Madam Chair, I would suggest that this is a problem, because departments are required to do GBA. I think we may be at the centre of some of the problems here.
The UN Security Council resolution set out clear responses in using or involving children in armed conflict. When Mr. Kessel was here he said the term “child soldier” was colloquial, yet I think for many people it has a real connotation.
When I think of children involved in armed conflict, I think about those poor victims who get caught up in a battle or who are marginalized from their community or who are orphaned. “Child soldier” connotes something very specific to me, that is, a child grabbed and forced to do things that no human being should be asked to do, a child being forced or compelled, because he or she is a child, to do quite horrible things.
That brings me to the case of Omar Khadr. The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children advocated for Mr. Khadr. They were very clear that, because he was 15 years old, he was a child soldier. Yet when it comes to Mr. Khadr, the Government of Canada took a very hardened position. They insisted that he was not a child soldier. I'm wondering if the change in terms of “child soldier” now being “children involved in armed conflict” had anything to do with the Khadr case. Does that change not minimize or downplay Canada's obligations to Mr. Khadr in regard to his childhood at the time that he was captured?