I want to thank the member for Windsor–Tecumseh for those remarks. I particularly enjoyed your comments when you were talking about the staff, and the burden on the staff when they are aware of an unsafe situation for a youth and how that must weigh on them. I completely agree. That has been my experience meeting with workers for the children’s aid society in Ottawa.

I wonder if the member could elaborate on what this House could do, empowering this legislation even more to be mindful of making sure we hold on to those talented children’s-aid-worker staff? The member for Kitchener Centre said it earlier in debate this afternoon, and she comes from this particular sector, so she should know that, at the moment, in some cases, for-profit group homes and for-profit foster homes are pulling some of the children’s aid workers, paid non-profit, publicly, out of that system, because it’s difficult to compete. It’s difficult to retain talented people.

Do you think it would make sense—my question to the member—for us to make sure that there was proper funding for children’s aid societies so they can maintain the staff, the competence they have and reward those hard-working people?

I guess I just offer the member an opportunity to finish her thought. She was in the middle of a thought.

I want thank my friend from Kiiwetinoong for his remarks. For those tuning in who don’t know what we’re debating, we’re debating Bill 188, the government’s latest effort around child protection law.

The member spoke about Amy Owen. This is a story from our community that broke hearts wide open when we learned of it, because it’s exactly as the member is describing: It is a child discarded to the for-profit foster care system, which disregarded her life. For the record, I want to read in something that Amy wrote on Facebook 11 months before she took her own life. She wrote, “I am just a kid and my life is a nightmare.”

I guess I would ask us, would we allow any child anywhere in the province of Ontario to be housed in a place that did them harm? And are we going to correct that harm—I’m asking the member: Are we going to correct that harm by continuing to fund for-profit operators who, as you say, often refer to the children in their system as “cash cows,” or do we need to move to a non-profit public system, with appropriate staff, that is well run?

I want to thank my friend from London North Centre for his remarks this morning and for his work, and the member for Sudbury—for their work in making sure that educational opportunities are afforded to people who have interacted with our child protection system.

I wonder if the member could take any of the time now in this exchange to talk a little about any stories—we can leave the names out—of which you’re aware, where people who had interacted with child protection followed Jane’s proud example of using that opportunity to make Ontario a better place. I hear you loud and clear. That’s what we should be doing with the treasury in this province—we should be using it to make sure people can have an opportunity. So tell us about those.

To my friend from Ottawa South, thank you for the remarks.

I’m wondering if, in this question and answer, we can brainstorm about other ways in which we can encourage people to become foster families, to encourage the creation of non-profit, safe homes for kids interacting with the child protection system.

Just as a thought exercise, I think about our great pension plans that exist in the province of Ontario and the fact that they need more contributors to survive, and that these huge pension plans—be they OMERS or HOOPP or teachers—need more contributors. So instead of having a for-profit element to the child protection system and thinking of incentivizing people to get involved on the basis of a money-making enterprise, what if we told foster families that they could be part of an established pension and benefits program maintained by the province of Ontario? What if we brought that to Indigenous communities so people who made that sacrifice of opening up their family homes could enjoy a dignified retirement, thanks to their service, and the province had their back? That’s a way in which we can reward people who do this kind of caring profession. I’m wondering what the member thought.

Yesterday, I spoke about Amy Owen, who took her own life on April 17, 2017, in an Ottawa group home. She was relocated from her home at Poplar Hill First Nation. When I think about what could have been added to this bill to give Amy a shred of hope—it was services, it was support. She begged for help repeatedly. That’s what the APTN investigative journalism has uncovered in Amy’s tragic story. She begged repeatedly for help, but we were not there to help her.

I want to reflect on the fact that it is 2024 and we have a child protection system that continues to fail kids—particularly Indigenous kids—in need.

To the member’s question: We need to stop failing those children, and we need to make sure there are preventive resources ahead of time, so every community in this province has the capacity for people to heal. More punitive measures are not going to solve that problem.

When I consider what Cindy Blackstock has said about this from an Indigenous perspective, it involves us doing right by our reconciliation treaty obligations. We’re failing those, too. Insofar as there are purposeful measures done by the federal government to this day that continue to underfund child protection in communities and allow people opportunities to heal—I believe that is a major failure that not only our province but the federal government has to share.

I would also say that in a context where one out of every seven kids is going to school hungry; in a context where so many people, as the member knows very well because she has spoken about it many times, cannot find housing, particularly supportive housing to go to when you’re trying to flee a context of violence—that is also a situation in which our housing policy impacts our ability to help children who are most vulnerable.

We need to do a lot more to make sure people can feel safe.

One of the things that I particularly support in this bill, given the work that was done by the chief of staff to the minister from lived experience, is the fact that folks who have interacted with the child protection system can now feel absolutely no penalty to speak their truth. It’s remarkable, when you think about it from a legal perspective, that we’re asking people who have interacted with the child protection system to sign away their charter rights of expression. That is a remarkable thing, and I commend the minister and I commend this bill and I commend his chief of staff for bringing that forward, because it was unconscionable that that was allowed to happen in this province.

Do I support harsher penalties and more oversight of agencies falling afoul of our rules and regulations? Absolutely. But what I would like—listening to the advice I’ve received for the debate—is for us to be harder on the preventive end. When I heard the member for Kitchener Centre, who worked as a social worker before she came into this place, that’s what she said—she said that social workers are leaving the child protection system on the non-profit and public side because of what they’re seeing and because of the lack of compensation and support.

So there’s a lot we can do on the preventive side, in my opinion—to answer the member’s question—to make sure that those tragedies don’t happen and to make sure that people don’t fall down the hole of neglect that, sadly, exists in our child protection system.

Sometimes we can be penny-wise and pound foolish in politics. Sometimes we can think we are saving money on the front end, but we don’t realize all the things we are losing as a consequence of eliminating the office of the child advocate, which we have done.

So while I am happy with a lot of the thrust of this bill and what it does positively to make sure that the resources are given to the youth who need the help, bringing back the office of the child advocate and bringing resources right to the community so youth could speak their own truth to heal is critically important.

I thank you for the question.

I’ll begin with a brief reflection on how this ended yesterday. This was a very emotional debate for me. I did not want to draw attention to myself in debate, but the issue of child protection is an urgent one.

I want to reiterate my thanks to the great Cindy Blackstock from the First Nations Caring society and Irwin Elman, who served the province with distinction for many years, for providing with me with the information to know my province a little bit better and to know my city of Ottawa a little bit better.

We all have those moments, I think, in this place where we reckon with the fact that the decisions we make have incredible gravity, particularly for people at risk.

I also want to note for the record a remarkable story running today in the Ottawa Citizen. It talks about the fact that thanks to a precedent in law known as the Gladue precedent, there’s a young man—young; the gentleman is 46 years of age—who has remade his life. Randy Kakegamick has remade his life thanks to a Gladue ruling. A Gladue ruling, if you’re not familiar, Speaker, is a way for Indigenous people who are caught up in our incarceration system as a result of lived trauma and behaviours negative to themselves and to the community—they’re given a new chance on life. I want to salute Sofia Donato and Ali Adwan, two Carleton University journalism students who wrote about Randy’s life and who suggest to us that there’s a different way for us to reorient our child protection system so people are given the opportunities that we all deserve. I’m mindful of the fact, too, as I say that, that this, particularly, is a matter that the member for Kiiwetinoong has brought into this House a number of times—the fact that there remains a double standard in the funding of child welfare agencies. Child welfare agencies, particularly as they function on-reserve, represent the latest form of colonialism that we have to reckon with, the fact that there are many children right now, as I speak these words, who are not being given the opportunities that many of us take for granted in our society.

I also want to say that, insofar as this bill is a step towards allowing people who have interacted with child protection to speak their truth, I want to salute the government for that; I want to salute the minister responsible for that.

I want to salute, in particular, Jane, working as Minster Parsa’s chief of staff, who herself, through lived experience, has walked this road and has decided to take the power available to her to push rights for people who have interacted with child protection and to have those stories guide our decisions. I think that’s a remarkable choice. I think it’s a terrific choice.

What I would implore this government to reckon with is the fact that Ontario, as a jurisdiction in our country, still ranks last on a per capita basis in how much we fund the children’s aid societies and child protection services; that we still are not doing enough to help, particularly, kids with disabilities, kids who interact with the criminal justice system, kids with violent behaviours, kids who come from families inherent with violence, who fall into a different category that is too often forgotten.

I’ll end—again, with the benefit of a little bit of time, and less charged with the emotion I had yesterday—to talk about David Roman, who we lost on February 19, 2019, when his life was taken by another youth at a Barrie for-profit group home. I want to reflect on the tragedy of not just David and the loss of David’s life; I want to reflect on the fact that Jordan Calver, the 23-year-old foster person assigned to that home, was given absolutely inadequate training to manage the behaviours in this group home.

Speaker, if you can believe it, Mr. Calver was hired over coffee in Barrie, was promised that all of the youth who were going to be admitted into this group home would not be exhibiting untoward, extremely violent behaviours. And that is absolutely not what happened.

David Roman’s parents are suing those responsible. Mr. Calver has a lawsuit before the province because of what he was put through. But none of that will ever bring David back. I salute anyone’s opportunity to find redress in court if they have been harmed. But none of it will bring David back.

What would bring people who are walking in David’s shoes right now—keep them in our province and keep them safe, is more funding towards non-profit, properly resourced child protection workers and real homes.

The foster families that exist all over this province, who do great good every single day—those homes deserve to have the resources they need. I believe every single person who puts themself forward to welcome someone into their home, to include them in their family, to give them a second shot at life, as one of the members said in debate yesterday afternoon from his experience—these are people performing some of the most exceptional modes of citizenship I can think about.

But I feel we are failing, quite frankly—and it has been remarkable for me to discover in debate—particularly Indigenous youth, Indigenous families, but also those who are put into situations that are unnecessarily harmful and violent.

So while I salute the government’s work to make sure people who have interacted with child protection can tell their stories, and I salute, in particular, those like Jane inside the minister’s office who have driven that change, I want to make sure that the province is putting the resources necessary to make sure we do not have tragedies continue in our child protection system.

I thank you for the opportunity to participate in the debate.

Of course, we support, on this side of the House, more accountability and serious consequences for people who would harm children in our child protection system.

But I would invite a response from any of the members opposite, in this opportunity for debate: Why is it that we have a for-profit motivation in the child protection system? That is the question I’ve heard the member from Kiiwetinoong ask—and the member from Windsor West, and the member for Hamilton Mountain.

I believe, frankly, we are setting ourselves up for more tragedies if we allow for-profit operators to shortchange children, to harm children. And we now have incredible amounts of disturbing evidence that suggests it’s continuing to happen.

While I agree with the member’s question and I agree with what he’s seeking to do, if we don’t change the motivation of some of these homes in the system, we’re going to have more problems, and I invite reflection on that now.

I want to thank the member for Kitchener Centre for talking from the perspective of a social worker, which is a useful one for this discussion. I want her to reflect upon what we could do as a province to incentivize people to pursue social work as a career, particularly for marginalized people, given that you’ve walked in those shoes. And I’m wondering if you could talk specifically about cases where we know private, for-profit homes are inadequately staffing residential facilities for people at risk.

Thank you very much to my friend for his presentation. I’m just wondering if he has any reflections on the fact that at the rate that I’m seeing, with the evidence we have, we have a situation where, with every week, we have a few kids who are passing away in one way or another in care. He’s lived it. I’ve grown up with friends who have had a similar experience. While I acknowledge the positive things in this bill, we have youth in our province we’re losing. So how could this bill be amended to make sure that we get the services and the supports, as my friend from Hamilton Mountain was saying, into these homes to make sure that the kids who are in crisis get the help they need?

I want to thank the member for Hamilton Mountain for her work, for a very long time, as our child critic.

I want to read into the record and just get the member’s response to remarks made by the great Cindy Blackstock, who, in 2016, when the federal government lost a human rights tribunal case, said the following—I’m wondering if there’s an echo in her remarks this afternoon.

Ms. Blackstock said, “Nothing the government can do can make up for the wrongs it consciously perpetrated against kids. And I want to emphasize that it was conscious. It wasn’t an accident.”

The report went on to say that while the federal government may be responsible, “funding at least 93% of on-reserve child welfare, the Ontario government created the system where these children died and provides the law within which the child welfare agencies operate.”

I’m just wondering if the member for Hamilton Mountain has any reaction to that.