My question is for the Premier. A bill that would ban federal employers from using replacement workers or scabs during walkouts or strikes passed the House of Commons unanimously on Monday.

MPs from all parties voted in favour of the legislation, seeing it pass 316 to 0. United Steel Workers District 6 represents over 78,000 active members and 50,000 retirees across Ontario and Atlantic Canada. They’re here today calling for action.

Premier, the Ontario NDP has brought forward anti-scab legislation 17 times, and every time, your government has said no. Will you follow your federal cousins’ lead and pass this important legislation here in Ontario?

Interjections.

In Sudbury, steelworkers have been on strike at SNOLAB since May 8. Some of these workers haven’t had a raise in years. I’ve talked to these workers several times. They love their jobs, but they can’t make ends meet. They want a contract with a cost-of-living increase, and they want paid family responsibility leave, which is similar to management.

The employer keeps saying that there’s no money for this, but they always have money to pay for scab workers across the line. They always have money to pay for security to bring them across the line. And I was just told this morning that they’ve hired summer students to do this work.

We need anti-scab to protect the summer student workers. We need anti-scab to protect these workers and have shorter conflicts. My question is: Will the Premier support and commit to restoring anti-scab legislation in Ontario?

Interjections.

This Premier is focused on ensuring workers in this province are protected, and at every opportunity, I would say, as I’ve said in this place before, 98% of deals in Ontario—98 plus per cent—are done at the table under collective bargaining.

This Premier has made historic investments into workers through the Skills Development Fund, reduced barriers for marginalized, racialized workers, and got more women into the trades. The consistent thing—more than 18 times—is that the party opposite has voted against every one of those measures. It’s really regrettable because it’s ensuring men and women are collecting better jobs and bigger paycheques. They’re working on the front lines to support the automotive investments, the historic public transit investments.

We’ll keep working with labour unions across Ontario, and I welcome their ideas any day of the week.

No, they have a children’s aid worker with them. But there’s no continuity. Children’s aid workers are turning over; people are changing shifts. We already know the young people with autism are struggling and at high risk, and we’re putting them in CAS offices.

“Workers in nine agencies said that children in unlicensed homes do not receive the mental health treatment and other support they need to thrive.” So they’re in an unlicensed home. We have no real regulation over what’s happening to them, because they’re a for-profit typically, and they’re not receiving the mental health treatment or other supports they need to thrive. This is how we treat our most vulnerable children. These are the children who the government is responsible for. They are their parents. I cannot stress that enough.

“Some examples from the last 12 months:

“—20 children as young as five years old in Brant, Norfolk and Haldimand counties;

“—more than 10 children in Windsor;

“—five children and youth in Frontenac-Lennox;

“—five children and youth in Nipissing-North Bay have been placed in unlicensed homes.”

Their solution was, “Pass legislation that prohibits the use of unlicensed placements for children.” We tried; they said no.

“Consult with service providers and workers during funding model redesign to account for cost of upstream interventions.” That piece is critical moving forward—absolutely critical, to change the funding formula and the way that children’s aid societies are funded, because they can’t continue to live in deficits and to have bailouts. They have capital costs; they have maintenance costs. They have to be able to retain staff. They have to be able to build community around kids so that we have foster parents.

“Expedite the licensing process for foster homes and new treatment facilities.” Actual, real licences—expedite them. Make sure that they have that process in place and that there is oversight and regulation.

“End the privatization of care providers”—absolutely so critical.

I want to talk about some of the comments that we’ve heard in regard to kids in care. This came from an article that I read into the Hansard in second reading, but it’s important that we continue to talk about this and that we continue to push the government to stop the for-profit model.

Connor Homes: I don’t know if they’re millionaires or billionaires, but they have so much money, they call kids cash cows. They call them paycheques. Imagine, “paycheques”—they’re children who have been taken away from their homes, who are living lives of trauma already. Cash cows and paycheques—that’s why we need to take it out of there.

There were stories that, for Christmas, kids would get a little bit of clothing for Christmas and no other gifts. The lack of real food in the home, the nutritional value just was not there, because the unlicensed are unregulated. You’re giving them to the wolves and expecting these poor, young, defenceless children to survive. We’ve seen the human trafficking of these children, abuse—I’ll say it again—death. If they make it through, sometimes they’re just taking their own lives and dying by suicide because they can’t take it.

This is the scenario that you refused to address under this. You’ve had recommendations from all of these folks for quite some time that could have been addressed in this bill, that we haven’t addressed in years, and you refused to do it. You did some minor changes, great that they are, but they do not change the safety of kids in care. They do not change the safety. They protect the person as an adult when it comes to privacy—perfect, as they should. But jeez, I’d hate to read some of those files of kids who have been living in these unlicensed care providers and what was said about them.

One of the other things that was asked for was by a former youth in care who came to depute in front of us. She said that when she was 15 or 16—I can’t remember; it was right around that age. She was at the society. She was in a meeting. They offered her lunch. She said, “I was in a bad mood, and I wasn’t happy, so I refused lunch.” In her report that she read all those years later, it said that she had an eating disorder. She had an eating disorder because she refused lunch that day. She says, “I remember the day exactly.” She says, “I was in a bad mood. I was mad at them. I wasn’t going to eat their lunch, and I didn’t want it.” So all of a sudden, they write in her file—that’s in her file for the rest of her life—that she has an eating disorder.

And it took her months and months and months and months and months to be able to get her own file. That was one of the amendments also, that youth, after they’ve left care, should have the right to their files. When they get their files, if they ever get them, it’s highly redacted. There’s much information that they would claim is false and not true. They were asking, first, to be able to get their file, that it not be redacted and that they have the ability to edit their file. Now, we know that if changes come into the medical sector, all of the information is still there—it’s crossed out, but you can still see it—and the new information is added. That’s what we were asking for. The government said no—no. It’s this person’s life, she lived it, and anybody can write anything they want and nobody is able to change that or to fix it or maybe even see it? How does that seem possibly right or fair in any manner? It doesn’t.

So, once again, youth in care or youth from care, young people who have lived in care, are punished. They’re punished for not doing anything wrong. They’re punished for getting stuck in a situation that they didn’t ask for. That’s not okay—not okay at all.

Part of the bill that I was happy to see was that there would be a child-centred focus and that there would be whistle-blower protection. Both of those things I had private member’s for in this chamber and so I was happy to see some of it enrolled in here. I think that whistle-blower protection is very important for people in the workforce who are working there and are afraid of losing their jobs if they see things that aren’t right, and so I was very happy to see that.

The other piece that I think—I guess I would say it goes under the lack of funding and the lack of homes that are available—would encounter the story of Mia. Mia is 16 years old—was 16 years old. She was struggling at home; home life was not good. She had asked to be in care. It’s got to be bad for a kid to ask to be in care. She wanted to be in care. She wanted to have a safe home. She wanted to go to school.

The children’s aid denied her. They denied her because they probably didn’t have funding and they had nowhere to put her. So they dropped her off at a shelter, at a youth shelter, and kind of said, “Here you go. This is where you’re going to fend for yourself.” And a couple of months later, Mia died. It was a kid who was asking for the help from her government which she should be entitled to. Now, Mia’s no longer with us because she was failed. She was failed by the system that has a duty to protect her.

When we ask for changes within the child welfare sector, we’re asking for a reason. We’ve asked for changes because something has gone wrong. We shouldn’t have to just always react to everything. There should be proactive measures in place to re-look at things, to re-evaluate, and then to instantly change it, to get it in, to get it done and move forward so that nothing like that happens again.

But that doesn’t happen here. We see it time and time again, where people are left to fend for themselves. And we can’t expect kids to fend for themselves when they’re kids. We don’t expect it from our own kids. We’re at home taking care of our kids. We cook them dinners and make sure their clothes are washed and that they’re keeping their rooms clean. But we don’t see any of that when it comes to our most vulnerable children and youth, and that is the responsibility of the government, to make sure that kids in care have what they need.

The government will say that they put $170 million in, I believe, but that’s for a new program. That’s for the Ready, Set, Go Program. That’s to start kids at the age of 13 to be able to ready themselves to get out into the world, because once they become 18, unless they’re in school, they’re out. They don’t have a parent to fall back on, to help them—to help them learn how to drive a car or just give them that parental advice that we give all of our kids to the best of our ability. They have no one to ask.

The Ready, Set, Go Program is a really important program. I think it’s great that it’s in place, but that can’t be the only measure. We can’t underfund all the rest of the sector of the children’s aid societies just because we’re educating kids to be adults. It’s a great step forward, but while they’re there, we still need to make sure that they have safe housing that’s protecting them and that they’re not being called cash cows, because that is probably one of the most horrifying things that I have ever heard. And it is a reality. That is what happens in a for-profit system, because people are more concerned about the dollars that they’re making instead of the kids that they’re actually supposed to be representing and protecting.

I heard another story not that long ago from someone who works in a group home. They had a young Indigenous girl in the group home. She was just starting to function. She had made a friend. For the first time, she had someone who she was bonding with, and they were thriving. The home received a call that said, “Tell so-and-so to pack her bags. We’re on our way.” They showed up, and she literally had to pack what she had and was taken out of there and sent to a shelter because they didn’t have any more funding to be able to keep her in that home any longer—this, again, is a for-profit system.

If we’re basing how we treat our kids in care by how much money the children’s aid societies have, and we’re leaving them in deficits—you can see where I’m going, right? I mean, it takes money to be able to run these systems and to protect kids. It can’t be the ministry that constantly gets cut. It just—you can’t do it. You have to fund the children’s aid societies appropriately.

The OACAS says:

“Addressing the legislative gaps, such as:

“—urgent basis placements of 16- and 17-year-olds who do not have the capacity. The CYFSA does not provide a mechanism to commence a protection application on an urgent basis for youth over the age of 16.

“—emergency medical decisions for children and youth that are brought into care during the initial five-day period prior to the removal hearing.”

So this addresses the fact, again, of making sure that there’s proactive work done.

The medical decisions: We’ve heard of complex care kids, critical care kids, critical medical health care kids that are removed from families and put into care. This is another story that I heard directly from a family: Mom is at home. She’s trying to care for her kid. The child has very high needs, needs nurses around the clock to come into the house. They’re struggling to get these nurses into the homes at the cost of now what it costs to get a nurse into a home because they’re coming from temp agencies. So the cost for those nurses has ballooned, but the complex care money has not, so mom keeps running out of money. So she’s struggling. She’s trying to get help. She’s trying to make sure that she has enough money to keep these nurses into the home and keep her kid breathing.

They took her kid from her because she wasn’t able to provide that care, and it went on for quite some time. I actually haven’t had an update from that family in a while, but they literally took the kid because mom wasn’t able to afford that complex care and those nurses that had ballooned out of control under this government. The kid was taken into care—but then it just became the cost of the children’s aid, to be able to manage those costs, which was a problem and which they had a very difficult time doing. So that’s just a prime example of not providing supports at home.

The Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada said to increase investments in mental health supports for children and youth in care, and implement a comprehensive mental health strategy to help improve health outcomes after care for those who have left care.

Investing in a person’s mental health is a great investment to ensure that they have the ability for better outcomes. So I think that we should be doing that. But we know that mental health care waits in this province are two-plus years, for people to be able to access that care. So that doesn’t really work, nor does it help support the family or the kid.

The Child Development Institute said to consider creating a regulatory college for child and youth care workers, as this would enhance oversight and training. We put an amendment forward for this, and the government turned it down. I think that it’s an important piece—to be able to have a mechanism in place, as a college; to be able to have that complaint process; to be able to have the oversight; to be able to have the regulatory body to oversee social workers for youth in care. The government turned it down.

A young woman with lived experience said to consider measures to ensure family cohesion, especially among siblings in care, who can be unique sources of support for each other; and implement a comprehensive mental health strategy to help improve health outcomes after care for those who have left care. That’s the same as what the Child Development Institute had asked for.

We heard about mental health quite often from the hearings, and yet it all fell on deaf ears with the government.

Making sure that siblings have the ability to see each other, to spend time together, to keep that family network together, to keep that family support structure together is so important. There’s nothing more important than siblings, as they’re growing up, especially if siblings are struggling in a family that is not doing well.

Victim Services Toronto said to consider measures to address human trafficking of children and youth in care—none of that was addressed in Bill 188, which was definitely a missed opportunity; consider measures to ensure family cohesion—like I said, this other person also said that; and regularly engage with children and youth in care to give them a voice as to their needs and experiences and ensure a child-centred system.

There’s nothing more important than a child-centred system—not members who refuse to listen because they think they know everything best, but really having the ability to make changes when changes are necessary, and to listen to proactive measures that our community with lived experience brings forward.

It’s mind-blowing that they refused to listen to the Ombudsman’s request, the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s request, the OACAS request. All of these people who the minister said they worked with throughout the bill—and maybe they did; I can’t dispute that. I have no proof, nor would I, so I’m not going to say that they didn’t talk to them; they probably did. But after talking to them, they never heard from them again, and then the bill’s in front of them, and they’ve seen pieces that should have been there and they were rejected.

So if you’re actually saying that you want to work with communities and you care about the voices of these people who brought their experience forward, why would you shoot down every amendment that they asked for?

Quite frankly, the government should have brought forward their own amendments with the voice of the Ombudsman and the information privacy—the government is asking the Ombudsman to increase their abilities and their roles and yet refuses to give them the tools to do so. It doesn’t make sense. It is not in the best interests of the child, by no means.

It’s very minimal, the cost that would have been associated to that. Every kid who comes into care meets with a worker right away, so that was one of the asks: at that initial meeting, to make sure that child knows who the Ombudsman is, information about the Ombudsman—and written in children’s language, not written as something that we see in legislation. How do we talk to kids in their age appropriateness? That would have been important. Speaking to them in the language that makes sense to them—that would be important. Giving them the tools to say, “You can text the Ombudsman at this number. You can text a complaint or you can text a concern to this number,” because young people are digital. We live in a digital era. This is how our young people connect.

But instead of taking the Ombudsman on his word of what he needed to be able to do his job, they turned it down. That was probably one of the most mind-blowing ones to me. Do I expect them to turn down the not-for-profit? Absolutely. I expect that all day long from the Conservatives. They believe in a for-profit system. They believe in our health care being privatized. We’re seeing it across the board. So I expect them to turn down amendments like stopping the profit, like stopping them from calling kids “cash cows.” But I expect it. I expect it.

But something like that? The government should have had their own amendment to the bill. You don’t always get it right the first time, and you’ve had plenty of legislation throughout this House, time and time and time again, to prove that you certainly don’t often get it right the first time.

The members, we know that when they go into committee, they already have their marching orders. They know exactly what they’re going to do. It’s all laid out in a plan in front of them. I asked for a five-minute recess so that they could go and confer with the staff to see if they could accept this amendment. And they said no to the five-minute recess, probably because it was almost lunchtime or something and they were in a rush. I don’t know. It really was that time of the session—