The Ford government has stopped compiling data on the death of children who have interacted with the care network, Global News has learned, ditching reports that offered insight into one of the province’s most vulnerable populations.
From 2020, Ontario began generating a summary of all children who died under the care of a children’s aid society, with an open child welfare file or whose file had been closed in the past year.
The data showed, on average, a child who had interacted with welfare within the past year died every three days. In 2023, the government reported 134 deaths associated with its care system — fatalities which could come for any reason, including accidental, medical, suspicious or suicide.
For the past two years, the data has been accessed and published by Global News using freedom of information laws. It summarizes the number of deaths, causes, age groups and whether or not the children were under the direct care of a welfare agency.
This year, however, the government said it had stopped tracking the data and therefore could not release it. Officials rejected a freedom of information request filed saying the summary of deaths has not been prepared for either 2024 or 2025.
The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services did not directly answer any of the questions sent by Global News about why it had stopped, including whether it had given up tracking the data to avoid it being scrutinized.
“The death of any child or a youth is heartbreaking and deeply tragic,” part of a statement from the government read.
A spokesperson added that the “information continues to be tracked in real time.”
Critics said it was shocking that the government would reduce the amount of information it had about fatalities associated with care.
“The minister should be demanding to have that data, that’s what should be happening,” Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser said.
“There’s no reason for them to stop doing that. As a matter of fact, all the reasons are for them to continue to do something about it and take some action.”
In September 2024, Global News reported for the first time on the number of children who died associated with the child welfare network every year.
The story was informed by a document featuring a number of contentious issue reports dealing with the death of children, rolled up into a presentation showing how children had died, where they had died and how old they were, among other details.
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The report showed that in 2020, 104 children associated with care died. In 2021 that number spiked to 129, while 121 deaths were recorded in 2022. The three-year average of 118 child deaths in the report works out as roughly one every three days.
After it was published, the story was flagged internally by civil servants. As the government prepared to announce audits of child welfare agencies in the fall of 2024, some raised concerns the details of child fatalities could overshadow the new policy.
A “communications snapshot” created to help announce audits of child welfare and seen by Global News cited the reporting on the deaths of children related to care as a potential coverage problem.
“The public may be concerned that this review is strictly a money saving exercise and is not focused on helping children and youth,” the communications plan worried.
“Media and the public may ask how the review is going to help reduce the number of fatalities in the Child Welfare sector, following recent coverage from Global News.”
Reaction to the data in the report went further.
The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, which represents child welfare agencies, said Global’s “framing presents a misleading and overly simplistic narrative that lacks essential context.”
In a public statement, the organization said that the report “lacks crucial context about the broader population served, the socio-economic conditions many of these children and families experience, and the specific circumstances surrounding each death.”
Rather than adding new data into the report to address the concerns of advocates and children’s aid societies, the government appears to have stopped its creation altogether.
In January, Global News submitted the same freedom of information request that it had in previous years to access the data rollup on the deaths of children associated with the care network.
But rather than releasing the documents, as it had for 2020 to 2023, the government said the reports don’t exist anymore. For the past two years, Ontario has stopped recording the data.
“After a thorough search for the above records, the ministry has determined access cannot be provided as no responsive records exist,” a decision letter sent to Global News explained.
“Please note, senior ministry leadership are kept apprised of individual child deaths and trends; however, no aggregate data rollups have been provided to the Deputy Minister’s or Minister’s Offices for deaths in the 2024 and 2025 calendar years.”
Ontario NDP MPP Alexa Gilmore said a lack of additional details in the discontinued reports was a reason to dig deeper — not for the government to stop producing the information.
“For this premier now to just erase this information rather than go deeper — when you get this kind of alarming data, you go deeper, you want the answers, you want to know how we can prevent those deaths,” she said.
“You don’t want to turn a blind eye to this.”
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