My question to the government with regard to Bill 188, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act: There are immediate steps that you can do today to advance the futures and keep safe and well the children and youth of Ontario.

One of those things is to pass Bill 174, the Missing Persons Amendment Act. That would really help protect vulnerable people, especially those with disabilities. This is a bill that I understand the member from Hamilton Mountain has put forth. This government has said yes to this and yet you have not delivered.

Another thing to help our children and youth: bring back the provincial child and youth advocate so there can be a voice, an independent non-partisan voice, in this Legislature speaking on behalf of children and youth. Don’t do it for the NDP; do it for the kids. Do it for the family. Do it for the people who feel down and out and betrayed by the care system.

Back in 2012, when we had a Provincial Advocate for Child and Youth here in the province, that office recognized the disproportionate needs for children in care who identify as Black and Indigenous.

I wanted to quote from this book called HairStory: Rooted—A Firm Foundation for the Future of Black Youth in Ontario’s Systems of Care.

“Benefits of Kinship Care

“Children in kinship care can maintain their racial, cultural and religious ties. They are living with families where they are, for example, speaking the same language, getting the same kind of food they are used to, and the family traditions are very similar, if not the same. It strengthens their identities and allows them to remain connected to their community.”

My question to the government is, if you purport to care about all children and youth in Ontario, why not ensure we have kinship care in this bill that’s supposed to support children and youth, knowing how important it is to Black and Indigenous—

If this government wants to support children, they need to end Ontario’s for-profit child residential care. We cannot forget the case in 2021, while this Conservative government was in power, when a teenager living in a for-profit home was murdered by another teenager. And guess what? This Conservative government still gave that for-profit care home its licence.

So at this point in time, in 2024, we really want to be able to believe that you care about children and youth. but it’s hard to when we see our schoolboards consistently gutted. And which kids are getting hurt the worst? Kids with disabilities. It’s the kids who are at the margins of the margins. It’s the BIPOC kids. It’s the kids living in poverty.

So is this government going to actually end for-profit residential child care?

There are some good aspects of Bill 188, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act.

I want to share a statistic in this House from a few years back: 44% of youth in care graduate from high school compared to 81% of their peers. I think that speaks loudly to the lack of supports that we have both in the care system and also in the education system.

I will say it over and over again: Mental health has to be a priority here in Ontario. And how do we do that? We do that by having the caring adults, the caring professionals in place who also have culturally relevant training to support our diverse Ontario youth.

Will the government commit to more funding for our education system and our care system so it can actually care and function—