Justice committee  I understand the desire to improve this area as one contribution to reducing child poverty, because certainly single parents with children are one of the biggest groups. It can't be the only one. When it comes to the poverty reduction strategy, we want to see multiple indicators

Justice committee  I think there can be a range of ways that the voice of the child is heard. When we had our conference in 2009, we highlighted a number of good practices that were of different kinds. It isn't just one way, but I do think that in some cases, perhaps particularly where there is hig

Justice committee  I think the criteria in the law go some way, so there needs to be a process to determine what the best interests are. If the direction to all the players in the court system is that the best interest of the child must be the top priority, and we hold them to that, then I think—ma

Justice committee  When they make their applications, they need to speak to the best interests of the children first. If you have the views of the child reports—and those are taken very seriously by the judge—that's another way. We heard too that judges interviewing children themselves can be a use

Justice committee  We were particularly interested in making the best interests strongly rooted in the rights of the children and so chose to recommend it for section 16. I could go through it and look at other places where that might be the case.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Are you referring to support payments?

Justice committee  I think that a number of measures in this bill are going to help. Beyond that, I think it's greater attention to enforcement and really tracking enforcement and monitoring. When we prepared for the review of children's rights in 2012, it was surprising that more than 50% of pay

Justice committee  My suggestion was that if you added to, say, proposed section 16.1 that it was as articulated in the convention, then the best interests of the child would be determined by taking into account all the rights of the child in the convention. The list is good, but there other rights

Justice committee  Thank you. Those are good questions. I think we have a growing body of good practice about how you can engage even young children to determine their views of the situation. Obviously with infants it's a different matter. In 2009, we held a conference on the best interests of th

Justice committee  I think it requires a program of training. For some years we wondered whether there was enough good practice; I think there is good practice, and there is research showing that it's a benefit to the families. It's also a benefit to the parents if they can really hear and understa

Justice committee  It falls in the area of the administration of justice, but Canada also has a responsibility for implementing children's rights. That requires that we make substantive progress in hearing the views of children.

Justice committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this important legislation. The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children is a national network of groups and individuals committed to promoting and implementing children's rights. It started in 1989 when the Conventi

Justice committee  Thank you.

Justice committee  That is what the research shows. I do understand the concern that some young people may need secure facilities, but those can be facilities other than we have in our jails. If you look at the evaluation that was done across the country of the application of the current act, the