Chapter 2

A Human Story

2.5.1 Early childhood

The State rightly acts to protect children, who are members of one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. As a result, it establishes, administers, hands over and funds various mechanisms to ensure that children can grow up safe and sound: for example, vaccination programs, orientation and support services for new parents, financial assistance, initiatives for children with special needs, adoption support services, early years centres, and children’s aid services.

Since children form their perceptions of themselves and their world and start building their identities in the first few years of their lives, it is critical for all provincially funded early childhood stakeholders to ensure that they can meet the needs of Francophone children and their parents or guardians in every part of Ontario.

That is not just the Commissioner’s opinion. The French Language Services Act explicitly includes “service provider[s] as defined in the Child and Family Services Act” among the agencies to which it applies. Moreover, subsection 2(1) of the Child and Family Services Act states that “[s]ervice providers shall, where appropriate, make services to children and their families available in the French language.” The Commissioner adds that since the Act’s paramount purpose is to promote the child’s best interests and since a person’s desire to speak to his or her child in his or her mother tongue represents the desire to preserve an emotional attachment to the child — which is part and parcel of the child’s best interests — the phrase “where appropriate” applies to all cases involving Francophone children or parents.

Since its establishment, the Commissioner’s Office has paid special attention to the provision of services to children and parents, particularly when they are members of disadvantaged groups, such as Francophone children with autism or, as was the case this year, Francophone children placed in a unilingual-English foster home.

Yet the Commissioner doesn’t just react. He would like to ensure that problems do not arise in the provision of services to children and families. In that vein, he participated in the work of the Commission to Promote Sustainable Child Welfare, and last February, he attended the first Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies Summit for Franco-Ontarian Professionals.

Inspired by the touching words of writer Lya Luft, “Childhood is the ground on which we will walk for our whole life,”²³ the Commissioner will tirelessly pursue his efforts on the early childhood services front. It is a complex sector, where even though all parties clearly have the children’s best interests at heart, they are not all aware of the integral part that French-language services play in those best interests.