Senator Rosemary Moodie

Moved second reading of Bill S-212, An Act respecting a national strategy for children and youth in Canada.

She said: Honourable senators, what does an ideal childhood look like? We may differ on the specifics, but let me tell you my vision.

It is one where every child has access to the health care they need when they need it, where no child has to languish on a year-long wait-list for important surgery or go without their medication because their parents can’t afford it.

It is one where every child feels safe both in their community and online, where protections are in place to keep children safe, and there are strong mechanisms to stop those who would seek to harm them.

It is one where every child is treated equitably, where they know that the colour of their skin or where they are from will never be used to belittle them or prevent them from reaching their dreams.

It is one where every child feels respected and heard, where they know their rights and they know what to do if they feel that their rights have been contravened.

It is one where every child grows up knowing that their economic situation won’t prevent them from achieving their dreams, where everyone has equal access to opportunities to learn and grow. Every child deserves to grow up safe, happy and healthy.

Unfortunately, this is not our reality today in Canada.

When it comes to our children and youth, we design policies without clear outcomes in mind. We implement programs without the resources needed to make decisive change. We fail to support cross-sector collaboration or listen to those who need the most help.

Canada doesn’t have a vision for the health and well-being of our children and youth. And so, our children are left to be supported by a patchwork of programs, supports and benefits, leaving far too many of them to fall through the cracks.

We are letting our children down. We are failing them. We can — and must — do better. This is why I am proud to reintroduce my bill, Bill S-212, the national strategy for children and youth act.

Colleagues, many of you are already familiar with this bill. I introduced it in the last Parliament as Bill S-282, where it reached committee stage on June 4, 2024 — a year ago today.

This bill does not create the strategy; let’s be clear. Instead, it outlines a framework for the government to create a comprehensive strategy for children and youth in Canada. This strategy must identify the areas where we are failing children and where we are making important progress. We cannot improve if we do not know where we stand.

The bill requires that such a strategy identify clear outcomes we want to achieve and quantifiable indicators that can be used to evaluate the progress we are making on these goals.

Finally, the strategy must propose a detailed plan of action to meet our obligation to provide every child in Canada the childhood they deserve.

Colleagues, I want to state clearly that this bill respects the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In fact, it would ensure better protection of the rights of children and youth across Canada by ensuring a closer focus on their rights.

Bill S-212 does not appropriate money, as the bill does not dictate the strategy. It would be the government’s role to determine the contents of the strategy and subsequently identify any required further investments later on, as is typical of framework bills.

Requiring the federal government to work with other levels of government on issues within their jurisdiction, this bill’s scope fits within federal jurisdiction and our system of co-operative federalism.

Too often, when we talk about young people in policy spaces, we focus on individual programs — whether that be the Canada Child Benefit, Jordan’s Principle or early learning and child care. We treat the issues facing children in silos and assume that individual solutions will suffice. However, when we take a step back, have these efforts added up to real progress?

Colleagues, I think it is clear to all of you, if you have listened to me speak in the past year, that we are not meeting the needs of children in Canada. In May of this year, UNICEF released its nineteenth Report Card, which measures child and youth well-being in wealthy countries across six indicators. The latest data is not encouraging. Canada is now ranked 19 out of 36 countries and has fallen behind many of our peer countries in most aspects of children’s lives. It shows that progress for children in Canada has largely stalled. Frankly, this is not good enough.

Too many children are still being left behind, despite the many incredible programs that we have implemented and despite the investment in effort and money. The overwhelming reason for this is that we are not being strategic. We are trying to complete the puzzle without knowing what the image looks like or if we even have the right pieces.

To highlight what I mean, I would like to explore a few critical areas where our current approach is failing and demonstrate the transformative potential of a national strategy for children and youth. There are multiple examples in which Canada as a country has set targets but failed to follow through with a plan to achieve our goals.

One example is that in 1989, the House of Commons passed a resolution promising to end child poverty by the year 2000. Twenty-five years past that deadline, how are we doing in meeting this target? Well, the rates of child poverty in Canada have only become worse since we last spoke about this bill — not better.

Campaign 2000’s 2024 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada noted that from 2021 to 2022, more than 195,000 children were plunged into poverty over the course of just one year. Alarmingly, the 2.5 percentage-point jump in child poverty during this period represents the largest annual increase in child poverty on record in Canada.

For children, growing up in poverty can have devastating impacts. Poverty means children’s fundamental needs are not met — needs such as stable housing, access to high-quality education and food security. It can have a devastating impact on a child’s well-being and investment, impacting their ability to learn, to acquire skills and to access opportunities. Poverty is a violation of a child’s right to an adequate standard of living.

Yet, it is clear that federal programs to end child poverty have failed. More than 25 years after the deadline set in that 1989 resolution, nearly one in five children in Canada lives in poverty. This example demonstrates that simply setting a target is not enough. A strategy would go beyond simply setting a target and provide a clear plan of action, measured by a series of indicators. It would allow us to regularly assess the effectiveness of what we are doing and if we need to change course.

How about another example of how we are failing our children? In the time since this bill was last introduced, we’ve gained vital insight into the challenges facing children’s health in Canada. In May 2024, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health released their long-awaited report on children’s health. This report paints a disturbing picture of a health system buckling under the weight of long-standing, systemic issues that have been accumulating for decades, and it concluded that our pediatric health system is in crisis.

The report highlighted that in the area of mental health, approximately 1.2 million kids have a mental illness, but less than 20% of youth who need treatment actually receive it. It also noted that Canada has “one of the highest rates of adolescent suicide in the developed world,” quoting UNICEF’s Report Card that Canada ranks 33 out of 42 countries on adolescent suicide.

In 2022, over 20,000 children were wait-listed for surgeries according to 7 of the 16 children’s hospitals here in Canada, and almost half of them were past the window for timely intervention, which often leads to inevitable long-term negative health outcomes. We rank 25 out of 43 countries on child mortality.

These problems plaguing our pediatric health care system are not isolated problems. They are interconnected symptoms of a system suffering from chronic underfunding and neglect. We need a strategic approach that puts children’s health and well-being at the forefront. But more troubling is the fact that we often lack the needed data to understand these issues, the scale of the problem, and to seek evidence-based solutions. Canada is the only OECD country that doesn’t annually collect data on the health and well-being of its children. This is profoundly irresponsible, frankly, because without that data, how can we have an accurate understanding, much less address it? How do we determine if we are making progress, or even if our interventions are effective?

This is why we need a national strategy that not only sets clear goals but also establishes a process for measuring outcomes. Without one, we are simply taking shots in the dark. The health of our children is too important to leave to chance, and a strategy would take us out of the dark and help us take targeted and effective action.

But, colleagues, it is not just the long-standing issues that we must pay attention to. We must also seek to understand and proactively address the rapidly evolving new issues facing children. While the rise in AI is in many ways an exciting development, it also poses clear risks for children and youth. I am referring to the increasing concern in children’s use of AI chatbots. Children are more susceptible to the danger from AI chatbots. Young children exposed to hypersexualized content via chatbot conversation are a real problem. Chatbots can make recommendations to children that are not safe and can influence their behaviour, sometimes with tragic consequences, like the 14-year-old boy from Florida who took his own life after developing an intense, months-long virtual relationship with a chatbot. There is a lawsuit that is still before the courts set by his mother to contest that the chatbot contributed to her son’s suicide. Another example is the 10-year-girl who was told by her family’s Alexa device to stick a penny in a live electrical socket.

There is an increase in AI-generated child pornography, known by the technical term of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM. This AI-created realistic, explicit content involving children is both increasing in the amount and type of this content and is available online and is also being used to extort and exploit children. Experts have warned that the rapid growth of fake content could overwhelm investigative resources and make it harder for law enforcement to identify and protect real victims, so our children are in danger.

While there may be and will be a range of possible benefits from AI for children — from personalized learning systems to tools for enhanced accessibility for children with disabilities that could improve the lives of children in Canada — what we need is a balanced, child-centred approach that maximizes the benefits and mitigates the harms. A strategy could help us do that, understand the true scale of the issues impacting our children’s safety, identify their causes and determine where our current efforts are failing.

Colleagues, our current approach is not working. We lack a unified vision for our children. We do not have a shared understanding of what we are working toward, and we need to establish clear national goals for our children’s well-being. Without a clear, coordinated strategy, we will never make the lasting change that our children deserve.

With a national strategy, we can move from a patchwork system of short-term fixes to a plan that actually delivers for young people. This national strategy could do three main things. It would set clear goals that we want to achieve for our children; it would create a plan to achieve them; and it would include a mechanism for evaluation and enable us to systematically work towards a future where every child in Canada has everything they need to survive.

Clearly defining our priorities would also ensure that governments, service providers and civil society organizations are aligned and accountable.

We can maximize the effectiveness of our existing efforts by leveraging synergies between them, taking advantage of opportunities for coordination, tracking our progress, collecting data aligned to specific goals, understanding our return on investment and make informed decisions and adjust our approach when necessary. Imagine that.

It could align with a key priority for this government, which, as laid out by the Prime Minister’s mandate letter, is to spend less on government operations. By clearly defining our goals and rigorously evaluating the effectiveness of our interventions to achieve them, we will ensure that every dollar is well spent and that no child is left behind while we’re doing this.

We should not be afraid of accountability. We need to know when our efforts failing. Regularly collecting data on our efforts will ensure that our money is spent on what works, not just on what sounds good. An evidence-based national strategy would help us identify the most effective interventions, ensure resources are targeted towards them and close gaps that leave too many children behind.

Frankly, colleagues, this is not a new idea. In fact, Canada is behind the curve.

Over half of the 38 OECD countries have policy documents that outline their government’s approach to supporting positive outcomes for children across several domains of well-being. Ireland is one example. In 2014, Ireland launched Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, a six-year national framework designed to improve the lives of young people in Ireland and be a shared set of outcomes for all government departments, statutory services and the community and voluntary sector to work together.

It embedded children’s voices into their policy-making, ensuring their perspectives were heard and considered. It developed a framework built around key outcome areas, including health, learning and ongoing engagement. It adopted a structured, outcome-based framework with clear indicators to track progress and regular reporting that analyzes emerging issues and provides recommendations for future change.

This diligent approach allowed the Irish government to track advancements, identify gaps and adjust policies accordingly. It resulted in achieving tangible improvements in key areas and identifying areas that needed improvement.

Ireland was able to gain a complete picture of the impact of their efforts. Their success lies not just in the progress they made, but in the establishment of a data-driven and accountable system that made plain what was and was not working.

This is the kind of approach Canada needs desperately. We must recognize the early work that has come before. A strategic approach was declared and proposed back in 2004. It was called A Canada Fit for Children and was spearheaded under the leadership of the Honourable Landon Pearson, who identified priority areas and sought to promote and protect children’s rights.

While it was an important start and an incredible step forward at the time, it contained only general principles and areas for action. Frankly, it lacked specific, concrete interventions or outcomes and did not have a plan for data collection. Most importantly, it lacked longevity and mechanisms for accountability and regular updates.

Don’t get me wrong. We owe our gratitude to those who did the work to make it possible. Now it’s our turn to continue down the path they have paved.

Since then, we have developed several important programs that demonstrate how focused action can be taken and what can be accomplished with change. The Canada Child Benefit, or CCB, is a start. It’s a prominent example. As a benefit that provides direct financial support to families with children, it has lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty since its introduction.

However, the recent rise in child poverty rates since COVID is a vital reminder that progress is often fragile. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels. Despite knowing that the CCB is an effective tool, we do not fully understand its potential. How far do we need to go? How much further can we go? Are we using this tool in the most effective way possible? Are we leaving gains on the table?

Early childhood education and child care is another area where we have seen recent progress. This matters because access to high-quality, affordable, inclusive early learning is vital for children’s development.

We are already able to track progress. More than half the provinces and territories have achieved regulated child care costing $10 a day on average. Those still in progress have achieved fee reductions of 50%. However, without a long-term strategy, challenges remain. I have heard from child care providers across Canada that funding is not yet sufficient to maintain quality programs or retain workers.

If we are to succeed, we need a strategic approach centred on the well-being of children that sees early learning as one of the many tools and programs that will enable kids and youth to reach their full potential.

Jordan’s Principle and the Inuit Child First Initiative also highlight the impact of targeted action. These programs are designed to ensure that First Nations and Inuit children receive the health, education and social services they need without jurisdictional disputes causing harmful delays.

While these programs have made a difference in many lives, their implementation has been inconsistent, with delays in processing requests, stalled applications and concerns about eligibility. They are often applied too narrowly, and the result is that some children have been left behind without the support they need. These programs are essential but require a more robust framework to ensure that every eligible child receives timely, comprehensive support.

To underscore this point, if we set measurable goals, invest in effective programs and commit to not just tracking but evaluating our progress, we’ll see results. So far, our success has been limited and our interventions reactionary. A national strategy would tie these efforts together, fill the gaps and ensure that every child can thrive. It is now Canada’s turn to step up to the plate for our children.

In 2023, I published my collaborative, youth-focused report entitled From Vision to Reality: On a Strategy for Children and Youth in Canada. This report was the result of a series of roundtable discussions with young people and stakeholders across Canada on the need for a national strategy and what it would look like.

Participants included children themselves, representatives from organizations that advocate for children and representatives from Indigenous organizations. From beginning to end, this bill has been shaped by this report and the stakeholders it represents, and it fully aligns with their recommendations.

The participants gave us a clear message: Canada needs a national strategy. They said Canada’s current government infrastructure for children and youth is failing young Canadians and that federal budgets fail to adequately focus on youth.

They made it clear that a lack of comprehensive strategy creates a patchwork system of support that is currently leaving many behind. They talked about what a strategy should include. They recommended that the government would need to do a comprehensive, countrywide consultation to answer this question in a fulsome way.

The stakeholders were clear that the strategy needs to take a rights-based approach led by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Paragraph 4(2)(a) of the bill — of clause 4, which outlines mandatory guidelines — reflects these comments. It notes that the strategy’s objectives must include full compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the optional protocols to which we have signed on, as well as the provisions of UNDRIP relating to children and youth. I know we all agree on the importance of these measures, colleagues.

Another area of consensus was the need for specific, measurable and ambitious targets and outcomes for young people. They emphasized the need to collect, analyze and share data, especially disaggregated data. Thus, the remainder of subclause 4(2) outlines the remaining requirements for the strategy’s content, including identifying objectives and quantifiable indicators to measure progress, creating a detailed plan to address unmet objectives and identifying the necessary resources for implementation.

Subclause 4(3) outlines who should be consulted. When asked who should be involved in the strategy’s development, one participant said:

Young people have a difficult time getting authority figures to listen to them, respect their perspectives, and really consider their lived experiences.

This is why children and youth are first on the list of those to be consulted on the process of building a strategy.

Stakeholders were clear that unilateral action by the federal government would be an insufficient approach to fill the gaps for children in Canada. The bill calls on the minister to consult with provincial and municipal governments and representatives from Indigenous governing bodies, as well as other relevant stakeholders. In the process, the government must deliberately seek out voices that reflect the diversity of children and youth in Canada and their experiences, despite the challenges that exist in getting input from some of these communities. This list is by no means exhaustive, and the bill invites the designated minister to consult with whomever else they consider appropriate.

Accountability is also vitally important and was a major part of the concern for stakeholders. Therefore, clauses 5 through 7 lay out several oversight and accountability measures, including public monitoring, parliamentary oversight of the strategy’s implementation and a mechanism to consider complaints from children and youth on its implementation. It requires the minister to table a progress report every six months until the strategy is published. This will give insight to the public on the progress of the strategy’s development and give young people, stakeholders and others who feel their viewpoints were missed time to join in the consultations before they end.

The strategy must be published within two years of Royal Assent. Reflecting the stakeholders’ call for regular strategy review periods, the bill calls for a review every five years so that it stays relevant as the challenges facing children and youth evolve.

Colleagues, from the moment children are born, they look to the adults in their lives as mentors and guides, to be helping hands and guiding stars as the children explore the world around them and their ability to shape it, to create a safe haven where the children can grow and learn and thrive.

As parliamentarians, we play a similar role but on a much larger scale. It is our job to clear the road of obstacles, to ensure that those who have fallen behind can be given the supports they need to catch up, to make sure every child feels that their dreams are within their reach. This is no small task. It will take considerable effort to do this job well and to ensure that the progress we do make is not lost. I know that we are up to the challenge, but we cannot continue as we have been.

For too long, we have been content with a patchwork of half measures. We have allowed our pediatric health system to buckle under the strain of decades of underfunding. We have left countless children to grow up in poverty. We have failed to adapt to the times and keep our most vulnerable safe online. In too many ways, we have let young people in Canada down, but it doesn’t have to be like this.

A national strategy for children and youth would be transformative. With a vision for a future where every child can flourish and with a plan to get there, we can build a world fit for our kids. It is time to step up. If you agree, colleagues, I urge you to support Bill S-212. I look forward to hearing other colleagues debate this bill and sending it to committee for further study. Thank you. Meegwetch.