Feds urged to give kids their own voice

OTTAWA — The Liberals are facing calls to follow through on a campaign pledge to create a federal children’s commissioner who would be a non-partisan voice to ensure government policy actually improves the lives of young people.

More than a year into their mandate, the government has shown few signs of moving forward on the promise, other than to say it continues to study the idea.

Sara Austin, founder of the charity Children First Canada, said there is well over a decade of studies and research from other jurisdictions, and the Liberals don’t need to start from scratch. It is time for the government to act on the promise it made to help about 1.25 million children who live in poverty in Canada, Austin said.

“We need to go beyond simply saying that they matter and saying that kids are important to delivering tangible programs that will drive change,” Austin said.

“Poverty not only has immediate impacts on kids’ success in school and their ability to do well every day, but it actually has longterm impacts for their health and safety and it has a hard economic cost for our country. We actually need to go beyond making lofty promises to children to actually delivering on it.”

The effort is part of a wider push for the government to help children and families through such strategies as a national plan for early learning and childcare and help for post-secondary education, both of which could end up in the Liberals’ upcoming budget.

Various Liberals called for the creation of a children’s commissioner for years during their time in opposition. Marc Garneau, now the transport minister, repeated the vow during the last election.

Commissioners in other countries and jurisdictions play various roles, including consulting with children to make sure their voices are heard in policy debates, investigating systemic issues or specific complaints and co-ordinating children’s programs that cross multiple departments and agencies.