While Bill 188 introduces crucial compliance measures, can the government guarantee that it will be accompanied by increased resources for the children’s aid society and other child welfare agencies?

The reason I ask this is the service providers in Niagara and the children’s aid society do so much and have to do a lot of heavy lifting, but they are only as effective as we are able to provide them with the resources to do that hard work. Without proper funding from this government, how can we ensure these measures will be effectively implemented to protect our most vulnerable children?

I thank the member opposite for her question. Yes, children’s aid societies play a pivotal role in making sure that our children at risk have access to the supports they need. That’s why this government has increased investments into child welfare and protection. In this year’s budget, it contained a $76.3-million increase for child protection services. On top of that, the estimates tabled recently show an investment of almost $1.9 billion in child welfare and protection, an increase over last year.

We recognize the importance of stabilizing the child welfare sector as the redesign work continues. My colleague spoke about the ongoing efforts in the review process. The child welfare sector saw a huge increase last year. We continue to look at ways that we can reduce any deficits for the children’s aid societies, and we will continue to work with them to ensure that those children being serviced by them get the best service.

This bill proposes to enable information-sharing between the children’s aid societies and the College of Early Childhood Educators and the Ontario College of Teachers, which will allow for timely action when there is an allegation of a risk to a child involving a teacher or early childhood educator. Currently, Madam Speaker, that obligation to report only applies to the early childhood educators. This broadens the scope of those protections to allow other professionals who see a threat or risk to an individual in care to share that information to ensure that the child is being protected and served in the best way possible.

Thank you to my colleague the member from Markham–Unionville for that question. Our government has been clear that this bill is one step of many, neither the beginning nor the end of the child welfare redesign. That’s why in tandem with introducing this bill, we filed two regulations containing a number of new measures, including mandating information-sharing between children’s aid societies and the ministry about specific health and safety risks to children in licensed and out-of-home care settings. We’re requiring information-sharing between different children’s aid societies as needed and we’re going to continue to do the great work to ensure children are protected and children are safe.

As we continue to move forward, we want to make sure that children are protected, that they’re in a safe space, and we’re going to continue to do that. This bill really allows regulators to move that one step forward to ensure compliance is there.

Thank you to my colleagues from Mississauga–Lakeshore and Windsor–Tecumseh for their thoughtful comments and passion about this bill. Thank you for your support. Thank you for sharing your own story about the children’s aid society in Windsor and your good friend who is managing—he was a former staff, and we’re getting all the inside information. Thank you for sharing that.

Madam Speaker, this bill is about working to fill the cracks in the foster care system and protecting our vulnerable children in our wonderful province by hiring more inspectors, conducting random inspections that never happened before and creating more accountability for licensees. My colleagues, could you elaborate on this: How are we protecting and enhancing this premise to protect our children in our foster care system?