My comments in this regard resulted after the Senate did the three-year study on children's rights. The government responded and said, “But we do look at children's rights.” I said, “Well, then, I want to know where.”
We looked at it, and there are two places under Treasury Board guidelines for policy formation. One is when they bring forward legislation, and one is sort of at the regulations level. In each case what it amounts to is a check-off box that we are not violating some international agreement. That check is done by officials in the justice department. But when officials check off on a policy....
Take as an example the national income program for children, which we think has some inequities in it. When the justice official checks that box off as that policy is going forward to cabinet, he is simply looking at whether we are doing some egregious violation of an international agreement. He isn't an expert in how that policy would affect children in the end, to make that kind of fuller assessment.
What some countries do is this: those policies are assessed from the perspective of how they will affect children, and that assessment goes forward to cabinet at the same time.
I think that's what we mean when we say if you did a rights impact assessment at the beginning, you could improve the policy-making process.