Question Period Note: CHILDREN’S RIGHTS IN CANADA

Children’s rights

We are committed to protecting the rights and well-being of children and ensure they reach their full potential.

Canada appeared before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in May 2022. We highlighted actions taken to improve children’s rights, including the release of the Poverty Reduction Strategy, the creation of the Canada Child Benefit and the establishment of an Early Learning and Child Care framework.

We will continue to take action to improve children’s lives, in collaboration with provinces, territories, Indigenous partners, children, and stakeholders.

[If pressed, Children’s Commissioner]

Federal, provincial and territorial governments are all responsible for the implementation of children’s rights and several mechanisms already exist to facilitate their coordination.

For example, all provinces have children’s advocates or representatives to protect children’s rights and allow children to pursue remedies for violations of their rights. Other mechanisms, such as the Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals, facilitate coordination and monitoring of children’s rights.

Our government continues its whole-of-government approach to children’s rights, including to deliver on the recent commitment to ensure the voices and needs of children are represented in our agenda.

UNCRC

Canada has ratified seven major United Nations human rights treaties. Children in Canada enjoy the rights protected in each of the human rights treaties that Canada has ratified.

In 1991, Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the first legally binding international instrument to protect children’s human rights. Signing the Convention means countries promise to protect and promote these rights.

The UNCRC is the most widely and rapidly ratified core human rights treaty in history. It outlines key civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children, and the responsibilities of governments.

The protection of this range of rights is reflected in the Convention’s guiding principles:

Non-discrimination;

The best interests of the child;

The right to life, survival and development; and

Respect the views of the child.

Canada is also party to two of three optional protocols on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Implementation, Coordination, Monitoring and Reporting

In general, Canada implements the UNCRC through laws, policies and programs with responsibility for implementing these rights being shared by the federal, provincial, and territorial governments.

At the federal level, these rights are implemented through laws, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, as well as through policies and programs.

For its part, Employment and Social Development Canada supports the implementation of children’s rights and helps to ensure the wellbeing of Canada’s children and youth by providing:

income supports for parents and caregivers, including the Canada Child Benefit, Children’s Special Allowances, and Employment Insurance Benefits for pregnancy, care for a newborn or newly adopted child or children, and care for a critically ill child;

support for Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC);

access to and affordability of post-secondary education;

youth training and employment support (which may start at age 15); and

funding support to community organizations that support children, youth and parents.

The federal government also coordinates, reports on, and monitors the progress of children’s rights in Canada.

Civil society organizations also play an important role in monitoring government policies and programs. They may submit “alternative reports” to the Committee with their own independent analysis and monitoring of how Canada is doing in terms of its compliance with the Convention.

As part of the reporting cycle under the UNCRC, State Parties are required to report every five years on how they have implemented their child rights obligations. Due to a backlog of reports and the number of countries waiting for review, Canada was asked to combine its fifth and sixth report, which was submitted to the Committee in January 2019.

Canada appeared before the UN Committee on the Rights on the Child on May 17-18, 2022. At the appearance, the Committee asked Canada a range of questions related to the implementation of children’s rights including on topics such as poverty, housing and homelessness, and Indigenous issues.

UNCRC Recommendations

Following Canada’s appearance, on June 9, 2022, the Committee released its Concluding Observations (recommendations) on Canada’s implementation of the UNCRC.

On matters relevant to ESDC, the Committee recommends that Canada:

“Expeditiously establish an independent mechanism at federal level for monitoring children’s rights in line with the Paris Principles that is able to receive, investigate and address complaints by children in a child-sensitive and child-friendly manner”;

“Ensure that the views of the child are a requirement for all official decision-making processes that relate to children”;

“Continue its efforts to implement a human rights-based approach to disability, and ensure that inclusion of children with disabilities is prominent in its work towards a barrier-free Canada through the implementation of the Accessible Canada Act”; and

“Strengthen support provided to children with disabilities and their families, in particular Indigenous communities, with all necessary services and quality care in order to ensure that financial constraints are not an obstacle in accessing services and that household incomes and parental employment are not negatively affected”;

“Strengthen mental health services and programmes for children, including allocating sufficient financial, technical and human resources for preventative measures, and prioritize mental health service delivery to children in vulnerable situations”;

“Ensure that all children and their families living in poverty receive adequate financial support and free, accessible services without discrimination”;

“Establish ambitious annual targets to eliminate child poverty, in particular among Indigenous, African-Canadian, and other minority children, in the poverty-reduction strategies and public monitoring and reporting on outcomes at national, provincial and territorial levels”;

“Take steps to establish a unified mechanism for systematic data collection on incidences of hazardous child labour and working conditions, disaggregated by age, sex, geographical location and socio-economic background as a form of public accountability for protection of the rights of children”;

“Establish an effective monitoring system for implementation of ILO 138, including the participation of children, access to child-friendly avenues for complain, and public reports that are accessible to children”;

“Ensure equal access to quality education for all children in the State party, and ensure that Indigenous and African-Canadian children receive culturally appropriate education that respects their heritage and language”; and

“Ensure that training on children’s rights is compulsory for teachers and professionals working for and with children.”

Other broad key recommendations include that Canada:

“Strengthen measures to investigate and provide justice to families of victims of murder and disappearances and survivors of residential schools across Canada”; and “implement the National Inquiry’s calls for justice with the meaningful participation of Indigenous girls”;

“Develop and implement a national strategy for the prevention of all forms of violence against all children, and allocate the necessary resources to this strategy and ensure that there is a monitoring mechanism”

Additional recommendations are focused on upholding the principles of the Convention and on a full range of children’s rights issues and topics such as children with disabilities, mental health, standard of living, and economic exploitation (including child labour).

Many of the Committee’s Concluding Observations focus on children in marginalized and disadvantaged situations, Indigenous children and African-Canadian children.

The Committee’s views and recommendations are non-binding on States Parties, meaning that they are not obligated to implant them. However, States Parties are expected to give them serious consideration.

“As Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and a mother, I strongly believe that all children deserve protection and the opportunity to succeed. The Government of Canada is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of children and youth across the globe so that they may reach their full potential.”

-The Honourable Karina Gould, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development