Further questions?

The member from Mississauga Centre.

I’m so glad to follow my colleague who gave such a great narrative speech. I’m going to stick to my notes, but it’s always impressive when members can speak from the heart. I think that’s a learned skill, and the longer we are here I think the better we should get at that skill. But I will stick to my notes for this particular bill.

Mr. Speaker, the proposed bill aims to elevate the standard of care for children and adolescents, which will enhance self-sufficiency as they transition into adulthood. Our government has embarked on redesigning the child welfare system, motivated by the fundamental belief that every child and youth across Ontario should be provided with a nurturing environment and a stable home. As part of this redesign, this bill will bring a series of new initiatives that will enhance the quality of care provided by out-of-home care systems, further strengthening the commitment to the well-being of Ontario’s children and young people.

This proposal seeks to improve the quality of services for children, such as safeguarding the privacy of individuals who have interacted with child welfare. Bill 188 seeks to give individuals more control and ownership of their narratives and experiences, enabling them to share information about their involvement with child protection according to their own preferences and decisions.

The children and youth services sector plays a vital role in supporting individuals with diverse needs all across Ontario. If passed, this bill will strengthen the service sector, ensuring enhanced support for our youth and children, whether it means protecting a child from abuse and trauma or empowering them with resources to overcome challenging times.

Speaker, this bill’s proposals would introduce new enforcement tools, such as compliance orders, restraining orders and administrative penalties, alongside enhancements to existing powers, including the ability to refuse licences. The criteria for obtaining a first licence would be strengthened with more detailed application requirements and a new minister’s power to refuse permits in the public interest. Approved regulatory changes would establish stricter requirements to safeguard children in licensed settings, prohibit harmful practices and ensure privacy in designated areas. Additionally, amendments would clarify processes for hearings by the Licence Appeal Tribunal and streamline administrative procedures for inspectors dealing with non-compliance.

Mr. Speaker, this proposal aims to enhance program administration and delivery by focusing on transparency improvements. If approved, legislative changes would involve expanding publicly available information about licensed settings to encompass all newly proposed enforcement measures. Specific individuals, including societies, would be mandated to report to the ministry director if there are concerns about an immediate risk to a child’s well-being in a licensed setting. Approved regulatory amendments would require societies to notify the ministry when initiating child protection investigations involving children in licensed settings.

En outre, les ajustements réglementaires connexes obligeraient les sociétés à rendre des visites plus fréquentes aux enfants dont elles ont la charge, passant d’une fois tous les 90 jours à une fois tous les 30 jours. Nos enfants méritent dévouement et amour. Ces visites réglementaires garantiront la sécurité et le bien-être des jeunes et des enfants placés hors de leur foyer.

Mr. Speaker, the changes proposed in this bill will help the licensed out-of-home care sector to provide better-quality support for these youths.

Across the province, there are 50 children’s aid societies primarily funded by our government. They are responsible for Ontario’s public adoption, planning and recruiting adoptive parents. If passed, Bill 188 will add 20 positions across Ontario, which will support the management, inspection and oversight of these service sectors.

Engaging extensively with the community and service providers to enhance support for children and youth is vital for a more significant impact. This bill will strengthen customary care arrangements, prioritizing family-based options such as kinship and foster care to ensure that children, youth and families play a pivotal role in decisions regarding their care.

This bill focuses on directing efforts towards enhancing the quality of child welfare data to establish standardized measures across children’s aid societies for public reporting. This information could be helpful during an investigation to support an action in a timely manner. However, exceptions to confidentiality have been added to the bill that respects the privacy of individuals.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will implement an outcomes-driven performance measurement framework. This will help achieve excellence within our out-of-home care facilities in Ontario. Additionally, the release of the Children and Young Persons’ Rights Resource aims to empower children and youth by educating them about their rights and encouraging them to advocate for themselves. Simultaneously, this bill is laying the groundwork for their future success by ensuring that comprehensive support systems are in place to assist youth as they transition out of care, ensuring that they have the skills and opportunities to flourish and thrive.

We have heard this in committee, when we had members of the public come and present to us—that, for those who were in the system, they were not notified about their rights and they didn’t know that they could turn to the Ombudsman, for example, for more help or more information about their rights. And that is why we are strengthening, with this bill, the information that children will be provided about their rights and about the Office of the Ombudsman.

Mr. Speaker, it has been reported that only some out-of-home care service providers are meeting the standard service. The proposed modifications in this bill will only impact service providers that are not performing in good faith. The bill will be adjusting licensing procedures and enforcement mechanisms for instances of unethical behaviour. Operators offering excellent care will not be impacted, as they are already offering high-quality service that addresses their individual needs while prioritizing their safety and security.

It is also important to point out that this bill will aim to ensure clarity regarding the obligation of children’s aid societies and licensed out-of-home care providers to inform children in their care about the Ombudsman’s office and its function. This proposal aligns with the government’s broader initiative, the Children and Young Persons’ Rights Resource, initiated a few years back, which aims to empower children and youth by educating them about their rights outlined in the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017.

It is imperative for children and youth to be aware of their rights and where to seek assistance if they feel their rights are being disregarded by service providers. This legislation mandates service providers to explain these rights in an understandable manner, be available for clarification, and regularly check in with children and youth regarding their rights.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by saying that I did appreciate the comments from the member for Hamilton Mountain where she shared her story about how her own parents fostered many children. I think that gives us a greater insight and perspective about her passion and what drives her work, and that’s why she is doing that work that needs to be done and holding the government accountable, as is her role in this critic role. You know, we rarely get the opportunity to know members a little bit better, and I think when we share these personal stories, that gives more meaning to our work here. So I did appreciate hearing that unique perspective.

I also want to express my gratitude to the deputants that came and gave their testimonials in committee. Many of them were involved in the child care system themselves and they have come out to be incredible advocates. We had a doctor who came. We had lawyers and others. This gives a testament to the fact that people, despite their challenges, can become incredible professionals and have incredible careers and then give voices to those children through their personal experiences.

I want to conclude by saying I was raised by a single mom. Times were tough, and my mom did everything she could to ensure that me and my brother had everything that we needed, whether that’s food on the table, clothing. We had a very old car, and I was quite embarrassed when my mom was dropping me off because the muffler was broken, so I asked her to drop me off two blocks away from school.

But she worked extremely hard to ensure that we grew up to be productive members of society. Going through those challenges, I can only imagine what children who don’t have caring parents, who don’t have people to advocate for them go through, and that’s why this bill is so important, to give voices to those children and to strengthen all the provisions that we can to ensure the safety and well-being of all children in Ontario.

I am glad to ask a question of the members regarding the committee process and the importance of this bill and some of the voices that were heard at committee, specifically Carly Kalish, the executive director of Victim Services Toronto. I always appreciated Carly’s work when she worked in the Durham region. Her role as a trauma counsellor and with her experience working with children, she brought an important perspective to committee, as did anyone else who took the time to get their voices on the record.

So my question: When there were very thoughtful submissions made at committee about how to improve this bill, how to fine-tune to make it the best version it could be, why were all of those amendments and all of those voices unceremoniously rejected without consideration?

Questions and comments?

I want to thank my colleagues for their comments and their generosity to each other in how they characterized each other speaking.

I had a question for the member for Mississauga Centre, who I thought was extremely generous talking about our colleague from Peterborough–Kawartha but also talking about the member of the opposition’s comments as well, and you did end up speaking from an extemporaneous place and from the heart, and so I really appreciated that the member for Mississauga Centre was able to do that.

I was wondering if you could just talk about what matters most to you in what we are achieving in Bill 188 in the child welfare redesign.

I think the most important thing is that we are giving voices to these children and informing them of their rights, and with information comes power. We have heard over and over in committee that these children were often unaware of their rights and didn’t know where to go, and so we’re changing that.

We’re also increasing the number of inspectors in the system, and so I want to believe that, by and large, most foster parents and foster homes are doing the job because they love caring for children and they’re doing the very best job. But just like in any industry, in any sector, there are, unfortunately, some bad players, and by increasing the amount of inspectors and giving more tools to these inspectors, we’ll be holding them accountable, and I think that’s extremely important.

I appreciate the question from the member from Oshawa. When we look at the committee process, it’s not something that is new for any of us. We’ve all been through it multiple times. A lot of times, things get put forward on it that can tweak us in different ways to have a secondary look at what we’re doing as we move forward, because we know that we’re going to have more legislation that’s going to come forward on certain topics, and a lot of the times, you have to do things in a stepwise or incremental way.

And it’s not that those ideas aren’t great ideas; they are great ideas if they come forward. It allows us to take a look at things from a different perspective as we start to introduce more legislation. It’s not that those things get lost; it’s that we’re focused on what we’re doing at that moment and what we’re trying to accomplish with it, and sometimes when suggestions or amendments are being put forward by the opposition, they are truly good ideas, but they don’t fit in with what we’re trying to accomplish at that point, but it does tweak us to move forward so that we can introduce something else that will start to address some of those other things.

I want to thank both the member from Peterborough–Kawartha and the member from Mississauga Centre for presenting here today, and I also would like to thank them for sharing their personal stories. Some of us wouldn’t be as frank as that, and it’s nice to know that they can share those stories that they’ve shared with us here today.

I think the centre point of this bill is that the health, safety and well-being of children is paramount, whether they are in care or not, and it is crucial that we, as legislators and as a society, do everything in our power to ensure that these cases are heard and work towards a better direction. This bill takes many steps forward.

Could the members please expand on what regulations are currently in place to ensure those who work with children and youth are qualified to do so?

Thank you very much for that question, and I couldn’t agree more. Whether it’s children in care or children outside of care, our government is doing everything we can to enhance their safety and well-being, which includes more mental health supports through our Roadmap to Wellness: $3.9 billion invested, including a lot of support for youth and children’s mental health.

But Bill 188 takes important steps forward with a suite of progressive new enforcement tools that will give inspectors more powers to enforce compliance in out-of-home care. This bill also proposes substantially increased fines for the worst kinds of offences—up to $250,000—and orders to return funding where funds haven’t been used to provide high-quality care. These are some of the steps this bill is taking, and I’m sure there will be more from the great Minister of Children, Community and Social Services.

Further questions or comments?

I appreciated the remarks of the government members on this bill, which we on this side of the House have been clear that we support because it does take some modest action to improve protections for children and youth.

However, many of the concerns that this bill addresses and more—a huge number more of concerns—were identified by the former child and youth advocate in this province, Irwin Elman. He points out that there are 19,000 serious occurrence reports every quarter that are produced by group residential homes. And one of his primary roles was to address those serious occurrence reports.

So why did the government not take the opportunity to reinstate that vital position of child and youth advocate?

I appreciate that. I appreciate the question. It opens up an opportunity to really talk about some of the things that we have done and why we have done what we’ve done with it. What we know is that there were 79 reports, a total of just over 4,644 pages from the office of the child advocate, and that was just from one source. But as we were making adjustments to what we were doing here in government, we were trying to focus on what’s in the best interest of those kids as we move forward. How do we strengthen legislation in a way that gives all of those kids the opportunity to realize their full potential? That’s what we have been focusing on all throughout this.

The changes that we’ve made have been made in a way so that it gives those kids a better opportunity to succeed in life. It gives those kids something that perhaps they wouldn’t have had before. That’s why we have done what we have been doing with this entire file.

I will be happy to be supporting this bill. I’m happy that we all agree with the end goal. We all want children in care to receive the best possible support, to be given the chance to be all that they can be, to be loved, to be supported, to be cared for. This is what we all want.

But I also know, Speaker, that I have been in this place for a long time. Legislation is not a process that goes in increments. A new law is passed, and we probably will not pass another law that has to do with children in care for years.

So when, finally, people saw that there was a bill on the docket to amend the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, to do what we all wanted to do, many people came forward. I can tell you that the great majority of the people that came forward supported the bill and gave examples of how we can make it better. They understood what the government wanted to do. They understood the part of the bill that was up for debate and up for change, and they said, “You are going in the right direction. Just bring it a little bit further.” People with lived experience came and did testimony after testimony, telling us that it’s not enough to have a good goal in mind, it’s not enough to look at a bill and not take the opportunity to make it as good as it could be, so we did. We listened to them, and I would say that on all sides, people listened to the testimony and the questions that were asked were good. It was respectful, and we learned an awful lot.

Kemesha Alli came. She is the board chair of people with disabilities, and she shared really, really hard stories. She was in care. She had a disability, but she faced insecurity, fear, neglect, abuse, trauma, multiple placements, and when she finally had her appointment at SickKids where she was diagnosed with a serious disability, her foster parents did not even come. She had the hospital hold her back for about an hour to get a social worker from the hospital so that they could share with her the results of the investigation that SickKids had done. Then she went on to say about all of this stuff that was in her file at the children’s aid that 1,000 people can have access to, but that she cannot, and even with the changes that we have made in the bill, there will still be issues.

We have Nicole Bonnie. She worked in the field for 15 years as a social worker. She has a PhD from Western University. She is the CEO of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies and has worked with marginalized children and youth in care with all aspects of vulnerability. Again, she talked about the privacy breach that happens and that is at risk of continuing to happen if we don’t make this bill stronger, but we tried. We put 16 amendments forward—all of them were voted down. Although we all want the same thing, we don’t want privacy breaches. We want to make sure that the files of children in care are protected. They knew how to make the bill better, but the government did not agree.

We also had Kemesha Alli. She is the executive director of former youth in care, and she talked about the difficulty accessing resources. We had Victoria Hanton. Victoria is a lawyer, and she went through the bill with us and talked about the gaps in the legislation the way it is written now, particularly from a third party that would continue to have access into the file and how the limited ways that a child in care, who may grow out of care, cannot defend themselves. She talked about unverified information that will continue to be available to 1,000 child care workers and the necessity for safety not only for children in care, for foster children, and she went on to talk about abuse and neglect and how children in care should have the same rights.

She is the first one who made the link between how we have a way to protect the information of youth in the offenders’ act. Basically, the offenders’ act is very clear that nobody gets access to your file unless the court says, “Yes, we will release the file of a young offender.” She wanted the same level of protection to be given to children in care, to be given and to be written into the Supporting Children’s Futures Act. We made those amendments, and they were voted down.

We had Meaghan Martin. Meaghan has been an advocate since 1985, and in 2004, she decided to share her story. She said that when she first requested a copy of her file from being a child in children’s aid, she got a five-page summary document. It took her many, many years to get all 1,500 pages of her document. She is the one who shared with us the story that she remembered very well, where the children’s aid worker was there and they offered her a lunch, and she said no to her lunch, and she was diagnosed by a social worker working for children’s aid as having an eating disorder because she did not want to have lunch that day, because she was not happy with the interaction she was having with her children’s aid worker. That happened in 1989, at a meeting with the CAS. When she came out of care, went through all of the processes to gain access—and to try to make any changes was impossible.

Meaghan and others made the link that files are kept in the health care system all the time. Errors are made by health care workers. They work really hard to not make them. But we’re human beings; we make errors, and files are corrected all the time. You put a line in the margin, write “error,” and then write down what should have been written.

There are solutions that exist, but we put them forward in amendments, and all of them were voted down. Those are people with lived experience. Those are lawyers who came to us and said, “We all want the same goal. We all want to improve things. You have a way to make it better. Here are the flaws in what you have written up. Here’s how we can tighten this up to achieve the goal that you say you want to achieve.” But the government would not look at it.

She also gave examples of the difference between the children’s advocate and the Ombudsman. This government got rid of the children’s advocate. The children’s advocate had powers to start investigations on his own. There are not too many two-year-olds who pick up the phone and phone the Ombudsman. When there was a children’s advocate, the children’s advocate did not have to wait for a complaint to start an investigation. But the Ombudsman has to wait for a complaint to do the investigation. Once a complaint has been made, the Ombudsman has many, many tools at their disposal to do a good job, but he or she does not have the power that the children’s advocate used to have.

That was brought forward by Carly Kalish, the executive director of Victim Services Toronto. She’s also a trauma therapist, and she specializes in human trafficking. She talked a lot about the number of children in foster care who end up being trafficked. She talked about some of the changes in the regulations for oversight of foster parents that would need to be reinforced in order to make sure that we achieve the goal that we all want. But none of the recommendations that she made that we put into our amendments were taken into account by the government.

Carina Chan also came and did a deputation. Carina is from the Office of the Children’s Lawyer. She handles, mainly, post-separation disputes, foster parents, adoptive—lived experience etc. She talked a lot about the stigma—the shift in mindset that would have been good to have in the preamble of this law to help out. It’s not there.

Ann Fitzpatrick also came. Ann is a retired social worker. She has a master’s degree in social work. She works in community development to try to strengthen families, and she was very knowledgeable—lots of emotions, listening to her. What she had to say about the bill was that it had a nice title, but lots of things needed to change if we were to achieve the end goal that we wanted, if we were to achieve the privacy that we needed for an Ontario-wide system that would help.

She talked about accountability, the rules that need to be followed by foster homes, by group homes and how to monitor the outcome of the care. Many, many people focused on, “We are not monitoring the outcome of the care, and this should be done.” This should be done by gathering data, by doing analysis of this data—not only the data from the people in care, but also data from the people after they age out of care. Again, we put amendments to the bill to try to get those things done, to no avail. They were all voted down.

I could go on, but I see that the time is sort of running, isn’t it? So I’ll go on to some of the recommendations that were done.

If you look at the preamble of the bill, I would say that everybody who talked to that part of the bill, including the Ombudsman, said—and I’m quoting from the Ombudsman right now—“Affirm the Legislative Assembly’s recognition of the contribution of the cultural heritage of the French-speaking population and its wish to preserve it for future generations.” This should have been in the preamble of the bill. I mean, when people talked, everybody said that they want francophone children to be placed in francophone families and in francophone group homes, but it’s not enough to wish for it. It has to be put in legislation. The Ombudsman took the time to tell us it needs to go in, but it didn’t make it.

The Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada also shared, “Ensure the creation of a website or other mechanism for digital communication with and regarding the Ombudsman, including instantaneous digital chat and access to a trained worker. Make it youth-friendly and accessible in a format you can access and so they can understand what their legal options are. Work with you to develop something collaboratively.”

Again, it would have been good to have this kind of language in the preamble to let them know that it is very good—that we want children to know that if things derail, the Ombudsman is on their side. The Ombudsman will be there to try to provide investigation and try to help whatever complaints they have. But if we really want the Ombudsman to be helpful to as many children as possible, it’s time to talk about digital chat. It’s time to talk about making it friendly to youth and to make sure that the youth will have a say into what is about to be done.

I will quote from the Ombudsman again: “Provide that all children’s aid societies must inform a youth who is turned down for a” voluntary youth services agreement “about the existence and role of the ... Ombudsman” by adding section 77(8), “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 a language suitable to their understanding, of the existence and role of the Ombudsman of Ontario and of how the Ombudsman of Ontario may be contacted.” To make it mandatory every time a child is turned down by the voluntary youth services agreement to let them know that the Ombudsman is there would make a huge difference. It was voted down.

Another recommendations from the Ombudsman: “Provide that all children’s aid societies must inform a youth who requests, is offered, or enters an agreement under section 124,” the Ready, Set, Go agreements, “information about the Ombudsman by adding” into section 124(2) of the bill:

“Where a person requests, is offered, or enters into an agreement under subsection (1), or the society terminates the agreement, the person shall be informed by the society of the existence and role of the Ombudsman ... and how the Ombudsman of Ontario may be contacted.”

That is work that children’s aid does that often leads to conflict between the child and the children’s aid: The child is turned down for something that they want; a Ready, Set, Go agreement is put aside, or whatever. This is the time when the child should know that the Ombudsman is on their side and is there to help them.

It would have been really easy to put it into the bill. The Ombudsman had already said, “Here’s where you put it into the bill. Here’s the language that needs to be changed.” And the Conservative members on the committee voted it down.

There are a number of changes that were requested by the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Again, I will read into the record what they’ve asked: “Ensure the exceptions to the publication ban adequately balance the privacy interests of all affected individuals and are clearly set out in legislation rather than regulation.”

When an independent officer of the Legislature takes time to write things down, to say he or she has read the bill, that there is a way to achieve what we want to achieve—this is what we want to do, we all agree on what we want to do—but the bill needs to be written in a certain way, we should take this good advice into account. But the Conservative members on the committee voted it down.

There is only one minute left. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about the Association of Native Child and Family Services Agencies of Ontario. They had a number of recommendations that they wanted to do to the bill in order to clarify how the fine collection was going to be done, clarify how the penalties were going to be done. They also wanted to “implement data collection tools that respect Indigenous data sovereignty, as Indigenous children and youth are overrepresented in care and most data will represent them. Use the Indigenous data governance principles of ownership, control, access and possession.”

We want reconciliation, Speaker. We all know that First Nations children are way overrepresented in the children’s aid societies. This has to change. How do you change this? Well, one way is to listen to the Association of Native Child and Family Services Agencies. They are on the front lines. They wrote things down for us to make amendments so that we would respect them, and the Conservative members voted them down.

Merci pour la question. Lorsque l’ombudsman nous a fait les recommandations, c’est vraiment—il y a des situations précises qui arrivent, entre le système d’aide à l’enfance et les enfants, qui sont souvent conflictuelles. Donc, ce que l’ombudsman voulait, c’est que chaque fois que ces situations-là vont se produire—et ça fait partie de la loi qui gouverne—ils devront dire à l’enfant à ce moment-là qu’il a le droit de contacter l’ombudsman.

De leur dire en général qu’ils ont le droit, c’est très bien, et on appuie ça. Mais de leur dire spécifiquement dans des moments où on sait que l’enfant est en conflit avec l’aide à l’enfance, c’était quelque chose que l’ombudsman encourageait. Il a même écrit les changements qu’il voulait voir dans la loi. Je crois que cela aurait été un changement qui nous aurait amené encore plus près de notre but à atteindre.

The Association of Native Child and Family Services Agencies of Ontario wrote specific changes that they would have liked to see in specific parts of the bill to make sure that truth and reconciliation, to make sure that the respect of First Nations is there.

There is nothing in the bill that goes against First Nations, but there is nothing in the bill that recognizes that they are overrepresented, that more needs to be done to support those kids and that we now, in Ontario, have the knowledge, have the skills, to be able to do this. They shared that with us, and we ignored them.

Donc, il y a des sections où on dit : « Dans cette section-là, tu dois dire aux enfants que l’ombudsman est disponible » et on le fait quatre fois dans le projet de loi. L’ombudsman voulait qu’on le rajoute à deux autres endroits—c’était la section 77 et la section 124.

It’s now time for questions.

I want to thank my colleague the member for Nickel Belt for her remarks. I think her summary of what happened in committee was very useful, to hear the kind of input that people brought to the public consultation process. It was also interesting and very disappointing to hear about the number of amendments that were proposed and yet were rejected by this government.

So I wanted to ask the member for Nickel Belt if she could highlight maybe one or two amendments that were rejected that she feels would have had the greatest impact on helping protect kids in this province.

La députée a parlé au sujet de l’ombudsman. Il est écrit dans l’acte sur l’ombudsman : « La société d’aide à l’enfance ou le titulaire de permis d’un foyer, selon le cas, informe l’enfant recevant des soins, dans un langage adapté à son niveau de compréhension, de l’existence de l’ombudsman, des fonctions ... attribuent à celui-ci et de la façon de le contacter. »

À mon avis, ça, c’est bien suffisant pour protéger l’intérêt des enfants, et j’invite la députée à discuter de cette section.

Donc, il me semble que ce fait est déjà mentionné cinq fois dans la loi : quatre fois dans la loi devant nous aujourd’hui et une cinquième fois dans la Loi sur l’ombudsman. Il me semble que ça, c’est suffisant, cinq fois de mentionner la même chose pour la même protection. Donc, j’invite encore la députée d’en discuter.

I want to thank the member from Nickel Belt for her passionate speech this afternoon. We’re very fortunate to have her as the critic for health care. She’s a passionate defender of our public health care system.

Today, you were talking about the children in care and the need for better protection and supports for children in care. At the end of your speech, you were talking about suggestions that were made to the committee about improving the supports for Indigenous children in care, and I’d just like to give you the opportunity to expand upon that.