Question Period Note: UNICEF REPORT CARD ON CHILD WELL-BEING IN AN UNPREDICTABLE WORLD

Release of UNICEF’s Innocenti Report Card 19, May 2025

Our Government believes all Canadian children should have a real and fair chance to succeed.

We welcome UNICEF’s latest report on child wellbeing and while Canada has seen improvements in certain areas, efforts continue to help ensure the well-being of all Canada’s children.

Since 2016, the Canada Child Benefit has lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.

Our government also continues to invest in a Canada-wide early learning and child care system and to enhance and expand school food programs across Canada through the National School Food Program.

UNICEF Canada was founded in 1955, and is one of 32 National Committees located in countries around the world. The organisation’s mission is to mobilize and empower Canadians to invest in the positive transformation of every child’s future.

Since 2000, the UNICEF Report Card series has been taking stock of the state of children in Canada and other primarily high-income countries. Report Card 19 compares how these countries achieve six fundamental child well-being indicators including life satisfaction, adolescent suicide rates, child mortality, overweight rates, and both academic and social skills.

Report Card 19 compares outcomes between 2018 and 2022. Progress for Canada was largely stalled during this time frame. While it is one of the ten wealthiest countries in the UNICEF league table, that is, one showing a ranking system, Canada currently ranks 19th out of 36 countries, in the middle of the league table comparing the overall state of children. Its performance falls behind many of its peer countries in many aspects of children’s lives.

While Canada uses a range of frameworks, measures and surveys to help understand the wellbeing of child and youth across the country, such as Canada's Official Poverty Line, the Quality of Life Framework, the Sustainable Development Goals the Canadians Health Survey on Children and Youth, rankings for the UNICEF Report Card were determined based on data gathered from sources including the OECD's 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment and the WHO's Mortality Database. A total of 43 countries were included, but lack of data led to exclusions in some cases.

UNICEF recommends that all levels of government in Canada should collaborate to:

Eliminate child poverty though more effective child-focused income benefits, ensuring equitable access, and double the Child Disability Benefit.

Guarantee every infant adequately paid, protected time with a parent or primary caregiver at birth through parenting leave and ratify the International Labour Organization (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention 2000 (no. 183).

Assure to every child an inclusive education that begins with access to quality, affordable early learning and child care, and ends with proficiency in the social and academic skills they need for life.

Provide every school child with access to healthy food at school, every school day by expanding on existing investments.

Nurture a healthy and safe environment for children in all facets, including protection from marketing, digital harms, injury and victimization, and climate change.

Ensure every child can readily access preventive and responsive mental and physical health care.

Implement the Spirit Bear Plan for First Nations and territorial children proposed by the First Nations Child and Caring Society to improve the responsiveness of Jordan’s Principle to eliminate denials and delays of the services to which every child is entitled.

Prioritize children on the policy agenda and give them first call on the nation’s resources: Improve governance for children with a children’s commission and strategy, a child policy lens and child budget expenditure tracking in fulfilment of children’s rights.

Health and Wellbeing

The federal government supports children’s rights and helps to ensure the wellbeing of all Canada’s children and youth. While many federal departments are responsible for children’s rights and issues, ESDC contributes to supporting their wellbeing, by:

Providing direct income supports for parents and caregivers through various key programs such as the Canada Child Benefit, which includes the Child Disability Benefit, Children’s Special Allowances, the Canada Dental Benefit, and EI benefits for maternity and parental leave, care for a newborn or newly adopted child or children, and care for a critically ill child;

Delivering programs such as: Early Learning and Child Care; providing access to and affordability of post-secondary education; youth training and employment support (which may start at age 15); and funding to community organizations supporting children, youth and parents;

Establishing in legislation a member responsible for children’s issues as part of the independent National Advisory Council on Poverty. This member ensures that children’s interests are taken into consideration as the Council engages with Canadians on poverty, advises on a broad range of programs and services related to poverty reduction, and publicly reports on progress towards the government’s poverty reduction targets; and,

Working with provinces and territories, municipalities, Indigenous partners, and stakeholders to create a National School Food Program (Budget 2024 investment of $1 billion over five years). As of March 2025, the Government of Canada concluded National School Food Program agreements with all provinces and territories.

Mental Health, Bullying and Digital Age

Children and youth in Canada are facing a growing mental health crisis, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and long-standing gaps in health systems. A 2023 Statistics Canada survey showed that nearly one in five (18.2%) children and youth reported unmet mental healthcare needs, with many experiencing persistent declines in well-being.

Bullying—especially cybervictimization—has become a major contributor, with 21.1% of adolescents aged 12 to 14 years and 27.2% of those aged 15 to 17 years reporting cybervictimization in 2019. Adolescents who experienced cybervictimization were at an increased risk of experiencing difficulty with anxiety and depression and, among those aged 15 to 17 years, of suicidal ideation and attempt.

The digital age, while offering connection—linked to positive aspects of well-being, such as greater satisfaction with friendships, also exposes youth to constant social pressures and harm, blurring the lines between safe and unsafe spaces. In response, the federal government is investing in integrated youth services, crisis supports like the 9-8-8 helpline, and a new Youth Mental Health Fund to improve access and reduce wait times. Addressing these interconnected challenges requires a coordinated, youth-centered approach that prioritizes prevention, early intervention, and digital safety.

Indigenous Perspectives

Child poverty rates continue to be higher among vulnerable groups, including Indigenous peoples. According to the 2021 Census, just under one quarter (23.7%) of Indigenous children (under 18 years) living on- and off-reserve lived in a low-income situation in 2020. Among Indigenous children, First Nations children living on-reserve had the highest rate of children living in a low-income situation, at 37.4%, while First Nations children living off reserve, Inuit children and Métis children had rates of 24%, 19.3% and 15.1%, respectively. This compares to a rate of 10.8% for children who are not Indigenous. 

An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families (the Act) affirms the inherent right of self-government in relation to child and family services, and sets out national principles and minimum standards for the provision of child and family services in relation to Indigenous children. The Act aims to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care and supports the work of Indigenous communities to keep their children at home and in their communities and ensure that they have access to culturally appropriate prevention and protection services.

Jordan’s Principle and the Inuit Child First Initiative are request-based, child-first, substantive equality principles that provide funding for eligible health, social and educational products, services and supports. These supports are aimed at improving the wellbeing and healthy development of First Nations and Inuit children by ensuring that they have equal access to government funded programs and services, and are not denied services based on their identify as a First Nations or Inuit child.

Furthermore, the First Nations Child and Family Services Program of Indigenous Services Canada provides funding to First Nations and First Nations child and family services service providers to provide prevention and protection services to First Nations children and families ordinarily resident on-reserve and in Yukon. The First Nations Child and Family Services Program takes a prevention-oriented approach intended to support families and keep children at home wherever possible.

Other programming

The Social Development Partnerships Program - Children and Families component (SDPP-CF) makes strategic investments to create responsive programs, services, or tools to serve the diverse needs of children and their families, particularly those living in disadvantaged circumstances. Grant and contribution funding supports projects in the not-for-profit sector to meet the social needs and aspirations of children and families and of other vulnerable populations.

In May 2021, ESDC launched a funding call for project to support the social inclusion of vulnerable children.

A total of 17 projects in the amount of over $25.02 million are currently underway (2022-2027) to help children and youth from diverse backgrounds develop the life skills and competencies that will allow them to fully participate in society. Funded organizations deliver programming ranging from intergenerational mentoring, to retaining Indigenous culture and language, to empowering young women and girls, and much more.

UNICEF Report Card 19, “Child Well-Being in an Unpredictable World,” assesses recent trends in child well-being across high-income countries (EU and OECD members), focusing on six key indicators: life satisfaction, adolescent suicide, child mortality, overweight, academic proficiency and social skills. The report highlights how global challenges—such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, conflict, and digital transformation—have impacted children’s lives. The Report Card compares outcomes between 2018 to 2022.

Child well-being indicators in this report are based on relative data measures from sources such as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), as comparative data is scarce across countries.

This report finds that progress to improve child and youth well-being in Canada is lagging compared to other high-income countries. Canada ranked 19th out of 36 countries in the overall wellbeing of children, 21st out of 41 in skills development, 23rd out of 36 in mental health, and 24th out of 41 in physical health. This places Canada in the lower third for both mental and physical health dimensions. Notably, seven of the top 12 countries in the Report Card’s overall ranking have less national wealth than Canada and had better child wellbeing outcomes. Despite being one of the ten wealthiest countries in the UNICEF league, Canada’s progress has largely stalled between 2018 and 2022, with declines in most indicators—except academic skills.

Based on UNICEF’s indicators of well-being, the report highlights widespread decline in children’s life satisfaction showing a substantial decline in 14 countries, with Canada ranking 13th of 36, as children in Canada’s life satisfaction fell 3 percentage points from 2018 (in 2022, 7.6 in 10 children report high life satisfaction in Canada).

For the other five indicators, Canada saw improvements or stagnation. Rates of adolescent suicide and child mortality fell, however, Canada still ranked near the bottom for both indicators (33rd out of 42 and 25th out of 43 respectively). The rate of overweight children (24th out of 43), academic skills (6th out of 42) and social skills (28th out of 41) development were stable. While some indicators were stable, the report highlights a growing gap in wellbeing scores between children in the highest and lowest socioeconomic groups in Canada.

Other key findings from the report include:

Bullying, including cyberbullying, is a major contributor to low life satisfaction, and 22 per cent of Canada’s children report being bullied frequently, ranking 26th of 40 countries.

More than one in four (28%) children in Canada are overweight, linked to unhealthy food environments and socioeconomic disparities.

Between 2018 and 2022 Child mortality rates improved from 0.94 to 0.88 per 1,000.

Between 2018 and 2022, the rate of adolescent suicide in Canada fell significantly from 10.1 to 8.4 per 100,000.

Academic skills are also becoming more unequal in Canada: the gap in mean math scores between children in the highest and lowest socioeconomic groups widened by 13 percentage points since 2018.