Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a constituent called the other day who is a parent and a very loving foster parent. They're very proud of the fact that they have the opportunity to provide a safe and healthy home to those children at risk. But they're personally concerned with some ongoing duty of care that does not happen when these children are returned to their birth parents. To make it very clear, they first and foremost believe the uniting process of putting families together is truly a wonderful thing. Their concern lies only in the area of where parents in the past have had substance abuse problems and they are being returned, children are being returned to that family without any clear mandate to ensure that those parents are now drug free.
Mr. Speaker, there is no follow up drug testing on those parents who have now taken back the responsibility of their children to ensure that they are now in a true position to do this. What are we doing to ensure that these children are returning to a safe environment? Who is doing a follow up when a parent is declared that now, one month later, they are meth free? We all know that you cannot get off meth that easily.
Mr. Speaker, the concern is quite simple. The fact is they want to ensure that these children are being placed back into their healthy home with the best chance and safest chance that they can have.
Mr. Speaker, we have the moral duty, a personal commitment, to protect these children to ensure that their safety is put forth. Mr. Speaker, embarrassing a parent by asking them to stay clean is not something we should be afraid of. By demanding them to prove it is something that we should seriously consider.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, if we are wrong to demand that parents should be clean when we take their children away due to health and safety matters to protect the children, then let's be wrong, Mr. Speaker, because protecting children and being wrong in the same breath, I think that's correct. I think that's the right way. Mr. Speaker, putting the interests of these children first, making sure that they're back in a healthy environment is something we promised to do. Let's make sure we're doing it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause