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.

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

I want to thank the member for Windsor–Tecumseh for those remarks. I particularly enjoyed your comments when you were talking about the staff, and the burden on the staff when they are aware of an unsafe situation for a youth and how that must weigh on them. I completely agree. That has been my experience meeting with workers for the children’s aid society in Ottawa.

I wonder if the member could elaborate on what this House could do, empowering this legislation even more to be mindful of making sure we hold on to those talented children’s-aid-worker staff? The member for Kitchener Centre said it earlier in debate this afternoon, and she comes from this particular sector, so she should know that, at the moment, in some cases, for-profit group homes and for-profit foster homes are pulling some of the children’s aid workers, paid non-profit, publicly, out of that system, because it’s difficult to compete. It’s difficult to retain talented people.

Do you think it would make sense—my question to the member—for us to make sure that there was proper funding for children’s aid societies so they can maintain the staff, the competence they have and reward those hard-working people?