One of the most rewarding and fruitful parts of the job of MPP is to connect the issues that you encounter or work on in your constituency office with legislative work at Queen’s Park.

I want to thank the member for Hastings–Lennox and Addington for bringing forward Bill 99, and I’m pleased to speak in support of it. This legislation comes out of the events in Napanee, only a 30-minute drive west of my home in Kingston.

Garrett’s Legacy Act is named after Garrett Mills, a young boy who tragically lost his life in 2021 after being pinned and hit by a movable soccer goal. Garrett was doing a chin-up, something so many kids do on the crossbars of soccer nets. I’ve done that myself. But what happened next is something that doesn’t normally happen: The net fell, hitting Garrett on the head. This could have happened to anyone playing soccer. This tragedy has highlighted a safety concern—the potential dangers associated with unsecured or unstable soccer goals. Bill 99 is a direct response to this tragedy. The core objective of Bill 99 is to prevent similar accidents from ever happening again. It establishes clear safety standards for organizations and entities that make movable soccer goals available for public use.

Imagine a soccer player, brimming with enthusiasm, practising on the field. We want them to focus on the game, on developing their skills and, most importantly, on having fun. Bill 99 creates a safer environment for these experiences. Having features like weighted bases, anchoring systems and double post construction for movable goals will reduce the risk of an accident or injury. It should be a given that our kids are playing recreational sports with equipment that is safe.

The act doesn’t just set standards; it also establishes a framework for accountability. The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport has the authority to conduct inspections and ensure compliance. Additionally, there are mechanisms for reporting instances of non-compliance. This creates a system that prioritizes safety and holds organizations responsible for upholding the standards. Working together, we can ensure everyone understands the importance of safety and implements best practices.

Bill 99 is a tribute to Garrett’s memory and a future where our children can just enjoy soccer. Let’s work together to create a safer environment on the soccer field. Our kids have enough challenges as it is. Choosing to protect and invest in our kids is always a good choice.

Thank you, Speaker. Certainly it’s a privilege to rise today in support of Bill 188. Even though I’m not present on the committee, certainly in reading the transcripts I certainly got the sense that there are heartbreaking stories from all across Ontario. I know many are in my own community. My constituency office certainly receives a number of them.

I’ve taken the opportunity to sit down with Derrick Drouillard, who’s the executive director of our local children’s aid society in Windsor-Essex county, and he has given me a lot to think about, a lot of feedback, particularly about the limitations that exist in the system. That’s exactly why we need to pursue a redesign of the system.

Some of the issues that have been brought to my attention locally have been a number of gaps in terms of service delivery. Organizations are doing their utmost to do what they do best, and sometimes that means that their mandates change, but, ultimately, gaps then get bigger and bigger and bigger as mandates are refined. We know we have to keep the child at the centre of everything we do. That includes safety, stability and access to the resources that can help them succeed and to thrive. Sometimes that means caring and love that they hadn’t received from others, it could be skills development, but, ultimately, we want to have a system in which a young person in Ontario knows they can achieve anything that they put their mind to. If they have a dream, they should be able to realize it.

We have so much potential in our young people, and it’s heartbreaking to see when there’s trouble at home. Actually my wife and I spoke last night—and I remember a child who was in my scout group; they actually ran into each other out in the community. She had gotten something to eat with some friends of mine, and this former youth had covered her bill. I don’t think he had ever met my wife, but he knew who she was. That’s a great youth, and it’s a youth who came from a place that I knew was difficult. His mom worked really hard to keep him on the right track, and ultimately, he developed into a remarkable young man.

This is exactly the kind of potential that exists in our youth and why the government introduced the Supporting Children’s Futures Act, which includes new and enhanced enforcement tools for those who are being victimized and those who need some support in order to get them to a place where they can look back at themselves and see the potential inside them.

I know that the changes are intended to support compliance by the different practitioners with requirements designed to protect the safety and security of children and youth in out-of-home care. In many cases, being at home is the best medicine, but there are cases when it is not. It’s not just among children and youth; I think of the victims of intimate partner violence, as an example. They should not be left with a spot where their only option is to go back to a horrible situation.

The changes in this bill also aim to protect the privacy of children. We do not want a child’s future to really be ruined or harmed by casual or careless distribution of their personal information. We want to know that their information is not going to be accessible to just about anybody. One of the great things about the information age is we can actually find out a great deal of information. Someone actually is watching us right now, and they may be screen-capping it and archiving it, and that’s a great thing to shed some light. But sometimes, there’s a need for protection.

We all have made decisions I think we’d like to change, and we also sometimes have stories that we really don’t want to have told. In cases like these involving children and youth, especially in care, it’s not their fault, but they feel it’s their fault that they’re in that situation. This can be incredibly demoralizing to them.

The measures in the bill look like—it actually opens up an opportunity to share an experience. There’s nothing better for a youth than to open up and not feel a stigma if they do and say, “You know what? It’s important that I tell my story.” Certainly, the committee heard instances in the past where youth felt that they had to keep everything quiet, even though probably the best remedy would have been daylight. So these changes as a whole are intended to better protect and support children, youth and their families and set them up for success.

Protection services are mandated and legislated under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017. They’re provided by children’s aid societies all across Ontario. I’ve got to tip my hat to everyone who’s working in this sector. I can’t even imagine how difficult it is to be knowledgeable of a situation in which you know you may not have a caring family or a family that cannot provide for the members of the family. Perhaps it’s deliberate; perhaps it’s not. But ultimately, you must get a sense of hopelessness for certain situations that you run across.

I tip my hat to the many boards of directors of children’s aid societies across the province. There are 50, and there are also 13 Indigenous children’s aid societies. I would like to give a special shout-out, should he be watching, to Adam Coates, who’s one of my former colleagues who sits on the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society board. He’s a professional planner. I worked with him at the city of Windsor. The fact that he is committing his time to helping support youth in our community is truly, truly commendable.

Looking at the investments in children’s aid societies—$1.5 billion this year—it’s really a steady increase. I know we can have an amount that increases and may not see the immediate results, but the investment is worth it. And the increased investment in child protection is $14 million, approximately, and that builds on last year’s increase of $76.3 million. And there’s $109 million for children and youth services, which had been increased the year prior by $92.4 million.

And so, we have a number of practitioners in this sector. We’ve got out-of-home care for those children who are not staying at home. That includes accommodation. It could include supervision and a specialized program for special needs. I know that we have a shortage of practitioners. Parents are certainly telling me that.

We have an interesting situation down in our neck of the woods, because we have Michigan and Detroit metro just 15 minutes away. Because of that international border, even though there are practitioners able to practise, that international border is precluding us. That’s maybe one of the things I’d like to work on on a broader scale for us in border communities: that we have some access that could be out there, just in Michigan; that, perhaps, our families could have those services covered as if they were delivered by Canadian practitioners.

Care is also provided in foster homes, children’s residences and staff model homes. Previous remarks have also mentioned kin families, and certainly I’m aware of many in our community. I appreciate the government’s tremendous investment in kin families. It didn’t exist before. There are still some challenges with the set-up there, and while there are solutions, they may not always be considered to be in the best interest of the child.

Looking at Bill 188, it was developed through widespread consultation. There was lots of testimony at committee. There were 35 written submissions, 30 virtual engagements, and really, the feedback was, I’d say, positive. I see that I just have a minute and 30 left to relay a few, but just in general: “Bill 188 is a fantastic piece of legislation” was one of the items heard. “As a former youth in care, I cannot overstate” the importance of this bill.

There was comment about progress in the past, such as Ready, Set, Go; that the enhancements are key; that inspectors have increased and penalties have increased. One of the children who had been in care said one of the sections was “groundbreaking” and that the status quo had been a “stigma that young people in care are problem kids,” and this helps to address that and give hope and optimism for the future. And really, that optimism that you can be something better, something that you can dream about, is the best opportunity that we can give to our young people in Ontario.

So Bill 188 is a tremendously progressive bill that helps us get there and helps our young people who are being served by care agencies to realize the potential in themselves. It’s important they see that value. Bill 188 gets us to where they can feel that inside them. I’m delighted to support it, and I want to thank the minister for bringing it forward and the Legislature for getting this through to third reading today.