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.

Thank you to the member opposite for her submissions today on the bill. I heard a lot about what’s not in the bill. But there are great things in the bill, and I understand the member opposite is going to be voting for this bill.

I want to ask her if she thinks that the modern tool kit that we’re proposing for inspectors, with more measures on how to correct compliance issues, where there are issues, is good; that the administrative monetary penalties, for example, are good and are an addition to what we are offering in the redesign of the child welfare sector; and if she sees this bill, which I understand she’s going to support, as an improvement on the existing state of affairs, and whether or not—because it is an improvement—she thinks that we should all be joining in support and working together to improve it further.

Further questions?

It’s now time for further debate.

I would say yes to pretty much all that she has asked for. We voted in favour of all six parts of the bill, so the bill works in all six parts. The end goals of all six parts are all things that we support. Provide for restrictions to the use and disclosure of certain personal information in certain circumstances—yes, absolutely. The part about investigations—yes, absolutely. The part about children in care, with respect to the Ombudsman—we respect the end goal.

We just wished that we could work together, listening to the experts who came and talked to us, many of them lawyers, many of them giving us—“This is the language that needs to be changed.” The changes were often small changes, just to make sure that we achieved the end goals that we all wanted to achieve. There was no collaboration when that process was going on.

Further debate?

I want to thank Minister Dunlop—now the Minister of Colleges and Universities, but her work was setting the foundation for a lot of what we see in this bill when she was over at the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, because it takes time to evolve and to listen to the service providers and the communities, to get the right formula as we continue to protect more children in our province.

I want to thank the current minister, also, for MCCSS—if I can go forward and just use that acronym—for his dedication and hard work. I also want to thank the member from Sarnia–Lambton, my seatmate here, for bringing his private member’s bill in about modernizing privacy rights for former foster children over the years, which is now incorporated in this bill.

Madam Speaker, as you’ve heard from the previous speakers today, our government remains steadfast in our commitment to revitalizing the child welfare system. Regardless of the circumstances or background, every child and youth deserves a decent start in life and a stable, safe place to call home, and this is where Bill 188, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act, is the next step in reforming Ontario’s child welfare system.

There’s always continuous work to establish new initiatives that contribute to the overall quality of care in out-of-home settings such as foster care and group homes. I know I’ve spoken many times in the Legislature and worked with many MPPs from all parties on legislation and initiatives to combat human trafficking and exploitation across the province, through committees, hearing private members’ bills from all parties. We have heard the terrible stories of abuse and exploitation. We’ve heard from those who’ve survived their abuse in urban settings as well as in rural areas—and the fact that the abuse of children, and girls, especially, can happen anywhere, even the girl next door. The traumatic experience and exploitation leaves scars that prove to be barriers in their healing journey and ultimately reclaiming their lives. It’s an ongoing issue, and one that requires a multi-faceted approach to support victims, reprimand perpetrators—multi-ministries involved, and multi-community providers and police associations. Everyone is involved in improving child welfare.

Bill 188: I know that some committee delegations were brought forward, and one was from Carly Kalish from Victim Services Toronto, who’s a human trafficking specialist and trauma specialist. I’ve worked with Carly, as many members have in the House, over many years. She testified at committee, on Bill 188, about the troubling connection between human trafficking and the child welfare system. I’ve heard stories from experts in the field, and she has, too, about the pervasiveness of human trafficking amongst foster children and group homes. Some of these young children are exploited by the very people who care for them. The abuse of the power inflicts unspeakable harm on the victims. This bill aims to provide more safeguards for those in out-of-home care. That was brought up, and many of the terms—“more safety,” “securities,” “more inspections,” “more fines,” “more eyes,” “more training,” “more awareness of what’s going on.”

Many of us have group homes in our riding. You just have to paint the picture of young workers in the group homes who maybe have just graduated from college and they don’t really understand the comings and goings of the people they’re supervising, what the signals are that may tweak them to the fact they’re being abused by someone from the outside—the boyfriend who’s picking him or her up is not necessarily the boyfriend; they could be the trafficker. So that type of training has gone on, through many pieces of legislation or just organically in the community, from police officers, from survivors who have trained those front-line staff and those young workers who may be coming out of school and not really understanding the complexity of what to look for, for the signs of human trafficking.

I want to give a shout-out to Jennifer Wilson, who was the CAO of my Kawartha-Peterborough-Haliburton sector of CAS that covers, I think, three ridings that we have here in the Legislature. When we first started going around the province and bringing this to light, the CAS was saying, “Well, we have to do more.” She initiated the first memorandum of understanding with the CAS of Ontario. So I thank her for that work. I know she’s retired happily now, but she did great work. Another Jennifer has taken over her place: Jennifer McLauchlan, who does a great job with my local CAS.

These are tough stories, but our whole goal, and as pieces of legislation come forward—it is all about protecting youth in care. Be it human trafficking or other abuses that have occurred—they need the safe space. So we provided, in this legislation, a clear outline of children’s aid societies’ role in intervening in human trafficking and ever listening to more changes that may be needed.

I want to mention previous legislation that we’ve brought in to protect children, whether allowing protection workers and police to remove 16- and 17-year-old victims of child sex trafficking, to voluntarily access protective measures and supportive resources, which I think maybe happened in the time that the minister who just spoke was in that file; increasing penalties for those who interfere with or harbour children who are subject to an order of supervision or care by the children’s aid societies—so giving those organizations, like CAS, more tools, more strength, more training. They’ve all been given more capacity to intervene in the roles of human sex trafficking.

The child welfare design our government launched was mentioned also, the Ready, Set, Go Program, which I know was a big passion of the chief of staff now, Jane, which seeks to provide youth in the care of children’s aid societies with the life skills they need, starting at 13, and the financial support as they leave care, up to the age of 23.

The Minister of Colleges and Universities just mentioned her own children. We know what an 18-year-old is like from a very good home. Can you imagine one that’s been in foster care and troubled and what they’re like at 18 and the supports they still need? Our government did those measures to help support children into young adults and let them stay in those homes with CAS supports for a longer period of time and help them with post-secondary education—all the ministries working together to get more women in the trades, more women that have been in challenging circumstances, get them the skills they need so that they are going to pursue employment and be able to support their families.

This week, Madam Speaker, I’m going to be at the Women’s Resources centre in Lindsay, which, with different supports and community fundraisers, is opening second stage housing affordability, coming with supports for women that have had violent situations, but for them and their families to actually have this type of housing, so it’s like a step to a better life that they have. I’m very proud of the work that Women’s Resources in Lindsay does.

All of this is building around helping people that have come from circumstances that have been, for lack of a better word, very rough and very traumatic in some things. So I’m happy to see this legislation. I’m happy with the support it’s got. The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services—the long name—has listened to voices of young people as well as the organizations that go and help our communities.

I spoke of survivors of human trafficking, but a lot of children that were in the CAS system are now able to come out and speak about their life experiences and offer invaluable insights into the gaps in the programs. Bill 188, in its provisions, helps with child care services, educational opportunities, mental health supports, strengthening the measures of protection for children.

The bill does many more things, Madam Speaker, and I have very limited time to say much more. But through many speakers this afternoon, we’ve heard of the changes that have occurred in Bill 188 and the support that it has received from the privacy commissioner, lots of victims’ services and support workers. I commend the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, the previous ministers and the present one, for continuing important work on safeguarding our children and giving them the best opportunities they can.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak today.

I’d like to thank the government members for their presentations. My question will be for the Minister of Colleges and Universities. I think the numbers are pretty clear: that 1,000 Ontario teens age out of care per year, 400 drop out of high school and 400 qualify for post-secondary education; but only about 80 actually pursue post-secondary education of that 400, and of that 80, only eight graduate.

I wonder if the minister could talk about the important work of Jane Kovarikova, who was able to secure a free post-secondary education for I believe it was eight students at Laurentian, five students at Brescia University College, five students at Huron University College, five students at King’s University College and 15 students at Western University.

It’s now time for questions.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

Report continues in volume B.

I thank my colleague for her question. She has been a supporter at many committee meetings, and hosted us in the city of Ottawa many times as we have spoken to survivors of human sex trafficking, their providers of care; I know VoiceFound’s Cynthia Bland is a very strong proponent.

I am so proud of the work that this government has done, especially on Bill 188, in protecting more rights for children, giving them more opportunities and protecting them and educating the providers of what to look for.

Children in care are very susceptible and, when we first started this—I think over 10 years ago—on the raising awareness and fighting human trafficking, as I said, for my own CAS CAO, they were like, “We need to do more. We had no idea.” I remember her vividly telling me that she went to a hotel in Lindsay and rescued a 14-year-old, but the work was that the survivors came and they educated the police, they educated the CAS. They knew what to look for and they made the call, and—

My question is for the member for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock. She has been known in this assembly and throughout the province and the country as being a strong advocate for children, but particularly those who have been sex trafficked. She has been a leader.

I had the opportunity, when I was in this portfolio as the minister, to work with her in advancing that. One of the things that shocked me—and I think would shock most people here—is that a number of our youth that are in care tend to be susceptible, and many have been subjected to trafficking as a result of the lack of oversight. I’m wondering, given the work that she has done, is she pleased to see our government’s agenda move forward on supporting children in care, and if she’s ever seen anything quite like this bill to protect children in the province of Ontario.

I want to note that I’m really happy about the extension of the age—up to the age of 23—of support for children. I know people who aged out at 18, and it didn’t go well for them.

But my question is really about the child and youth advocate. There’s very much a difference between an Ombudsman and a child and youth advocate, because the child and youth advocate is proactive, whereas the Ombudsman is reactive. I wonder if you are supportive of bringing that role back.

Through you, Speaker, I truly appreciated listening to the members opposite—or the members with me—speak on what a progressive move this is.

I was interested in the member for Kawartha Lakes. She talked about being involved in this, hands-on, and there are so many improvements that are coming forward with this bill. One of the things that’s provided through this bill is protecting the children, but also enabling the new students, the ECEs, through the colleges and universities—actually, we could ask the Minister of Colleges and Universities this question, perhaps, because it’s better suited for her—but enabling that individual, that student to realize what they are supposed to do in those circumstances where they do see a child that’s in distress—

Thank you to the member for the question, and good job remembering all those numbers. That was an important initiative that Jane left, and I was proud to work with her at that time.

Looking back, that was one of the issues of concern when youth were aging out of care, the low graduation rates from high school, which then, obviously, led to lower rates of students entering post-secondary. That was a real key piece for us in that: How do we ensure success in high school? Because we know education leads to success down the line.

I was with a few of the schools when they made their announcements. I’m very proud of the work that Jane did, but also proud of the universities for stepping up and being part of that program, because it is so important, and recognizing that.

When I was hearing the questions here today, I was excited to hear the support from the NDP on this bill because I think we can all agree that this is an important issue that we are there to support children and ensure the best supports are available for success for those young people.