Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this past fall I ran into a very unique situation. A youth was sent out to a treatment facility where there was an incident. After a number of phone calls between me and the family, we brought the situation up to the Minister and the department for their help. To the department's credit, there was quick action taken and they were on top of it. Unfortunately, the process that is usually used to share what happened did not work this time. There seems to be a huge void when it comes to youth in care. It seems that nobody could sign the consent form, leaving a lot of questions left unanswered and a lot of people left in the dark.
Mr. Speaker, I was informed that the Child and Family Service Act set out many legal obligations regarding the care and well-being of the children. The act also sets out, under various circumstances, who is the legal guardian of each child. It seems that, depending on the situation, they will decide who can or cannot be the legal guardian, even if the person has assigned that right previously. I can tell you that there were a lot of frustrated people and a lot of tears dealing with this situation.
Later on, another situation happened with the same individual, and again we were relying on the information from the individual instead of the normal communication system in place. There was a lot of running around to get information and share what we had. I have to give credit to the department for making sure the person was looked after and safe. They reached out to the family and explained everything they could without breaching the individual's confidentiality.
The sad note, though, through this is the youth did not feel their voice was heard, and this is what I am trying to do here today. I want to assure that person that we have heard what is going on and we are fighting for that person's voice. Please believe us, your voice is very important for all the parties involved, and I encourage the youth to continue to speak up. Personally, I would like to thank the staff who dealt with both situations. They did a great job in speaking with the youth, reaching out to the family and me as we moved forward. Mr. Speaker, later today I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Thank you.