re watching it happen in real life right now. They had to not proclaim things, and then they’re putting forward amendments to clean up a mess that they created before.

We had told them that it was a problem, because we hear the stakeholders. We bring those voices forward. We listen to the experts. We bring those voices forward, and they shut it down. That is just more wasted time in the Ontario Legislature, wasted dollars, for the amount of time we spend in this Legislature, and really, just a big waste.

If the government would see fit to just pass one amendment, two amendments—we don’t scratch these out on the back of a napkin. We’re not sitting at night with our crayons and a bottle of wine making stuff up, trying to get the government to pass these things. We’re actually getting these amendments from the Ombudsman, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Ontario children’s aid societies. People had real things to say.

Like I said, it has been since 2017 that the act has even been opened, so this was the opportunity to dot the i’s, cross the t’s, give the Ombudsman what he needs to do his job, and they did not.

We also asked that we stop the for-profit sector of group homes, and the government shot that down. We asked that children not be placed in hotel rooms, Airbnbs, children’s aid society offices and for-profit, unlicensed group homes, and the government shot that down. Why? Why is the question.

Let’s remember again, the children’s aids are underfunded. A kin care family could be the grandparents or the aunts and uncles of a young person, and they may very well not have the means to be able to take in a kid—their grandchild or niece or nephew or whatever it may be. There may be a need for beds, cribs, school clothes, extra food in the house. We all know the cost of living has certainly ballooned and people’s paycheques have not, particularly for grandparents. We know grandparents are struggling. Pensions haven’t gone up, and yet the cost of living has. Those families are not afforded the same amount as a foster family would be. A foster family, I believe, gets $1,000 a month; a kin care family gets $300. So we’re kind of alienating those possibilities because the family can’t afford it. What happens is, those kids come into care, we have no foster placements, because the lack of work that’s done to build community around vulnerable kids—does not exist. It does not exist—to build that community care and to find places to be able to care for our kids.

Interruption.

Further debate?