Why is section 43 being debated now?
The 1979 United Nations International Year of the Child and the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child turned an international spotlight on the rights of children for the first time. The 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms increased awareness of the importance of fundamental human rights. It gave children a constitutional basis to claim the same protection from assault as adults and a constitutional challenge to s. 43 was initiated in1998. Our committee was established in early 1994 to advocate repeal. In 2004, a coalition of 6 national organizations and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario published the Joint Statement on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth recommending that children be given the same legal protection from assault as adults. All these developments have focused attention on this section of the Code.
