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.

It’s my pleasure to rise today to speak about and discuss a matter of great importance, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act, 2024. This act is crucial to the commitment that demonstrates our unwavering dedication to the well-being and future of the children across this province. The act stands for a fundamental belief that every child deserves a fair chance at life, no matter their background. We must come together to provide them with the support and protection they need to thrive. Every child deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential, and it’s up to us to ensure that they do. Let’s work together to create a brighter future for our children and ourselves.

The Supporting Children’s Futures Act, 2024, holds the power to shape the lives of countless children and young people in our province, and the legislation is a sincere commitment to protecting the well-being and future of some of our most vulnerable citizens: our children and our youth. In a world where the innocence of childhood is often overshadowed by the harsh realities of life, it’s our duty to ensure that every child, regardless of their circumstance, has access to care, protection and the opportunities they deserve. This bill, if passed, will be a beacon of hope, bringing improved safety and quality to our children and youth services.

Our government has worked diligently to create this bill, consulting far and wide across the child welfare sector. Ministry staff held over 30 virtual engagements with various stakeholder groups, including youth with lived experience. These extensive consultations have ensured that this bill addresses the real and pressing needs of children and youth in Ontario’s care.

At its core, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act is about protecting children and youth in Ontario’s care today, through new measures for safety, service, oversight, accountability and privacy. It’s also about providing better opportunities for these children and youth to thrive as adults tomorrow.

If passed, this bill will protect children and youth in care and provide them with a better future by strengthening oversight and enforcement tools for out-of-home care, protecting the privacy of youth formerly in care and updating the Child, Youth and Family Services Act with lessons learned since it became law. The changes proposed in this bill will improve safety and independence for children and youth in care and moving on from care. In the short term, this will mean safer and more consistent services for those who need to live away from home. In the long term, it will prepare these children and youth for adulthood and set them up for success. They deserve a chance to grow up safe and happy.

Speaker, to ensure applicants are fit to provide quality care, this bill proposes a more thorough application process and new powers to refuse a licence on several grounds, most importantly the public interest. To ensure all children and youth in care receive safe, high-quality services, this bill proposes to increase accountability for operators. This includes requiring inspectors to take certain actions when they find non-compliance and a better range of penalties, including compliance orders, administrative monetary penalties and enhanced charges with larger fines.

All members of this House know of shocking instances where some providers have failed to provide the high-quality care that we expect them to deliver, and our government has been clear: There is no room in our province for providers who don’t operate in compliance with the law.

This bill proposes new high-impact enforcement tools to root out non-compliance, such as:

—an order for funding to be returned where a licensee has failed to use funds in accordance with the terms-of-service agreement for a child;

—an order for new management for an out-of-home care setting;

—restraining orders to restrain individuals who pose an imminent threat to the health, safety or welfare of any child or young person; and

—compliance orders to instruct the licensee to achieve compliance; for example, arranging staff training within a specific time frame if reoccurring non-compliances are identified.

These are critical changes that will reshape the way the rules and regulations are implemented and monitored throughout the program. We’re creating new provincial offences for violations of a youth’s rights against corporal punishment, physical and mechanical restraints, and detention—all positive changes, making it better and easier for youth to thrive.

We’re enhancing the penalties for provincial offences under the act: up to $250,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both; and for corporations, fines of up to $250,000 and new administrative monetary penalties of up to $100,000. This is how seriously we’re taking this.

Bill 188 also proposes new processes for inspectors, requiring documentation of findings and, in the inspection report, the ability to conduct investigations with a warrant when an offence is suspected. Changes to the appeal process for licensing decisions, conditions, suspensions and revocations are also proposed, ensuring the appeals do not automatically result in a stay.

The appeal process to require more information from the applicant or licensee, improving the rules for evidence before the tribunal, and clarifying the tribunal’s orders following an appeal: These crucial new tools will hold service providers to the standard of care that youth deserve and our government expects. These new enhanced penalties will give ministry inspectors a more responsive and useful range of tools to use when they find a service provider that isn’t consistently complying with requirements.

We understand that the safety and well-being of our most vulnerable youth are our top priorities. The Supporting Children’s Futures Act is a comprehensive and necessary step forward in protecting and empowering the children and youth in Ontario’s care. Let’s work together to provide better care and a better future for all Ontario kids, because when we take care of them, we’re taking care of the heart of our community, Speaker.

You can see in the great work done by the ministry and done by the great minister that put forward this bill the amazing effort that they put in to capture all of those details that were given to them in consultation throughout their various ministry consultations and throughout the consultations that took place in committee as well. It shows the government’s dedication and understanding of what needs to be changed. I’m so proud that it’s this government that has taken action, after years and years and years, that’s finally delivering for these children and youth to ensure that they’re in a safe environment, they’re encouraged to grow, they’re encouraged to succeed. That’s the Ontario that we all grew up in and we all want to see, where that Ontario dream, where that Canadian dream is instilled in every single youth and child, where they’re able to dream to become anybody they want to be.

Speaker, we hear these amazing stories across the province of people who grew up in very, very harsh poverty situations, and today have some of the biggest corporations or run some of the biggest non-profit organizations. Those are the types of inspiring stories that we look up to as children, as we continue on in our daily lives. I remember even when I was a kid visiting, with a grade 8 or grade 7 class, Queen’s Park way back when. And I got to sit in the public gallery up there and watch members debate. It really generates a form of vision and encouragement for children that this too can one day be achieved by anybody who puts their heart on their sleeve and works hard for the people. Not only does that apply for parliamentarians, but that applies for anybody working in the private sector. Inspiration for youth is so important, because when we follow our dreams and work hard at it, we’re able to achieve them.

This bill helps support children and helps ensure that they are able to succeed in Ontario and grow in Ontario. As we continue to approve services—I know the minister has been working very hard to continue to improve services and ensure that children and youth are being supported across the province—we’re looking at new examples and new conversation pieces of where children felt that they were left behind and they needed more support. That’s what our government is doing: bringing in those changes to help support them, help grow their futures and ensure that we live in a society where each and every child in this province can grow up to live their absolute full potential.

I’m so proud to be a part of a government that takes this so seriously and is moving forward on these swift changes, and not only when it comes to the Ministry of Children, Social and Community Services. I believe all my colleagues that are ministers, parliamentary assistants and MPPs are doing amazing jobs in their portfolios to ensure that we have a better future for Ontario, a future where we all thrive and that Ontario dream continues to live on where we can all have a home, where we can all afford to raise a family and have a good life.

Well, I want to thank the member opposite for the question. As he indicated, while we’re here today debating Bill 188, we’re also talking about a whole-of-government approach to making sure that all our children, regardless of their backgrounds, have equal opportunity moving forward.

Just on an interesting and related point, I was at the Ontario Association of Counselling and Attendance Services recently. They were holding their AGM in Collingwood. We were working with that sector and counsellors to make sure that children in school have the best opportunity moving forward, through access to counselling and attendance officers, to address the kids at risk, to come up with a plan to keep them in school. To the extent that children in care fall under those headings, I would hope they would have the opportunity to have those same services.

This is a government that’s invested record amounts since we’ve come into office, a 555% increase in mental health supports in our school system. This is a government that is working across the board to make sure that all children, including the children in our child care and welfare system, have the best opportunity moving forward to get the training skills they need moving forward.

I want to say thank you to the member from Brampton East for sharing with us how his grade 8 experience has stimulated him. It is with this vision that he’s now our MPP, doing all the work together with us. This is the importance of us doing the best for our children. Of course, the health, safety and well-being of children is paramount to us.

I would like to know what oversight mechanisms are currently in place for the ministry to hold licensed out-of-home care providers accountable. How does this bill enhance those mechanisms?

Many instances—there have been reports of children being badly treated where I come from, when they come down for service. By “badly treated,” I mean use of restraints; forbidding languages; in one case, being asked to be rescued.

It’s racist and deeply unethical for our children’s lives to be considered in terms of money and profits. I’m not surprised, but I am saddened that I have to say this here: No one should profit off our First Nations children. How does this legislation, Bill 188, stop that?

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.

This question is for the member for Brampton. Thank you for his presentation. We’ve heard that this bill won’t be the last step in improving the lives of children and youth in care. I understand that at the time this bill was introduced, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services filed several additional regulations.

To the member: Can you expand on what these regulations do and how they complement Bill 188’s goals?

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?

When it comes to our children, our government launched our plan to redesign child welfare in 2020 and has taken action through many initiatives since then, from hiring more inspectors and increasing the number of inspections; to creating a new quality standards framework so there is a common benchmark across the province; to launching Ready, Set, Go, which ensured for the first time Ontario had a plan to support children and youth in care as they near adulthood and set them up for success. These measures made a real difference.

At this time, I’d like to ask the member from Windsor–Tecumseh if he can explain to us how Bill 188 complements and builds on the work done by the child welfare redesign.

I want to thank the member for that great question. Our government will do whatever it takes to protect children and youth in this province. Not only that, we are creating 20 new inspection positions. As well, we’re going to be boosting the unannounced inspections to increase transparency through the system.

I want to thank the member. We’re going to continue to protect our children, because children are very important to all of us in here, especially myself. I have two young boys, and I know how important it is to protect our children through the province of Ontario.