I beg to inform the House that today the Clerk received the report on intended appointments dated May 30, 2024, of the Standing Committee on Government Agencies. Pursuant to standing order 110(f)(9), the report is deemed to be adopted by the House.

Report deemed adopted.

Ms. Karpoche moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 204, An Act to establish the Homelessness Task Force / Projet de loi 204, Loi visant à créer un groupe de travail de lutte contre l’itinérance.

First reading agreed to.

With thousands of people on the front lawn of the Legislature asking for an end to cuts in health care, I’m pleased to present this petition with hundreds of signatures from the good people of Port Colborne, asking that the after-hours services at their urgent care in Port Colborne be restored so that folks who don’t have a family doctor in Port Colborne can have a place to go when they are ill.

I affix my signature and send it to the Clerk.

I affix my signature.

I just want to join my colleagues earlier who welcomed the guests who are on the front lawn: 6,000 advocates for public health care.

I know my friend here from St. Catharines has been an advocate for it, as have many people in this House, but in the community, what I’m being told is that the direct cost of unplanned pregnancy between people aged 15 to 29 is $381 million and that what we need to do as a province and as a country is give people more control over their reproductive health and that universal access to contraception is a key way to do it.

I note that the federal government has made some inroads thanks to the federal NDP and the hard work of Jagmeet Singh and that team to move in this direction, but I encourage the House to listen to the people who have signed this petition, particularly the Canadian Federation of Medical Students, who are doctors in training, asking us to move on universal contraception for everyone in the province of Ontario right away.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 29, 2024, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 188, An Act to amend the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 and various other Acts / Projet de loi 188, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2017 sur les services à l’enfance, à la jeunesse et à la famille et diverses autres lois.

Meegwetch, Speaker. It’s always an honour to be able to speak on behalf of the people of Kiiwetinoong.

As you know, Kiiwetinoong is a very unique riding—294,000 square kilometres. We are so rich when we talk about land and resources.

I rise today to speak on Bill 188, Supporting Children’s Futures, again, on behalf of the people of Kiiwetinoong.

Last time I spoke about this bill, I spoke about the colonial history, and the care system reminds us of what it is like, in Kiiwetinoong.

I’ll talk about in my remarks—we still see examples of these practices that are implemented and imposed upon our children in the care system. And I talk about that because—particularly when they are forced to relocate from the north, far northern Ontario, to southern Ontario for care.

When I look at this bill, Bill 188, even with its supportable steps moving in a better direction, I know we can do so much more. We can always do more. Why take half-measures on this bill? As the province and as the government, it’s your responsibility to fix problems left unaddressed.

I want to be able to highlight some of those issues. I want to be able to highlight some of those problems that come with the bill and the many, many recommendations, most of which are not new, to help resolve these issues.

A few years ago—it was the summer of 2019—there was a cabinet shuffle that happened, and Minister Todd Smith looked at that file. One of the things that he had done was to show up in Thunder Bay, at the door, and introduce himself as the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. He bumped into one of the directors of social services who looks after that children’s file, and they sat down for about half an hour or 45 minutes. That director of social services at Nishnawbe Aski Nation was able to tell Minister Smith at that time what he could do. There was a jurisdiction issue between two First Nation agencies, where they were fighting over the resources, fighting over the children, because when you have children in care, it means money.

And I know that, I think about two weeks after, Minister Smith, at that time, in the summer of 2019, made a letter to ensure that children in northwestern Ontario, in the Tikinagan area—that the Tikinagan children’s services have jurisdiction over their children. I share that story because I remember listening to a chief saying, “There are five kids who are under the age of five. I don’t know where they are. They’re somewhere in the system. I don’t know where they are. They could be all over Ontario somewhere.” She had no idea where they were. That’s the welfare system that exists for us today.

Going back, there was a letter that was provided by, at that time, Minister Smith under MCCSS. He made a decision to make sure that the people of northwestern Ontario, in that specific area, had the jurisdiction over their children and there was no more fighting over the children. Of course, the other agency was not happy, because of where they were located. That’s how you make change, and I encourage the current Minister of Children, Community and Social Services to meet with Nishnawbe Aski Nation to ensure he learns what the issues are that they are facing in the north.

Speaker, I know that in the north, First Nations are experiencing tragic death after tragic death. I say that because I’m thinking of Amy Owen, who died by suicide while she was in government care. She was 13 years old. And she was from Poplar Hill First Nation, which is part of my riding.

I am thinking of Kanina Sue Turtle, also from Poplar Hill First Nation, who filmed herself as she ended her life, getting care in Sioux Lookout, where I live. She was grieving the death of her friend, Alayna Moose, who had taken her life two weeks earlier.

I am thinking of so many others, so many other children from our communities, from our First Nations, who died in state care—but not all died by suicide.

What I’m talking about here tells us so much, Speaker, but to start taking away our children and pulling them into these places is hurting our kids. It’s hurting our families. It’s hurting our communities. They are not getting the care that they need.

I want everyone in this House to be aware of the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in the care system, which should also be top of mind when we discuss issues related to care. In their inquiry in 2016, out of the 27 agencies looked at by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Indigenous children were overrepresented in 25—for example, in 93% of the agencies. They are also admitted into care at a rate 2.6 times higher than their proportion of the child population. But these numbers are very low estimates, because the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s sample was comprised of only mainstream or non-Indigenous children’s aid societies.

Speaker, we need to put an end to these policies that take our children away from our communities and put them into settings where these assimilationist practices are imposed on them. First Nations’ right to self-determination and jurisdiction over how our children are raised needs to be respected and supported by this government.

Just about a year ago, Ombudsman Paul Dubé published a report titled Missing in Inaction: Misty’s Story, which was an investigation into the adequacy of measures related to ensuring the safety of an anonymous child referred to as “Misty,” an Indigenous child living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, who by 15 years of age had interacted with the child welfare system a number of times and had already experienced tremendous amounts of trauma.

Speaker, she was sent to southern Ontario by the children’s aid societies in northern Ontario because of their difficulty finding the appropriate resources closer to home. She was only in care in southern Ontario for 47 days, but these 47 were the focus of the Ombudsman’s investigation, because “over the course of the 47 days Misty spent in the care of Johnson Children’s Services in southwestern Ontario, she went missing seven times, including one period of 19 days. There is evidence that during these absences, she was physically and sexually assaulted, suffered injuries requiring medical treatment, used methamphetamines, fentanyl, cannabis, cocaine and Xanax—and overdosed.”

The investigation into this inadequacy of the three organizations’ fulfillment of their responsibilities towards Misty was very revealing. It showed us that the system failed Misty in many ways, in more ways than one, and left her vulnerable to harms, including human trafficking.

It also highlighted the need for agencies in southern Ontario to be educated in the learnings provided by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which should inform how they understand and make decisions regarding the risks surrounding Indigenous children in care: “It is particularly pressing that agencies in southern Ontario such as Johnson Children’s Services Inc. educate themselves and their staff on the learnings from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. They should also consider the risk factors unique to Indigenous children and their decision-making around their care.”

Speaker, I could go on, but due to the limitations of time, I just want to emphasize how important it is that all legislation and policy change takes into account the recommendations in the Ombudsman’s report but also the calls to action, and the justice, from the TRC, the very first of which is “to commit to reducing the number of Aboriginal children in care.”

In the MMIWG inquiry, it emphasizes the need for Indigenous communities to have their inherent jurisdiction and self-determination respected when it comes to child welfare and service design/delivery.

Among their critical recommendations are to prohibit the apprehension of children on the basis of poverty and cultural bias; fully investigate deaths of Indigenous youth in care; and establish a child and youth advocate in each jurisdiction with a specialized unit with the mandate of Indigenous children and youth within a period of one year of this report.

So you might ask, where is the children and youth advocate in Ontario today? I remember back in 2019, this government closed down the Child and Youth Advocate office, and the Ombudsman has not been given power equivalent to those that the Child and Youth Advocate once had.

The story of what happened to Mindy, as well, is from 2020, but the grim details of how First Nations children are treated in the care system keep emerging. This is only four years ago, but since 2022, we have seen investigations from APTN and Global News that shared about the terrible abuses First Nations children have faced in for-profit, privately run care homes.

For some of these group homes, First Nations kids from northern Ontario are seen as necessary for the profit model where they have been called cash cows and the bread and butter, and First Nations in the north paid so much more to place children in these homes—cash cows.

I don’t have enough time, but I want to conclude my remarks by talking about the life and the tragic death of Devon Freeman, whose story should remind us all of the impact that the implementation of our legislation has. We know that Devon Freeman should be an adult today, a man somewhere around the age of 22 or 23. He should still be here, a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation. He should still be able to ride his bike. But that concludes my time for now. Meegwetch.

Meegwetch. I think one of the things—back in March or May of last year, which was 2023, I was able to travel up to KI for the signing of bringing power and authority to the First Nations in the care of their children. I think that was the first week of the current Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Minister Parsa—that was his first trip up north. It’s always important to learn of who you serve and learn of our ways of life and who we are in the north. I think I would encourage the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services that they meet with Nishnawbe Aski Nation to see how the shared priorities are working. Meegwetch.

Thank you to my colleague opposite from Kiiwetinoong. Member, thank you for your presentation. I have a lot of respect for you. Thank you for bringing your own story and for sharing with us. Thank you for your perspective to this House.

Madam Speaker, we understand the harsh reality that many young people face within the foster care and child welfare system. Our bill, Bill 188, will bring more accountability in the foster care system through the hiring of more inspectors, allowing for random inspections—it’s never happened before—giving the ministry more weight to enforce the laws that protect the rights of children in out-of-home care.

My question to the member opposite: Does he agree that there should be a stronger role in place to punish bad actors in the foster care system? That’s including in the Indigenous foster care system. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Further debate?

That’s a good question from the member. I think the children who come into care pay the full price when the system is not working. They pay the full price of their life when the system is not working. We cannot continue to have organizations that are for-profit, continue to use our children as cash cows. I think it’s important that the child welfare system that’s there—we need to make it better.

I know, again, that’s the way colonialism works. That’s the way oppression works. What you describe in that story is exactly how it harms people. We need to do better. There’s always room for improvement. Meegwetch.

There are far too many children whom the government has failed, too many children who have had to have principles named after them. It is our duty in this House to end this cycle and pattern of institutionalized mistreatment against Indigenous children and youth.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Since taking office, my hair is getting grayer, and I continue to live in Simcoe.

I want to thank the member opposite for his comments today. The Indigenous communities are separate and apart in some ways with respect to the children’s aid societies. I know the member opposite knows that Indigenous children’s aid societies make their own placement decisions without the province interfering. That’s the law; it’s not an option.

I’m wondering if the member opposite could comment on his opinion of the children’s aid societies in his communities and their effectiveness in making sure that children are placed in culturally appropriate settings.

Thank you to the member from Kiiwetinoong. I live in Thunder Bay, so I have seen and heard about many, many deaths of young people, of an adult who had a trailer hitch thrown at her and children who died in the river in Thunder Bay. There has been no justice for those people, as there was no justice for Barbara Kentner.

But what I want to focus on is Ian. He was one year old. He was in care. He was the child of somebody I knew through family. He died in care, and he had a major bruise on his head at the time. The family never got any resolution as to what actually happened to him. They always thought that something wasn’t right.

So my question to you is, do you feel confident that when things happen when children are in care, that it will be taken seriously, that their families will achieve some kind of justice? We want to prevent it before it happens, but if it does, will there be justice?

I’m happy to share a few words about the bill. I was part of the committee that debated amendments, and it was a good process to hear from people with lived experience about how they felt about the bill and different partners in the community.

I do have to commend the government; we did get a lot of really good feedback, especially from young people who have lived experience. They were grateful that their information will be sealed off when they leave care, that they don’t have to worry about people going back into the system, accessing their information. They were grateful to hear about holding bad actors accountable. And they were grateful that we’ll be making a better effort to ensure that young people know how to reach out and have a voice and share when things are not going well.

I also want to commend the government because I know they have made investments in the Ready, Set, Go Program and have made investments in mental health services and homelessness services.

I’m here to share a bit more about the concerns I have about the sector and what I think we could do to improve the bill.

When I went back to the CAS in my community, they shared really dire concerns about their level of funding. They say they’re at a 10-year low in funding, and we know the sector has shared the number $63 million that they need just to stabilize. When we say stabilize, it means not living in overdraft. I think everybody here knows what it feels like to live in overdraft—or maybe you don’t, and that’s a privilege. If you’ve lived in overdraft, you know how that feels. It’s sickening, it’s stressful and I can’t imagine being an executive director of a children’s aid society looking at the reality they face, of living in overdraft.

We know now that our systemic gaps that we face in mental health, in housing and other issues—autism funding, developmental services etc. are impacting children’s aids societies. Families are not able to provide shelter for their families. They are not able to feed their families at a growing rate. So 20% of people referred to children’s aid society were done so because of inadequate housing. We know there’s 20% to 30% that need complex mental health care that’s being cut.

I’ve had three expert mental health professionals that I know personally—one agency was shut down, another program was shut down and another service that provides attachment trauma in a culturally relevant way was shut down. We are providing more access to those who need eight to 15 sessions, but these kids aren’t that, and we can prevent them going into care by properly funding complex mental health care and developmental services.

We need to reflect on the privatization of the child welfare system. I know that the societies that I talked to said that the rates that they’re being charged have gone up, but the funding they receive to pay those for-profit agencies has not gone up. We know that kin care, for example, only gets one tenth—one tenth—the amount of money. So we will pay someone in the private sector 10 times the amount we will pay their family member, who could be living in poverty, to care for an additional child. They’re doing it because they care, but they face real financial strains as a result. We need to stop that. We need to start looking at the funding model and looking at a funding model that looks at prevention, because the government should not be parenting children at the rate that it’s parenting children.

We know, just in my riding, oneROOF—I spoke to them last week; they had a meeting on Monday. They are questioning closing because of budget shortfalls. This is a youth shelter that is an essential service in my riding, serving young people ages 16 to 24, and we know that 60% of the kids in care are teenagers. So we need to look better at the services that we offer teenagers and the services we offer those on the autism wait-list, for example.

We also need to do better for racialized communities. In Toronto, for example, there’s an 8.5% Black-identifying population, but 40% of the kids in care identify as Black—that’s a huge gap—for Indigenous children: 3.4% of the population, but 25.5% of kids in care; Latinx and Asian individuals and families are much more likely to be referred for investigations. We need to look at systemic racism that increases the likelihood of people going into care.

We have to worry about these unintended consequences because if we add this red tape without commensurate funding, it equals a funding cut. And that’s what the CAS in my riding said. They said, “If you give us more administrative work and not the funding to do it, it equals less time with families, not more.”

And as a social worker, I know what it’s like to have growing caseloads. Growing caseloads is a serious reality that children’s aid societies are facing. If you have a growing caseload and a growing number of times you have to see those people, it becomes a tick box—you’re doing it to be sure that you did it—but the depth and the quality of that service is severely lacking—

Further questions?

I listened to the members really speaking very clearly about how we can make better strides to increase autonomy of our Indigenous communities. Wabaseemoong, Pikwakanagan, KI: It was our government that was working with these communities to make sure that we are giving them the opportunity to have more care and the right to have more care over their children, which is so important—because you know it’s a system that has been rooted in colonization and has impacted so many Indigenous families. That’s a lot of pain and hurt to fix.

So I’m asking the member, based on the direction you see our government going, can you see the good faith that our government is putting into making changes that will be impactful? This is the beginning in a series of changes that we want to make.

I want thank my friend from Kiiwetinoong for his remarks. For those tuning in who don’t know what we’re debating, we’re debating Bill 188, the government’s latest effort around child protection law.

The member spoke about Amy Owen. This is a story from our community that broke hearts wide open when we learned of it, because it’s exactly as the member is describing: It is a child discarded to the for-profit foster care system, which disregarded her life. For the record, I want to read in something that Amy wrote on Facebook 11 months before she took her own life. She wrote, “I am just a kid and my life is a nightmare.”

I guess I would ask us, would we allow any child anywhere in the province of Ontario to be housed in a place that did them harm? And are we going to correct that harm—I’m asking the member: Are we going to correct that harm by continuing to fund for-profit operators who, as you say, often refer to the children in their system as “cash cows,” or do we need to move to a non-profit public system, with appropriate staff, that is well run?

I appreciate the member from Kitchener Centre’s speech and her service for her community. You talked about the underfunding of CAS and the programs that support kids to prevent them from being in care. Can you talk about some of the real-life examples of what that underfunding means?

I want to thank the member opposite for her comments and for her lived experience. I know she spoke of the child advocate office. From 2008 to 2019, the office of the child advocate wrote 79 different reports, totalling over 4,600 pages, and that’s just one source.

My question to the member opposite: Would you agree that for 15 years—and you cited this statistic, actually; the number of children that died while in care—that this is long overdue, that these changes are much needed and that this bill, as you indicated in your comments, is moving the needle forward in a very important way?

I will be sharing my time this afternoon with the hard-working MPP from Brampton East.

Madam Speaker, we’re here today on an extremely important topic. I’m a father of three children—well, they’re not children anymore. They’re 30, 28 and 26, which might explain the grey—although I think it was grey when they were five, three and two, as well.

Parenting is a difficult task, Madam Speaker, and ensuring that children that aren’t in the care of their families are in the care of a safe, secure and nurturing environment is essential to making sure that all children have an equal opportunity. We, on this side of the House, support the goals of Katelynn’s Principle, that every child needs to be seen, to be heard and to be respected. Children and youth need to be at the centre of the child welfare system while taking into account their voices around decisions that affect the services they will receive. And that’s enshrined in the preamble of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act and that is why this government is continuing to improve the legislation.

That is why, since 2020, our government has been redesigning Ontario’s child welfare system to enhance early intervention, improve outcomes for children and address barriers to supports. Our government has introduced the Supporting Children’s Futures Act, a bill that proposes changes, including new and enhanced enforcement tools, as well as accountability tools. These changes will support better compliance, with requirements designed to protect the safety and security of children and youth in out-of-home care, and these changes aim to better protect the privacy of children and youth with a history in the child welfare system that would further restrict access by others to their child welfare records while allowing them to disclose and discuss their experiences to enhance the system.

Madam Speaker, the measures proposed in the bill would also enable individuals who grew up in care to speak freely about their lived experience. The changes are one way that we are working to better protect and support children, youth and their families across Ontario to set them up for success.

Why are this legislation and these changes so necessary? From 2008 to 2019, the office of the child advocate wrote 79 reports that total over 4,600 pages, and that is just one source, Madam Speaker. That should have been a spur for the Liberal government of the day to act and it should have been a spur for the NDP to demand action from them. However, it wasn’t. Neither the Liberals nor the NDP pushed this issue forward nor redesigned the system as we are doing now, and so it falls upon this government to take action now to further the legislation that we passed back in 2020. I don’t think anyone on this side of the House, Madam Speaker, needs to take lessons from the opposition on care of our youth and vulnerable.

That is why we are strengthening oversight for out-of-care youth in our communities. All children and youth deserve care, to live safely and securely, and high-quality services that are culturally appropriate and meet their unique needs. That is why, as part of Ontario’s Child Welfare Redesign Strategy, this government is proposing changes to the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, that would allow for a modernized enforcement model. These changes would better support compliance with requirements to protect the safety and security of children and youth in licensed out-of-care homes.

We are proposing amendments to the regulations under the act to further support the safety and oversight of children and youth, including creating 20 new inspector positions. We have boosted the number of unannounced inspections. To increase transparency, we started publicly posting licensing information. We’re improving the quality of the child welfare data to establish a common standard for every children’s aid society across the province. And we’ve introduced this bill to continue that work with proposals that will enhance and improve accountability and oversight in out-of-home care. Through these measures, Ontario will modernize, standardize and improve important safeguards throughout the child welfare system. This will support service providers in delivering high-quality care to children and youth and support their health and safety and ability to reach their full potential.

Our government has worked to support customary and kinship care, which has allowed Ontario to have one of the lowest rates of children in care in Canada. The aim is, wherever possible, to keep children with people they know in communities that they know. We are supporting that through the child welfare redesign, which will improve experiences for children, youth and their families by, among other things, making a new investment of more than $2.9 million to help support kinship service and customary caregivers, adopted parents and caregivers.

We are enhancing child, youth and family well-being through better integration and coordination of services, with diverse cross-sector community-based service providers in all communities; improving the overall quality of out-of-home care, focusing on family-based options like kinship and foster care where possible; and helping to ensure children, youth and families have a strong voice in the decisions about their care, including access to resources and better supports to transition successfully to adulthood.

This work, which has been occurring for years since we’ve taken office, is yet another measure in tandem with this bill of how we are working to improve the well-being of Ontario’s youth and children in care.

We heard earlier from the member opposite about the situation in Indigenous communities. As I indicated in my question to that member, Indigenous children’s aid societies make their own placement decisions without the province interfering or intervening. The law requires children’s aid societies to place children in safe and culturally appropriate settings. If the child is First Nations, Inuit or Métis, the society must place the child with their extended family or community wherever possible. These are not options, Madam Speaker. These are the law.

This bill includes high-impact enforcement tools to ensure operators meet their obligations, including those to provide culturally appropriate care. So I urge the members opposite to support this legislation.

Strengthening the protection of personal information of former children and youth in care is a critical piece of the puzzle here. Prior to this legislation, not only were the records sealed, but the individuals who grew up in child care were unable to speak about their lived experience and talk about their lives through the system. So, while through this legislation we continue to protect the privacy of children and youth once they leave care, this bill will not restrict their ability to speak about their own experiences. The changes aim to better protect the privacy of the individuals who were formerly children or youth involved in care and to better protect the privacy of children and youth with a history in the child welfare system that would further restrict access by others to accessing their records. However, it will allow them to talk about their own lived experience and work towards improving the system. These changes are aimed to better protect the privacy of adults who are former children and youth in care by restricting access by others but allowing them to speak about their lives.

Madam Speaker, our government will always be there to protect the children. That’s what’s driving this legislation and our comprehensive redesign of the child welfare system. Through the redesign, we’re making new initiatives to improve out-of-home care, like improved oversight and accountability. And we’ve launched the Ready, Set, Go Program so that youth leaving care will be set up for success. We’ve backed that work up with investments. In this year’s budget alone, there’s an increase of $76.3 million for child protection services.

Madam Speaker, we know through discussions we’ve had in this House that this is an all-of-government situation. So these changes to the child welfare system, operating in tandem with changes and increases we’re making through the education system to access to mental health, to access to counselling, to restrictions on cellphone use, are all designed to place the interests of our children, whatever their backgrounds and beginnings, on an even playing field so that they get the best foot forward in their futures and that we equip them in the best way possible for their futures.

Parenting is a very difficult task, as I indicated at the outset. As a father of three, I know the challenges, and they are day to day, and they are not consistent, and they are always evolving. This government, on a whole-of-government approach, is doing everything we can to make sure children, regardless of their beginnings, are set up for the best opportunities, the best protections, the best access to care that they need to move themselves forward and be the workers of the future to shape this province and carry us forward.

I want to acknowledge that, in 2018, this government fired the Child and Youth Advocate. One of the people who came to committee with lived experience said she would not be where she was today if it was not for the Child and Youth Advocate, that he became a special member of her support system. And as a social worker, I did experience heartbreak and felt crushed at a government firing the lawyer for kids who have no legal guardian.

We know that the numbers speak to that. We know that, right now, the Ombudsman office only provides investigations for 1,491 cases, whereas with the Child and Youth Advocate, it was 2,790 cases. There were also half as many children dying in care when the Child and Youth Advocate was in office.

That is the request I have: that we reinstate that office. It was vital.

So, I agree; this is a step in the right direction. What I hope the government opposite will see is that we bring forward amendments of good intention from the Ombudsman, Information and Privacy Commissioner, and Indigenous leaders, and we ask for those amendments to be considered so we don’t have to have another conversation in five years. We can get it right.

Yes, we need this accountability, we need these measures, but they have ideas on how we can cut red tape to ensure that that administrative time is really used efficiently, effectively. There’s a lot of red tape we can cut to just shift the amount of time that they’re using on administrative tasks to what we’re asking for today, instead of adding to some levels of administration that we need to address.

I hope when the government comes forward again, they will consult with the CASs and talk about cutting the red tape that they want to cut and optimizing their time so they can be with families.

One agency in Ontario that treats people who sexually offend—these are young people. We know early intervention for those who sexually offend is essential. The place is closed. Shame. Offered their jobs down the street in a non-unionized environment for $10,000 less—now she will work in the for-profit sector. She will work for two days, get the same amount of pay that she was getting for five days. And why did she leave? Because we closed that organization.

I can’t believe it.

Thank you to the member from Kitchener Centre for her words based on her experience. I was interested in what you had to say about red tape and the administrative burden that’s placed on social service workers. I wonder if you’d like to expand on that, given your experience in social services.

Thank you to the member—very passionate.

Moving on, questions?

I guess I just offer the member an opportunity to finish her thought. She was in the middle of a thought.