Write to your MP to ask them to vote in favour of Bill C-273 - Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children

This week, the House of Commons is getting a report back from the Standing Committee on Human Rights and Justice on Bill C-273, which is a private member bill by NDP MP Peter Julien, which would ban corporal punishment.

We are encouraging our supporters to write to their MPs and ask them to support the bill for the upcoming vote. Please write as soon as possible- we want the MPs to have their inboxes flooded with requests to support this bill.

Bill C-273 is now headed to a final vote. If all of the MPs who voted for it last time do so again, it will pass and move on to the Senate. Here is the list of email addresses of all the MPs who voted in favour of Bill C-273 last time

Sample message to send to MPs that supported the bill at earlier readings:

Thank you for voting for children on February 14, 2024. On that date, you voted in support of Bill C-273, a Private Member’s Bill sponsored by MP Peter Julian that will repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code – the section that allows children to be hit as punishment.

Section 43 has been in the Criminal Code since 1892. It is archaic and demonstrably harmful to children. Not a single study – out of hundreds – has found any positive benefits of corporal punishment. All show that it teaches violence and bullying, exacerbates behaviour problems, erodes parent-child relationships, impairs brain development, and undermines learning. For this reason, 67 countries have prohibited all corporal punishment of children. Three of those countries did so just since bill C-273 was introduced – Zambia, Lao and Tajikistan

Removing this outdated law is one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Calls to Action. The TRC recognizes that this law has allowed centuries of harm to children – and that it continues to do so today by providing an excuse for the assault of children.

The Supreme Court’s 2004 decision on section 43 set out parameters for hitting children, which has placed child protection workers in the position of instructing parents on how they can legally hit their children. Twenty years later, surely we are at the point where all child protection workers, teachers, early childhood educators, and parent support workers should be able to give a clear and unequivocal message that no child in Canada can be hit. Full stop.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has issued repeated and increasingly urgent recommendations to repeal section 43. The Committee has made it abundantly clear that this law is a violation of children’s basic human rights to protection from violence.

Opponents of this Bill have attempted to muddy the water by claiming that repealing s.43 would leave teachers and educational staff unable to control their learning environments or to physically restrain a child who poses a risk to themselves or others. This is categorically untrue. There are already sufficient protections for professionals who physically intervene in the interest of children’s safety and best interests. Instead, what this Bill would do instead is make it clear to parents, teachers, and other guardians alike, that they are not allowed to inflict pain on a child by means of punishment, in the misguided hope of correcting behaviour that they do not like. Such violence is an assault, plain and simple, and repealing s.43 will signal that children finally have the same protection from assault as everyone else.

In two months, Canada will send a delegation to the first Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence against Children in Bogotá. Please ensure that the delegation can proudly announce that bill C-273 has passed Third Reading in the House and that Canada is on the path to repealing its legal justification for corporal punishment of children. You will be a member of a historic parliament – the one that voted for the health and well-being of children, and for their basic human rights and dignity.

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