It’s a pleasure to speak to Bill 188, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act.

It’s always hard to follow my colleague from Ottawa Centre, and I’m sorry that I missed his debate yesterday.

I want to start with a little story. My dad worked with the Family Court in Ottawa in the 1960s, when I was growing up. He was what they called a probation officer. He was involved a lot with children in care and families struggling and children in trouble with the law. When I was about two years old, my mom and my dad decided that they would take up residence—that they would be the residential caregivers—in what was called the juvenile detention centre, which is now Eugene Forsey Park on Bronson Avenue. So I always like to say I was in the youth detention centre when I was two.

I remember the stories that my dad told me about the children in care and children who had run into trouble because they had no parent, they had no guardian. They were on their own, and they were at risk. When he talked about his career—he worked in criminal justice and parole—he spoke very fondly of the work that he did with families then and with children without parents, wards of the crown, and how important that work was. It was formative for me in understanding that there were children in the world who didn’t have parents like I did, didn’t have a family like I did. I was very lucky. In coming here, I keep that in my mind.

This bill is a good bill. I commend the minister for bringing it forward. Everything in here is supportable. I do want to raise a couple of things, though, that I think are important for us to remember.

First of all, my colleague from Ottawa Centre mentioned for-profit homes and for-profit agencies operating in this sphere.

We’ve had an experience with increasing regulations and laws and fines around long-term care—for-profit long-term care and not-for-profit. And we’ve seen what our experience is when we impose higher fines, when we impose stiffer penalties. They’re often not enforced. And that’s not just—I’m not saying about the other side; I’m saying about all of us, about governments of all stripes.

We put forward these things that are a signal of our intent as to how important the care of a child who is in care, or a mom and dad who are in care in a long-term-care home—we put these things forward, and they’re important; they’re an expression of how strongly we believe people need to be treated. The problem is on the enforcement end—and again, this is all of us, all governments. We don’t do the job. It doesn’t get done. I’m not saying they’re empty promises because it’s a desire that we have to do the right thing, but we don’t go far enough. And then the next problem with the enforcement is, we don’t put enough to prevent the things that we’re not enforcing; we don’t put enough resources towards it.

My colleague from Ottawa Centre, again, mentioned that social workers in the not-for-profit and public sector are not paid very well. This is really important work. These children in care are at great risk, and all of us here are responsible for them. We make the laws. We fund the services. We’re all responsible for them. So we all need to do a better job, and the government of the day, right now, has to say, “We put these things forward. We’re going to make sure that they work. We’re going to make sure that there’s enough there to stop the situations” like my colleague from Ottawa Centre mentioned that happened, that are so tragic. It’s really important that we do it.

The second thing I want to mention, because I think this is really important, is that in 2007, the province of Ontario established the office of the child advocate. When you hear “child advocate,” you think they are advocating for all children. Well, yes. But do you know who they were really there for? They were really there for children who didn’t have anyone else to speak for them; children who didn’t have anyone else. That’s what the office of the independent child advocate did. The government at the time thought it was wise to axe the child advocate.

Interjection.

Well, I’m sure. I guess you can probably give the Premier a call and ask him about that, because that’s what happened. They axed it.

Interjections.

I know it’s hard to hear, folks, but there’s a remedy. You can fix it. It’s not broken forever. Here’s the reality: We don’t like criticism. I don’t like the criticism I’m hearing right now. Nobody likes to be criticized. No one likes somebody shining a light on us coming up short. But do you want to know what, folks? All governments are going to come up short when it comes to this. We’ll never do enough, ever, ever, ever.

So we need people like an independent child advocate to speak up for children who don’t have a voice, and that’s their only job—not the rest of government. And kudos to the Ombudsman’s office for taking it on, but we need somebody whose job it is just to do that, nothing else. That’s why it was established. That’s why it was important. And that’s why it would be a really good thing, as my colleague from Ottawa Centre said, to re-establish an independent child advocate. I think we could all agree on it. Yes, we’re going to hear some things we don’t want to hear. We’re going to hear some things that will make us uncomfortable—not just the government, but all of us. We need that. We need that because those children don’t have a voice.

The measures in this bill to make sure that children have the language of their choice in terms of being communicated to—that’s great. That’s really important. But what about hearing their voice? How do we hear their voice? We only will be able to hear their voice if we actually are intentional about ensuring that they have one, and that they have an independent one, and it’s one that reports to all of us.

I think what happened with axing the Child Advocate was something that was done in haste. You got rid of the Environmental Commissioner and anyone else who, at the time, would say something that would tell the government what they didn’t really want to hear or anybody else to hear.

It’s healthy to have critics. It’s healthy to have people who shine a light on things. It only makes us better.

I am going to support this bill. We’re going to support it. It’s a good bill.

Two things that the government needs to remember: All these new penalties, all these new laws don’t mean anything if we don’t enforce it, if we don’t put money behind it, if we don’t put money behind preventing the things that are happening from happening, if we don’t pay social workers enough, if we don’t ensure that there’s enough support—I don’t want to use the word “supervision.” We don’t supervise our children growing up, as parents. I don’t know what the right word to use is. Here’s the reality: Children in care—we’re their parents. We’re responsible for them. So if we’re going to put this law forward, we better put something behind it, all of us.

Number two: Children in care across this province need an independent voice. They need an independent child advocate because they don’t have a voice. I shouldn’t say they don’t have a voice. They have a voice, but they’re not heard. They need somebody whose only job is to say, “Here’s what’s happening over here. Here’s what’s happening to kids who are in our care. And here’s what needs to be done.” We may not like what they say. We may not like what we see. But it will only work if we force ourselves to listen and see those things that need to be fixed, even though they make us feel uncomfortable and coming up short.

I’m happy to take any questions.

I thank you for the question.

As I said, we’ll be supporting this bill.

There was something you said that kind of stuck in my head, and that’s that people can’t make a profit from delivering poor care to children. Well, I’m not sure getting a profit in caring for children who are wards of the crown is something that we should be encouraging or doing—and again, that’s all of us. I’m not trying to point a finger over there. Governments have done that—started to do that. I think we have to not do that anymore and ensure that we’re working with people who aren’t making a profit, or we’re delivering the services ourselves.

I thank you for the question and your kind words.

I want to say something about my mom. My dad would not be there all day, so my mom was there. There was a cook, but she had three children under three. At the same time, there were a whole bunch of children who required care and required a parent—like a parent and someone there who was in residence. I sometimes romanticize it, but I’m sure, for my mom, with three kids under three, it was sometimes a lot to handle. I’m glad they did it.

Again, in coming here, there are a lot of things that we have to remember. That’s why the child advocate is important. We need to remember we have these children who are wards of the crown—that’s us, folks. That’s our job, so we have to strive to do better all the time. And as I said earlier, we’ll always come up short.

We have to do more to give families the support with regard to mental health and addictions. Again, it’s something we’ll come up short in.

Yes, it’s heartbreaking when you think that you turn any child over just simply because you couldn’t give them what they needed.

The point I was trying to make about it—and it wouldn’t force me to vote against the bill—is that there are things that are missing in terms of the support that we need to prevent and to enforce. That’s not pointing a finger. It has been the constant problem with governments, not just in here, but across this country. That’s what my point is. We need to do better at that.

And it really would be good for all of us, no matter what side we sit on, to have an independent child advocate. Those children need a voice. Their voices are really hard to hear.

I seek unanimous consent that, notwithstanding standing order 100(a)(iv), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to speak during private members’ public business today.