Every time one child leaves her
house, Stirling tells the local chil-
dren’s aid society that she has an open
bed, and another tot or teen arrives.
She’s thought about leaving the beds
unfilled, but more than money, free
time or anything else, the kids make
her happy. If it takes a village to raise a
child, Cindy Stirling is the mayor.
THE FIRST TIME I met Stirling, she
picked me up in her Dodge Grand Cara-
van. Stirling speaks with frankness, as
if she’s trying to save both your time
and her own. Her phone pings inces-
santly with messages from her kids,
their doctors, dentists, therapists, child-
care workers and lawyers, all asking
something of her. There are only a
handful of things that reliably rattle
Stirling’s stoic demeanour: teachers
who label her kids “bad” because of
their behaviour or grades, landlords
who won’t rent to the older ones
because they’re on welfare and, most
of all, bureaucracy.
Ontario’s child-care system is in cri-
sis. Since taking office in June 2018,
Doug Ford’s government has slashed
$84.5 million from funding for chil-
dren and youth, including $2.8 million
from the province’s $1.5-billion child-
care budget. It eliminated the Ontario
Child Advocate’s office and combined
the Ministry of Children and Youth
Services with an already overburdened
social services ministry. The cuts
couldn’t have come at a worse time:
the province’s opioid crisis is sending
more kids into care than usual.
The rest of Canada isn’t faring much
better. The Child Welfare Political
Action Committee estimates that there
are 78,000 children in care across the
country, but the number of foster
homes available to them is dwindling,
leading to overcrowding and long waits.
Both Saskatchewan and Quebec have
severe shortages of foster homes for
babies and toddlers, and Manitoba’s
auditor general recently panned the
province’s foster-care system for fail-
ing to perform criminal background
checks on parents, among other issues.
Meanwhile, child-care workers in
Newfoundland started travelling the
province in 2018, trying to enlist new
foster parents to take in 39 children
with complex needs. These problems
disproportionately affect Indigenous
children, who comprise roughly 52 per
cent of Canadian kids in private foster
homes, despite representing less than
8 per cent of Canadian youth.
To make matters worse, foster par-
ents are retiring en masse, and the new
generation isn’t taking up the mantle.
According to a June 2019 report of Brit-
ish Columbia’s child-care system, 53
per cent of the province’s foster par-
ents were under 50 in 2008; today,
that’s down to 39 per cent. Children’s
aid societies struggle to recruit new
foster parents, likely in part because
Canadians are less religious than they
once were. While the Stirlings aren’trd.ca 53