This bill has a lot of positive things in it. The creation of a new system contained in this bill so that privacy of these children will help these children when they go into adulthood. It will literally level the playing field for the information-sharing.

Because there’s so much information that’s out there and we want to provide the best opportunities for these children when they start their care, when they complete their care and after their care—I’m wondering if the opposition member could talk about his interest or his comments on the privacy of youth leaving the CYFSA and some of the administrative changes that we’ve made to protect those children.

Last week, I had the great pleasure to announce that our government is investing $47.2 million to build two new elementary schools in my riding of Thornhill.

These schools are going to be built in an area known as the VMC, also known as the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. This is the fastest-growing community, the VMC: Two new schools—Catholic, public—one roof, creating 1,134 new student spaces and 49 new child care spaces. This new emerging area is a transit community linked with easy access to the GTA, a vibrant area that’s already home to a beautiful YMCA, a library and so many local businesses. This school will be a much-needed and strong addition for the families in the VMC, no doubt.

As a mother who has also sat on school council for so many years, I know first-hand how important it is to have a solid education, including back-to-basics, hands-on learning, including STEM and after-school opportunities—all of this closer to home. This is part of our government’s plan to support the new school construction and expansion to existing schools, including child care spaces. Our new school strategy involves prioritizing shovel-ready projects, working with school boards to speed up construction through design standardization.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Minister of Education for his leadership on this project, and I will continue to work alongside my community partners and government to support these critical investments for our children’s future.

Through you, Speaker: This bill contains a lot of positive things for youth, and members opposite are talking quite a bit about things that are not in this bill, but the fact of the matter is that they seem to be missing the point. This bill is just one means of our government to provide a better standard of care. We can always do better, and we’re progressively moving forward so that we can provide better services for our most vulnerable.

I used to work in this area. I worked under the Child Protection Act for countless years. The fact of the matter is, consultation happened in this. I’m just wondering if the member could possibly provide information on how they came to some of the decisions that were made?

Thank you, and through you, Speaker, I was just going to add that the measures contained in the Supporting Children’s Futures Act would, if passed, create a safer environment for every child out of home care. We won’t get into the specifics of profit or not-for-profit. It helps every child.

I was going to talk about the Ontario Ombudsman. It’s an important safeguard that provides rights to children of youth in care. Young people in care already have the right to contact the office of the Ombudsman; however, that’s contained in the Ombudsman Act rather than the Child, Youth and Family Services Act. And since children’s aid societies and service providers are governed by and most familiar with the CYFSA, the status quo leaves a potential gap where a youth may not even be aware of their rights.

This bill proposes to entrench details about this right and remove any lack of clarity for the rights with respect to the Ombudsman. Does the member opposite not support giving young people a stronger understanding of this right to the Ombudsman?

Through you, Speaker, there are new enforcement tools with Bill 188 intended to hit at the finances of service providers who choose to provide poor-quality care. This bill takes critical steps towards making sure there’s no profit in providing poor care to children and youth in this province.

One of the measures of the bill is to provide an order that funding be returned when a child in care has not received the level of service expected, so this is providing a better outcome. This measure would be supported and strengthen the financial record-keeping. Does the member opposite agree that measures such as these put children first by making sure that every dollar invested in this care results in high-quality care?

I thank the member for his very energetic comments. And 14 kids—wow.

He talked about something that actually touched me. He talked about the ability to speak freely. Imagine being a child in care, or once in care, and not having the ability to speak or provide personal information about their life, which is so impeding, when you think about rights as a human being. I’m just wondering if you’d like to talk about that a little bit more—about having their rights kind of taken away from them.