Evidence of meeting #4 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Unfortunately, much as we'd all like to dis lawyers, on this or any other occasion, we are out of time for this round of questions.
We have to move on to Mr. Laforest.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
I don't.... I would like to see more lawyers protecting children's rights, actually.
Conservative
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
Yes. The quick resolution is what we need.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Still on the matter of children's rights, we heard earlier that the Charter protects all Canadians, everyone. But children's needs are different from those of adults. Essentially, what you are saying—this is what I heard subsequently—that it has to be more clearly defined. Children—and that also has to be defined—have different needs at 0 years than they do at 16. A child between 0 and 2 years of age does not have the same needs as a child between 6 and 10. So it must be clearly defined that children need protection, love, education, clothing, and so on. A mechanism must be put in place. The family is one, but, at the same time, there must be an educational process that allows the child to develop normally. Nothing of that kind exists and that is why we often see major gaps when children's rights are correctly examined, especially, as you say, those of aboriginal children. I certainly agree that there should be a chapter dealing very specifically with children's rights, so that they can be protected.
I have a more specific question. At the beginning of your presentation just now, you said that there had been no public consultation. Was that before the report was submitted? You say that a report was submitted without public consultation, contrary to the requirements. Is that the report that we were talking about just now?
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
Yes.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Would you not say that the lack of public consultation at very least undermines the credibility and reliability of the report?
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
There were no consultations before the report on children's rights, and none after. And yes, it does undermine the credibility.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is strong in the area of wanting to see consultation with the people who work with children, and with the young people themselves. Some countries are doing leading-edge work in terms of listening to children on what needs to be addressed. We'd like to see much more of that in Canada.
Some civil society groups are doing that, and we will be bringing those voices forward in our report. We will try to bring that information to the committee. We would have preferred to work cooperatively with the government through the process. It doesn't have to be as adversarial as it is.
Again, I look to Norway, to the United Kingdom. They've done some excellent work in terms of how you engage young people to address some of these issues.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
I have a quick question about children's rights. Are there provinces in Canada where the situation is more dramatic than in others?
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
The outcomes of Canada's second review outlined that children in remote regions, for example, need special attention. When we ask why the maternal mortality rates and under-five rates have gone up, it's largely in rural and more remote regions. That was one group.
Children with disabilities were named in terms of some inequitable treatments in education. Canada did not have any information on street children in its second report, and some civil society groups brought information to the committee about children in the streets--in Montreal, Toronto--and homelessness with young people. So there's a category of vulnerability.
We would say that there are different groups of vulnerabilities in Canada. The inequity among children—that's why I come back to that theme—is really important in Canada. It makes it harder, in some ways, because many children are doing quite well in Canada, but we have real pockets of concern. A rights-based approach should lead you to address those.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
It's Mr. Wallace's turn. I got things out of order. He should have gone first, but we'll make up for it now.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Sorry, there's one more thing.
I'm going to ask the committee for its unanimous consent to go a little past our time of adjournment. That will allow Mr. Marston as well to ask a question and get a response.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
I'll try to be quick.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I'll try to not take up all five minutes. How does that sound?
It's because I want to share with you, Wayne. You know that.
I'm actually filling in today. I'm not normally on this committee, so I'm really naive about a number of the issues.
I read your title here, chairperson of the board of directors of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children. Can you tell me a little bit about the organization? Is it all volunteers? Who do you actually represent? How big is that organization?
I'm trying to get a sense of the authority that you're speaking with.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
I didn't lead with that because I have been before the committee before. I assumed--
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children is an umbrella group of organizations across the country that work with children. We have a 10-member board, which has a number of the larger children's organizations on it. It also has some academics who work on children's issues.
Right now we don't have any sustained funding, so yes, I work as a volunteer. I guess my age shows I'm doing that now as a volunteer. At one time it did have more funding. It doesn't now.
We are doing what we can. Our mandate is to increase public awareness about children's rights across the country. It is to bring the children's rights perspective to a variety of issues, which we have done. Also, we have a particular role in responding to the reports on monitoring children's rights in the country.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I have a little bit of knowledge because I used to work for Easter Seals, and my wife actually works for Easter Seals in Ontario, which helps support disabled children and their families. Regarding children with disabilities, what are the main issues that your organization is looking at from a human rights perspective?
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
Regarding children with disabilities, we could have another hour, and I would like to then bring to the table the Canadian Association for Community Living, which is on our board. Their focus is on issues of children with disabilities, and they will be writing a chapter for the alternative report. There are a number of concerns in relation to health care. There are issues in relation to education for children with particular learning disabilities and sometimes there are issues of access.
I can maybe bring you a report from them, if you would like, but they are working very strongly on that area for us.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I appreciate that.
Do we have any time? Russ has one question left.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have just one question.
Ms. Vandergrift, I understand and appreciate that your comments are directed at constructive criticism of the process through which Canada evaluates its human rights. I was wondering, however, if you could comment on how we're doing as a nation. Are we making progress? I want to draw to your attention just a couple of the items that were included in our recent throne speech and get your feedback on them.
I'm thinking of things like our commitment to increasing penalties for offences against children, launching a national childhood injury prevention strategy, bringing forward legislation for safe drinking water on reserves, and establishing a registered disability savings plan.
Would you consider those to be steps in the right direction or, on balance, do you think we're still heading in the wrong direction?
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
I would want to carefully consider each one of those. Certainly there are some positive measures in there, and there are some on which we have concerns or would suggest what a rights-based approach might add.
I'll pick up on a couple of those. Certainly we share the priority being given to sexual exploitation, but we would very much value looking at that a little more strongly through the lens of children's rights. That would also put greater focus on prevention. Increasing penalties helps if there are convictions, but there's a very low rate of conviction, and that is partly because you need to support children through the process.
If you look at the number of people who are charged and then you look at the conviction rate, it's a very small number. Why? If young people don't have adequate support, they aren't going to testify and we won't get convictions.
So you can have a strong penalty at the end, but if you don't have the entire system working, it doesn't help. We would like to see much more focus on the prevention, on the support for the young persons who are faced with sexual exploitation.
In terms of injury prevention, certainly injuries are one of the priority health issues, and the Canadian Paediatric Society works with us on that. We would like to expand the mandate of the injury prevention to also include other kinds of injuries, such as violence against children. That's the non-accidental injury, not just limiting it to physical injury but looking at other types of injuries.
If you're going to do a large campaign, we could have a much bigger impact if we took that just a little bit broader. We could do that with children's rights.
The safe drinking water is an excellent move. It is certainly one that was highlighted in the second review and is part of dealing with the serious issues of aboriginal children.
Did I miss one?
