Keeping Track of Canada's Parliament for Children and Youth

Our Child Rights Legislation Tracker keeps elected officials accountable to Canada’s 8 million children and youth by highlighting what bills related to young people are being tabled, how they measure up and how you can influence their progress through the House of Commons and the Senate of Canada. Ultimately, every law affects children – there is no child-neutral decision.

UNICEF Canada is calling on Members of Parliament to make every vote in the House of Commons a #VoteForEveryChild, by making children and youth a priority during the 44th Parliament. Parliamentarians can use the Child Policy Lens and the Child Budget Lens to help ensure every decision is good for them.

Track Canada’s policies for children and youth below.

This enactment makes it an offence for organizations to make pornographic material available to young persons on the Internet. It also enables a designated enforcement authority to take steps to prevent pornographic material from being made available to young persons on the Internet in Canada.

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the National Defence Act (bail and sentencing).

An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures).

An Act to enact the Protection of Minors in the Digital Age Act and to amend two Acts.

This enactment amends the Divorce Act to, among other things,

(a) require legal advisers who undertake to act on a spouse’s behalf in a divorce proceeding to assess the risk of family violence and, if there is a risk, to take steps to implement an appropriate plan;

(b) provide the means by which a court may more accurately assess the impact of coercive control on a parent-child relationship so as to ensure that children are protected from domestic violence after a separation or divorce;

(c) allow a court, if certain conditions are met, to obtain information or evidence directly from a child in writing or by means of an interview with the child for the purpose of determining the child’s views and preferences; and

(d) address certain myths or stereotypes regarding family violence by providing that courts, in determining its impact, are not to make certain inferences, including that violence no longer occurs once spouses have separated or a divorce proceeding has commenced.

This enactment provides for the development of a national strategy on housing for young Canadians to ensure they have greater access to affordable and secure housing. It also provides for reporting requirements in respect of the strategy.

This enactment amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act in order to

(a) clarify the measures governing addiction treatment programs for young persons;

(b) enable, in some cases, the youth justice court that finds a young person guilty of an offence to delay sentencing to enable the young person to participate in an addiction treatment program;

(c) enable the youth justice court to include in certain orders the condition of attending an addiction treatment program; and

(d) provide that failing or refusing to comply with such a condition cannot by itself result in a custodial sentence.