Ontario's Premier Accountability Dashboard · Queen's Park Watch
Barbara Finlay
Barbara Finlay is the Acting Ombudsman of Ontario. Her office's 2025-26 annual report logged a record 35,023 cases — up 43% in three years — with record complaint volumes about child protection services, school boards, and social benefit programs.
Connected Scandals
Ontario's Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services quietly stopped producing its annual reports tracking child welfare-connected deaths — reports that showed the number rising every year, reaching 134 in 2023, one every three days. Internal government documents show officials flagged the death statistics as a PR problem that could "overshadow" a planned announcement. When Global News filed an FOI in early 2026, the ministry said the records didn't exist.
As Acting Ombudsman, Finlay's 2025-26 annual report logged a record 35,023 cases — up 43% in three years — including record complaint volumes about child protection services.
Ontario's child support enforcement agency takes an average of 8.5 months to register a court order and issue a first payment, has allowed $2.1 billion in arrears to accumulate, and left 43 former employees with live access to a database of vulnerable Ontarians' personal information — all findings confirmed by the Auditor General in May 2026.
As Acting Ombudsman, Finlay's 2025-26 annual report documented record complaint volumes about social benefit programs, part of a caseload that hit a record 35,023 cases — up 43% in three years.