I’m happy to rise today and join my colleague the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services to speak on behalf of Bill 188, Supporting Children’s Futures Act, 2024.

I would like to greatly thank the minister for his passion, dedication and hard work—as well as the dedicated work of my fellow parliamentary assistant, the member from Thornhill, and my colleague the member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

Madam Speaker, this bill is about children and youth in the great province of Ontario. Under the leadership of the Premier, our government is ensuring no children will slip through the cracks in the system. We are here today because our government will never leave anyone behind. And it is especially important that no child or youth is left behind, and that they have every chance to thrive and succeed regardless of their circumstances.

Our government wants the best for every child and young person approaching adulthood. And we are working together to deliver better outcomes for young people, their families and their caregivers who are receiving support from the child and youth services sector.

This bill is an important element of the government’s ongoing redesign of the child welfare system.

I would like to speak to the connection with the proposed work and the child welfare redesign for a moment. It is key to understanding the context in which Bill 188’s reforms are being proposed.

Every child and youth deserves a safe, loving and stable home regardless of their circumstances. That is why members of the House will know that in July 2020, the ministry announced the Child Welfare Redesign Strategy, because our government wants youth in care to feel supported and to be set up for success in their life. Through that comprehensive redesign, our government is introducing new initiatives to improve the quality of care in out-of-home care.

To echo the minister, we commend the many services providers who are devoting their lives to support vulnerable children and youth. However, sometimes there are gaps, and our proposed changes seek to close these gaps. Some of these changes have included:

—developing a new framework for what out-of-home care looks like;

—increasing and enhancing oversight and accountability for out-of-home care services; and

—supporting that oversight by adding 20 new positions across the province to support the management, inspection and oversight of out-of-home care for children and youth.

—launching the Ready, Set, Go program, which provides youth in the care of children’s aid societies with the life skills they need starting at 13 and financial support when they leave care up to the age of 23 so that they can focus on post-secondary, including the skilled trades, or pursuing employment.

Every child and youth deserves a fair starting position in life, and our government is delivering that. We hit the ground running by:

—consulting widely in the community and with service providers to better serve children and youth;

—increasing the number of responsive inspections;

—bolstering customary care arrangements to focus on family-based options, like kinship and foster care, to ensure children, youth and families have a strong voice in decisions about their care;

—improving the quality of the child welfare data to establish a baseline of common measures across children’s aid societies that can be reported publicly, as well as developing an outcomes-based performance measurement framework;

—releasing the children and young persons’ rights resource to help children and youth understand their rights and use their voices; and

—connecting youth leaving care with more supports to succeed.

Speaker, we have backed this important work with significant investments of over $1.5 billion in the child welfare system to support Ontario’s 50 independent children’s aid societies and 13 Indigenous children’s aid societies. This is a historic amount.

Here are some of the initiatives we support:

We have invested $800,000 annually in funding to support One Vision One Voice, a community-led project focusing on anti-Black racism that supports the delivery of culturally appropriate services and addresses systemic racism.

We have also invested an additional $1.5 million annually in the Education Liaison Program to help children and youth in care across the province get the support they need to focus on their studies.

We have invested more than $2.9 million to help support kinship service and customary caregivers, adoptive parents and caregivers who have obtained legal custody of a child who was in extended society care. This is new funding that never existed under the previous government. This is in addition to the $3.5 million in existing funding that ensures children’s aid societies can improve educational outcomes for youth in care.

We also announced over $5 million in annualized funding to enhance access to prevention-focused customary care for Indigenous children and youth. This investment will help more children and youth to thrive, closer to their homes, families and communities.

Speaker, our government wants all children and youth to have the supports they need to be safe and to succeed and thrive. Transforming child and family services is a significant undertaking and takes time. We are committed to doing the work that is needed to promote safety and stability, and to ensure that children, youth and families have access to the supports they need to succeed and thrive in their communities.

Many of the reforms proposed in this bill are designed to better support youth and provide skills and knowledge that will help youth transition to adulthood. The changes also build on the Ready, Set, Go Program we launched on April 1, 2023. This program represents another significant step coming out of the Child Welfare Redesign Strategy.

The Ready, Set, Go program connects youth in the child welfare system with additional services and supports earlier to better prepare them for life after leaving care. This includes life skills development like financial management, incentives for participation in post-secondary education, and support with pathways to employment. This program has a three-year, $170-million funding commitment from the ministry. In addition, this year, the Ready, Set, Go program is expected to support more than 4,000 youth as they prepare for adulthood.

The ministry has been hosting regular engagement sessions to gather feedback from key stakeholders and working collaboratively across ministries to implement the Ready, Set, Go Program, in an effort to ensure youth have the information they need to build a bright future after leaving care. As members of this House know, soliciting regular consultation and feedback is essential for a government that works with so many key partners in the child and youth services sector. So I just want to recognize the time and effort that goes into this cycle of consultation and feedback on the part of our community partners and service providers. It is very much appreciated by our government. We are grateful to work with passionate and committed partners on initiatives that will ultimately benefit people all across Ontario who are looking to us for support.

Speaker, we have recently achieved further progress in reforming the child welfare system, which provides an important foundation for the new proposals that the minister outlined. On July 1, 2023, our government implemented key components of a comprehensive quality standards framework into regulations to help licensees, placing agencies and other service providers improve the quality of care in licensed, out-of-home care settings. The framework is based on feedback from a panel of 12 youth with lived experience in out-of-home care. And these youth told the ministry very clearly what quality of care means to them. The framework provides guidance on how to better meet the needs of children and youth in licensed out-of-home care and to support them to thrive and achieve better outcomes. The framework also encourages care that is safe, strength-based, trauma-informed and culturally relevant.

The ministry will continue to work with service providers on the implementation of these important changes. In cases where it is necessary, our goal is to improve the quality of care and better hold licensees and placing agencies—including children’s aid societies—accountable for the quality of care they provide to children and youth.

I would also like to discuss the important work the ministry is undertaking in partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people to help reduce the over-representation of Indigenous children in care. Working with representatives of First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous peoples, we are committed to finding and furthering approaches that meet the specific needs of their communities.

We have heard for many years that the approach to supporting Indigenous children and families needed to evolve to reflect the central role that First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous communities have in the well-being of their children and families. That is why supporting access to services that integrate Indigenous cultures, heritages and traditions is a key part of our work to achieve better opportunities and outcomes for families.

To support these goals, in March 2022, the Legislature passed amendments to the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, that will, once in force: increase access to customary care, which helps Indigenous children and youth to remain connected to their culture and traditions; establish circles of supportive persons; improve access to updated complementary services; and strengthen the role of prevention-focused Indigenous service providers. We completed engagements on the draft regulatory proposals for the prevention-focused regulations in early 2024. And we continue to engage with Indigenous partners to further this process—this includes representatives of First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous peoples and Indigenous service providers, the Association of Native Child and Family Services Agencies of Ontario, as well as the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies.

Speaker, another part of this work involves important discussions and negotiations with Indigenous partners pursuing models of child welfare under Indigenous laws. For example, in March 2022, Wabaseemoong Independent Nations, Ontario and Canada signed a trilateral coordination agreement in respect of child and family services. This was the first coordination agreement signed in the province and the second in Canada since the federal legislation—An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families—came into force in 2020. This coordination agreement supports the implementation of the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations’ Customary Care Code, which acquired the force of federal law in January 2021.

On March 31, 2023, a coordination agreement between Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug—or KI for short—Ontario and Canada was executed to support the implementation of KI’s child and family services law, which came into force the following day. This is the second such agreement in Ontario and the first in Treaty 9 territory.

And just last Friday, April 19, the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation made history by becoming the third Indigenous governing body in Ontario, and 11th in Canada, to have its own child and family services law take effect with the force of federal law, in accordance with An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families.

Speaker, these changes will bring us closer to achieving our government’s vision of an Ontario where all children, youth and families—including those getting support through Ontario’s children and youth services sector—have access to the resources and services they need to succeed and thrive.

I would like to turn things over to my colleague the member for Thornhill.

Thank you to the member from Kitchener for sharing your experience as a social worker. It is commendable, and thank you for that.

Madam Speaker, this bill proposes a modern and flexible suite of tools that will empower ministry inspectors to improve compliance rates among the licensed providers of out-of-home care to children and youth. In my remarks, I mentioned that we are supporting that oversight by adding 20 new positions across the province.

My question to the member: Does the member opposite support stronger oversight and accountability for those providing care for Ontario’s most vulnerable young people?