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Results: 1 - 15 of 371
View Roxanne James Profile
CPC (ON)
Among the provisions or the measures that our government has implemented with regard to combatting terrorism, there are a number of pieces of legislation that we've passed. I was on the citizenship and immigration committee prior to being on this public safety committee. There were certainly concerns with people using passports and so on to travel overseas to engage in terrorism.
This part of the budget implementation act that has been forwarded to us from division 2 actually includes not just things related to terrorism but also some for those who may travel overseas as child sex offenders. I think that's important to note. This is something we've been very determined to stop, to protect children not just in this country but right across the world.
I think it's important but there is some opposition to this. The leader of the Liberal Party has actually come out to say that revoking someone's passport certainly doesn't align with Canadian values. I think most Canadians watching this committee or listening to it would disagree with that.
We've heard a number of witnesses, including the director of CSIS during testimony on Bill C-51 and also in his report, specifically go into detail with regard to the threat, if someone travels overseas, engages in terrorism, receives terrorist training, and then eventually returns to Canada, and the greater impact on national security and the safety of Canadians this would have on all of us.
Could you elaborate on that and on why it is so important that we need to strengthen this area to revoke, refuse, and cancel passports when in fact this type of activity is being engaged in?
Wilfrid Wilkinson
View Wilfrid Wilkinson Profile
Wilfrid Wilkinson
2015-05-12 11:10
Thank you, Chairman Allison.
Members of the committee, Rotary International appreciates this opportunity to provide information about the work of Rotary International and Rotary clubs in Canada to support the study on the situation of children and youth in the developing world, and the role Canada continues to play in the protection of children and youth.
Rotary is a global network of leaders who connect in their communities and take action to solve pressing problems. For the past 37 years, Canadian Rotary clubs and the Government of Canada have partnered effectively to increase the impact of Rotary projects in the developing world through the auspices of the Canadian Rotary Collaboration for International Development, known as CRCID.
CRCID was formed in 1986 as the Canadian Rotary coordinating NGO to help implement the Government of Canada’s international development priorities. The projects supported through this collaboration have an estimated value of over $30 million, with over $15 million contributed through Rotary community fundraising efforts and The Rotary Foundation, with the balance provided by the Canadian government.
A proposal for continued partnership between Rotary and the Government of Canada is currently being considered. Rotary is grateful for the opportunity to pursue continued collaboration toward shared development objectives, particularly those which benefit the most vulnerable and at risk.
The building of a school in Nasrat, Afghanistan is a signature project of this collaboration. A two-storey school was built through a partnership of Rotarians in Canada, the United States, Afghanistan, and with the Government of Canada. The school, which was built in 2010, now serves 3,615 boys and girls. An equal number of male and female teachers were hired and trained through the project.
Rotary also has action groups composed of Rotarians who are experts in particular fields and who voluntarily share their expertise to support club and district projects. The Rotary Action Group against Child Slavery features participation of Rotary club members in 65 countries. They create awareness among Rotarians and the general public about the millions of children who are held captive for commercial gain, and help Rotarians take action to protect children through programs, campaigns, and projects. This group participated in a conference about modern slavery organized by Britain’s Home Office in January of this year and is also participating in a summit that will be held at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, in May, featuring the participation of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
The Rotary Action Group against Child Slavery has supported several shelter and rehabilitation projects in countries such as India, Thailand, and Ghana. Through these projects, rescued children can stay in safety and be trained in vocational skills that will enable them to support themselves independently.
Rotary also has an impressive network of alumnae from our Peace Centers program who represent the world’s most dedicated and brightest professionals. For example, one alum is now the Latin America and Caribbean policy director for the International Center for Missing & Exploited Children, based in Brasilia, Brazil. Another founded her own NGO, Children United, which partners with grassroots organizations to fight for the elimination of sexual exploitation of children. One serves as an expert for the gender and children unit of the Office of the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court and for sexual and gender-based violence for the United Nations Women's Justice Rapid Response team. Still another of our distinguished alumnae is a senior adviser focused on child rights governance for Save the Children in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
These are just a few of the key examples of how Rotary's investment in some of the most talented among our youth is paying off as these outstanding individuals assume key leadership positions and devote their lives to serving others.
Rotary’s highest priority, global polio eradication, offers the best example of our collective work to reach every child. We are proud of our long-standing collaboration with the Canadian government on this issue. This global project has revealed what we can accomplish through collective action and partnership and by elevating the projects we undertake to ensure sustainability and maximum impact.
Our partnership with the United Nations agencies, governments around the world, private sector lenders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a wide range of other civil society organizations has opened the doors for collaboration in other areas of shared concern, such as those we are addressing here today.
In addition to the more than $1.3 billion that Rotary has spent, Rotarians have negotiated access to children in such places as Sri Lanka, Angola, and Côte d’Ivoire. We have been successful in our efforts to negotiate access because we are part of these local communities. We are neutral, non-partisan, and not affiliated with any religion.
Using a best practice developed in India, Rotarians in Pakistan have established health camps that offer health interventions besides the polio vaccine. These are supported by all Rotary clubs in Pakistan and have been crucial to ensuring continued demand for the vaccine in high-risk communities. Similar health camps have also been set up by Rotarians in Nigeria.
In 2014 Pakistan saw internal displacement of more than one million people. Rotary has funded numerous permanent transit points and mobile health clinics, both with the goal of immunizing mobile populations, including internally displaced persons and migrant populations, to ensure that the disease doesn’t spread throughout Pakistan or beyond. These clinics, supervised by the World Health Organization, are staffed around the clock and reach hundreds of children daily.
Rotary has been referred to as the conscience of the global polio eradication initiative in recognition of our work to hold governments accountable. I and my fellow Rotarians Bob Scott and Bryn Styles, who are here with me today, have travelled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Chad, and Nigeria, as well as to other donor countries, to meet with the heads of state and provincial leaders to urge them to provide the highest level of attention and oversight to polio eradication activities and ultimately ensure that every child is reached and protected from polio.
This is relevant for this committee because, if we can achieve this for polio, we can do it for a range of other efforts that benefit those most in need of our support.
Again, we thank the committee for this opportunity and we encourage the continued leadership of the Government of Canada in protecting the most vulnerable among us. Please be assured of Rotary’s continued commitment to complementing this work when and where possible.
Thank you.
Sarah Moorcroft
View Sarah Moorcroft Profile
Sarah Moorcroft
2015-02-19 11:43
Hi. It is a great honour to speak with you today on the situations of children and youth in developing countries and the role Canada can play in the protection and empowerment of children and youth.
Before we begin, I'd like to share with you the story of Shewaye.
Shewaye was orphaned as a child. Her father died of HIV when she was young, and she was forced to live with her uncle outside the capital city of Ethiopia. She became a victim of sexual abuse and ran away when her uncle tried to force her to work in the sex trade.
She found refuge at a shelter through the women, youth, and children’s affairs office of the Ethiopian government. She had no money and no work opportunity, and she had only finished her primary education. The government office is a partner in Street Kids International’s Partnerships For Success Ethiopia project, funded by the Canadian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.
Shewaye took our youth street business course in the fall of 2013. Through our training, she developed a basket-weaving business plan and was successful in receiving a zero-per cent micro-loan of 1,000 birr, which is only around $50 Canadian, in our business plan competition, which was enough to purchase materials and supplies to start her business. She now earns 1,000 birr every three to four weeks, which is enough to cover her living costs for rent, food, school fees, and materials. We have also helped her set up a bank account with the Addis Credit and Savings Institution to save for her future education.
Shewaye is only 16 years old, and she is one of the strongest people I have ever met. Over the past two years I have seen Shewaye’s confidence grow. She has moved into her own home and can now earn enough money to support her younger sister as well. In the future she would like to move back to her village where, she explained, this type of entrepreneurship training is needed for the young people back home.
Our youth is a generation at risk. Young people below the age of 25 account for more than half of the world’s population, and nearly 90% reside in developing countries. There are more than 81 million young people who live on the margins and struggle to make a living for themselves and for their families.
The sad truth is there are few if any jobs available, with a global youth unemployment rate above 12.6% and rising. For some regions, this number can be as high as 30%. This dramatic youth bulge and youth unemployment can have severe economic, social, and political consequences, specifically in low-income countries. Youth underemployment and unemployment highlight the societal failure to utilize a key labour market to foster economic growth.
Low returns to labour as well as high unemployment contribute drastically to poverty. Unemployment continues to expedite a downward spiral of instability as poverty makes it difficult for societies and individuals to invest in education and health and contributes greatly to intergenerational and gender marginalization, abuse, and violence. In such adversities, many children and youth have come to live, work, and beg on the streets. Many have been pushed out or have run away from their homes because of issues of child trafficking, abuse, sexual exploitation, and early and forced marriages, as in the case of Shewaye.
There is also a growing security threat, with a stagnant youth population and a “scarring effect” for youth excluded from the labour market for significantly long periods of time. Youth can become restless; they can become angered and distrust governments, with the possibility of leading to civil unrest and conflict.
The youth livelihood sector may be the biggest challenge today; however, it can also be one of our biggest opportunities.
What Street Kids International has found and learned from marginalized youth over the past 25 years is that this youth population is resilient. They are survivors, in the harshest economic conditions in the world. These youth will engage in all kinds of activities to survive, some healthy and some not, from dignified work to the worst forms of harmful labour.
Whether their actions go in a negative or positive direction largely depends on the young person’s motivation and knowledge and the enabling relationships around them. Hazardous forms of work can have devastating impacts on a young person's life. However, evidence has also shown that it can be highly beneficial to the development and growth of adolescents as they transition into adulthood. When given opportunities for self-sufficiency and self-respect, when this population is empowered with essential economic and development life skills, they can thrive, and they do.
Street Kids International envisions a world in which youth are included in their communities as productive and positive participants, in which they have the skills, abilities, and opportunities to transition into safe, decent, and sustainable work.
Our mission has been to educate and empower vulnerable and marginalized youth to improve their quality of life and make their livelihood something they can be proud of. We achieve this through innovative and industry-recognized entrepreneurship and employment programs. Our programs help youth build small businesses or enter into the workforce, and learn key business concepts, networking and partnership techniques, personal and business budgeting and saving strategies, and how to overcome financial challenges and plan for the future.
What we have found is that many youth in our programs have little to no literacy skills and schooling. Therefore, we use low-literacy and youth-centred approaches such as storytelling, games, discussions, and visual aids to help make every single aspect of our programs meaningful and relevant to youth. Most importantly, we build on their own experiences and their own knowledge to strengthen their abilities to earn money and earn it in safe and decent ways.
At the beginning of this year, Street Kids International and Save the Children Canada joined together to develop a holistic youth livelihood platform, which integrates a systems approach to child protection and gender equality. Save the Children has always been a leader in child and youth protection under four key pillars: legislation and policy mechanisms of national governance; services and social welfare systems at both the national and local levels; social change to address behaviour and attitudes from individual, family, community, education, health, and law enforcement; and child and youth participation to build social dialogue and engage in meaningful participation with children and youth.
Integrated within all of those pillars is a clear and concrete understanding of gender equality. Girls and boys, young women and men face different child protection risks and challenges and different economic opportunities and barriers, as Dianne mentioned earlier. Both organizations, Street Kids International and Save the Children, share similar visions and approaches by partnering with local organizations and government. Through this merger we will expand the scope and skill of Street Kids' entrepreneurship and employment programs with Save the Children's global presence and a child protection and gender lens to ensure that youth livelihood development both protects and enables our future generations.
Save the Children Canada led the formation of the International Child Protection Network of Canada, a coalition of Canadian NGOs formed in 2013. Street Kids International, now a part of Save the Children Canada, is a core member of this group. Drawing on the ICPNC, Street Kids International and Save the Children expertise for child and youth poverty, we would like to offer the following four recommendations to the Canadian government:
First, we need a holistic approach to youth livelihood programming, which integrates key aspects of child protection and gender equality across the life stages of a child. It is critical so they can respond to diverse vulnerabilities and inequalities as well as to act on the potential that exists as they grow, learn, and mature, and determine their place in society.
Second, we need to see increased investment in our youth. This involves investment in formal and alternative education and training with specific programs for youth entrepreneurship, apprenticeship and vocational training, life skills, financial management, and literacy training, job search counselling, and job matching. We call on this government to help support and form employment creation and livelihood diversification and make investments for youth to access safe credit, insurance, and savings programs to reduce the economic drivers of child and youth poverty.
Third, we need adequate funding for youth livelihood and child protection in emergencies. Tens of millions of children and youth are affected by conflict and disaster each year, experiencing devastating impacts on their social, emotional, and economic well-being. However, child protection and youth livelihood is among the lowest funded sectors in humanitarian aid.
Fourth, we recommend that private sector partners be accountable to children's rights and business principles. Launched in 2012 by Save the Children, UNICEF, and UN Global Compacts, these 10 principles guide and encourage businesses to respect and support children's rights and assess their impacts in the workplace, marketplace, and community.
Economic development has the potential to provide long-term benefits and improve the standard of living in impoverished communities; yet without attention to children's rights and protection, business operations can also have unintended negative consequences, including an increase in the worst forms of harmful child labour, unsafe working conditions, violence, and sexual exploitation of children and youth.
To conclude, girls and boys, young women and men, are our present and future power and the key to bringing peace, sustainability, and healthy societies worldwide. We believe in them, but they need our support and our provision of opportunity to positively engage in their own lives and their own futures.
Thank you for your attention.
View Mike Wallace Profile
CPC (ON)
View Mike Wallace Profile
2015-02-18 15:29
I call this meeting to order. We're at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We are televised today. There was a request to televise this meeting, and of course we make that happen when we can.
This is meeting number 62. As per our orders of the day, our order of reference of Monday, November 24, 2014, is Bill C-26, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
Committee members, we are joined by a number of witnesses to do this clause-by-clause study. We have witnesses from the Department of Justice, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the Department of Public Safety, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
If you have questions on clauses or amendments, we'll call on these people to answer them.
Let's go right to the clause-by-clause study.
Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1, the short title, is postponed.
(Clauses 2 to 6 inclusive agreed to)
(On clause 7)
The Chair: Committee members, just so you know, we have about five amendments here. They're all in order. You should have received them in advance. For clause 7, the first amendment is from the Liberal Party.
Mr. Casey, the floor is yours to discuss your amendment.
View Sean Casey Profile
Lib. (PE)
View Sean Casey Profile
2015-02-18 15:31
Mr. Chairman, this amendment arises directly out of the testimony of Dr. Stacey Hannem, whom we heard from earlier this week.
The purpose of the amendment is to put back into the act the summary conviction option under this section of the code. You heard her explain that the removal of the summary conviction option would make young people who are trading pictures on their phones, perhaps in a juvenile and irresponsible manner, and in a manner that's not malicious, automatically subject to an indictable offence. It arises directly from that testimony, testimony that wasn't seriously questioned or contested.
I urge this amendment upon you as good advice from a respected witness.
Thank you.
View Bob Dechert Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Chair, the government does not support this amendment. As Mr. Casey and others will recognize, it's inconsistent with the bill's objectives, in particular, the important objective of treating the two offences that prohibit the making and distributing of child pornography as very serious offences by making them strictly indictable. That is a very profound and important objective of this bill. For these reasons, the government will be opposing this amendment.
View Françoise Boivin Profile
NDP (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for the officials from the Department of Justice.
I imagine that you have followed the various testimonies we have heard. As my colleague Mr. Casey said, an example might be a young 21-year-old man receiving a pornographic picture or something like that. The clause as written right now does not leave a lot of room for those exceptional cases. As a result, the minimum sentences that were set out but have been slightly increased could be seen in a certain way.
Wouldn't the proposed amendment make it possible to manage such cases? The amendment is in order; it is fine from a legal point of view. It does not change the spirit of the bill as Mr. Dechert has just claimed. It keeps everything in place. The first part deals with an indictable offence liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 14 years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of one year. Would that not enable the crown prosecutor to handle those cases?
Otherwise, I am afraid that the whole thing will be simply dismissed out of hand or constitutionally challenged .
Nathalie Levman
View Nathalie Levman Profile
Nathalie Levman
2015-02-18 15:34
Mr. Chair, just to point it out initially, an offender who is under the age of 18 would be covered by the YCJA, so the mandatory minimum penalties wouldn't apply to—
Ms. Françoise Boivin: [Inaudible—Editor]...what we're talking about.
Ms. Nathalie Levman: —such an offender. You mentioned “21”, so I understand that. There are other ways of addressing it through prosecutorial discretion. I would turn the committee's attention to the new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images, which will come into force in March of this year. That would be an option in these types of what are colloquially known as “sexting” cases, which I believe is what you're referring to.
View Françoise Boivin Profile
NDP (QC)
The question here is not about non-consensual; it could be consensual. The infraction is having something that could be deemed pornographic. On that basis, there's a difference between a porno ring and some idiot—don't quote me, but I've heard worse here—
View Françoise Boivin Profile
NDP (QC)
Yes, that's true.
But somebody who didn't really intend, although that might come into the guilt or not.... Anyway, my question was more that wouldn't it be more prudent to make sure the constitutionality of it would not be raised?
Nathalie Levman
View Nathalie Levman Profile
Nathalie Levman
2015-02-18 15:36
There is the personal use exception that exists as a result of Sharpe. That's there to protect young people or anyone who takes photos or videos of consensually engaged in and legal sexual activity. There's that—
Ms. Françoise Boivin: Protection.
Ms. Nathalie Levman: —protection there as well.
View Mike Wallace Profile
CPC (ON)
View Mike Wallace Profile
2015-02-18 15:36
Thank you for those answers.
Are there any further questions or comments? We are dealing with the Liberal amendment to clause 7.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Clause 7 agreed to)
The Chair: Based on the voting pattern thus far, I'm asking for the indulgence of the committee. We have no amendments between clauses 8 and 21. Do you want to deal with clauses 8 to 20 inclusive? Are there comments on any of them?
An hon. member: No.
The Chair: No?
Mr. Casey.
View Sean Casey Profile
Lib. (PE)
View Sean Casey Profile
2015-02-18 15:38
Thank you.
Clauses 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14 all include increases to mandatory minimum sentences that were already increased once in Bill C-10.
This is the Einstein argument: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You have all heard that the rate of incidents of these types of crimes has gone up since Bill C-10 has come into effect. The mandatory minimums that were put into effect in Bill C-10 clearly didn't work, so the solution you've come up with is to increase them again.
You've heard incontrovertible testimony before the committee time and time again that there is absolutely no empirical evidence that mandatory minimums will result in fewer victims. You've heard that they do not deter crime. You've heard that they contribute to prison overcrowding. You've heard that they disproportionately discriminate against aboriginal Canadians. You've heard that they are an unjustified attack on judicial discretion.
Yet these clauses, the clauses that I've just set forward, are an example of increasing mandatory minimums that were already increased once in your mandate. Therefore, I would respectfully submit that these clauses ought not to be passed for the reasons that you've heard in the evidence, and for the reasons that I've just put forward.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
View Mike Wallace Profile
CPC (ON)
View Mike Wallace Profile
2015-02-18 15:39
Thank you, Mr. Casey.
Are there further comments on this grouping? Seeing none, I will call the question on clauses 8 through 20.
(Clauses 8 to 20 inclusive agreed to)
(On clause 21)
The Chair: That brings us to clause 21, where there is a government amendment, G-1.
The floor is yours, Mr. Dechert, to explain the government amendment.
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