Child Welfare System Crisis
Years of funding that has not kept pace with need has pushed Ontario's child welfare system into crisis, with most of the province's Children's Aid Societies running deficits and a record 134 children associated with the care network dying in 2023. In early 2026 the government confirmed it had stopped preparing the annual summary of these deaths for 2024 and 2025, and rejected a freedom-of-information request for the figures on the basis that no such records exist.
📁 An in effect Other policy from October 2024 · Well sourced
Updated · Created
"Reforming Child Welfare"
The government is redesigning Ontario's child welfare system to focus on prevention and keep families together, reducing the number of children in care.
"We're transforming child welfare to focus on prevention and early intervention."
— Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, 2020
"Funding Cuts Disguised as Reform"
The "redesign" served as cover for cutting funding to children's aid societies by hundreds of millions, leading to longer wait times, worker shortages, and children left in unsafe situations. The number of children in care dropped not because of better outcomes, but because the system stopped catching them.
- Children's aid societies lost $100M+ in cumulative funding under Ford governmentsource
- Child welfare worker caseloads increased 30-40% due to unfilled positionssource
- Multiple children's aid societies reported operating deficitssource
- Province stopped preparing the annual child welfare death summary for 2024 and 2025; an FOI request for the figures was rejected on the basis that no responsive records existsource
- Ontario Child Advocate office eliminated in 2019 — removing independent oversightsource
This section represents editorial interpretation of documented evidence.
Figures are approximate, using publicly available Ontario cost data.
The Next One →
Get new investigations in your inbox.
One email per case. No spam. No tracking pixels. Unsubscribe anytime.