Evidence of meeting #37 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was families.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
Senior Investigator and Legal Officer, New Brunswick Office of the Ombudsman, Child and Youth Advocate
It would be the hope.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
--and raising the capacity of other jurisdictions in how they deliver their services?
9:20 a.m.
Senior Investigator and Legal Officer, New Brunswick Office of the Ombudsman, Child and Youth Advocate
The best practice is sharing, I guess.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Is there a province that stands out in terms of best practices, in your opinion?
No? Okay.
9:25 a.m.
A voice
New Brunswick, of course.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Many will say Quebec.
Ms. Convery, I have a number of questions for you.
How many children's aid societies are there in Ontario?
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Adoption Council of Ontario
There are 53 children's aid societies.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
There's no centralized agency with respect to adoption in the province of Ontario.
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Adoption Council of Ontario
No, and one of the recommendations of the expert panel was that there be a provincial centralized agency.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
So there are 53 separate jurisdictions in Ontario alone delivering adoption.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Adoption Council of Ontario
We have about 17,000 children in foster care, and that number is declining, so it's less this year than the year before. It's not a huge number, but certainly that's....
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Adoption Council of Ontario
At this point, about 8,500 of those 17,000 children are crown wards. In terms of adoptions, since the release of the expert panel report, our adoptions went up 21% last year. We had about 1,000 adoptions. The year before 869 adoptions were started. We also are seeing an increase in other permanency planning options, which is guardianship and kinship care, but we certainly still have a huge number of children.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Would you like to see this committee recommend that the relevant ministers, federal, provincial, and territorial, meet to begin a dialogue on a national strategy?
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Ms. Convery, you brought up EI benefits. Parental leave, as we understand it, is not just in terms of policy; jurisprudence has weighed in on this as well. Parental leave is for issues of care and attachment. The maternity benefit was established in recognition of unique physiological characteristics of biological parenting--birth, if you will. That's why, for example, a mother who gives birth to a child but gives up that child for adoption gets the maternity benefit.
Presumably, to establish a similar adoption transition leave, for lack of a better name for it--that's what I'm calling it--we'd have to establish unique psychological or other characteristics for adoptive parenting, not attachment issues related to the child. Can you tell us some of the challenges an adoptive mother might face that would require additional time?
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Adoption Council of Ontario
I was going to say, very quickly, that there's plenty of literature that would support that, certainly in terms of the fact that adoptions often happen within a very short period of time. So it means leaving work within, sometimes, a couple of weeks. Then often there are multiple adoptions. You would adopt a sibling group of children. The children themselves have needs. There's plenty of literature on the impact on the child of the transition and the impact on the family and attachment.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
You'll still get a chance.
I think we have time for a very quick three-minute round. We'll try to get as many in as possible. It will be basically one question and one answer in three minutes.
Madam Minna, did you have a question you wanted to ask?
December 2nd, 2010 / 9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning.
I wanted to focus a little bit on the crown wards, the older kids, as they age out, I guess. I'm remembering a consultation I was part of in 1994. We were doing a social security review, and in Toronto we had presentations by young people who essentially looked at us and said, “You are our mothers and fathers. We don't have anybody else.”
Do you kick your kids out at age 16? No, you don't. Well, those kids are kicked out.
How many crown wards are there in that age group in Ontario? Do you know?
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Adoption Council of Ontario
In Ontario, 5,000 of our 8500 children are over the age of 13, and that's why I see them as being the most vulnerable group. I think other provinces, from what I've seen of their stats, would reflect that as well.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
How do you see this? Do you see this as a provincial jurisdiction, where the province needs to ensure that there are families or that they keep them on for longer, or is it a federal-provincial mix?