2024 CEDAW Review of Canada

Promote the 2019 SIECCAN Canadian Sexuality Education Guidelines with provinces, territories and the public.

Adopt, resource and report on standardized benchmarks for comprehensive sexuality education.

Make Health Canada's Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund permanent, strengthen Canada Health Act compliance on abortion access, and guarantee health care for undocumented people and migrant workers.

Create a time-bound, Indigenous-led and trauma-informed strategy to implement all 231 Calls for Justice on MMIWG2S+ people.

Recognize femicide as a distinct crime and collect disaggregated race-based data on femicides affecting Indigenous, Black, racialized and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.

Repeal harmful provincial restrictions on gender-affirming care and inclusive education, and sustainably fund 2SLGBTQQIA+ community organizations.

Apply intersectional gender-based analysis to government measures addressing unpaid care and domestic work.

Establish a National Day of Unpaid Work and work toward international recognition of unpaid work.

Integrate the economic value of unpaid work into GDP every five years and create fiscal, economic and social measures to recognize and compensate unpaid work.

Create specialized gender-based violence courts across Canada with victim-centred, intersectional procedures and integrated psychosocial and legal services.

Strengthen accountability mechanisms for Canadian companies responsible for human rights violations abroad, including gender-based violence.

Guarantee access to reproductive health services regardless of place of residence by removing administrative, geographic and financial barriers, including through mobile clinics and telemedicine.

Improve access to justice for survivors of gender-based violence through legal aid, police reform and survivor-centred services.

Fully remove discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act and provide reparations to those historically affected by sex discrimination.

Prioritize implementation of the 231 Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry into MMIWG.

Maintain and strengthen Canada's moratorium position on commercial deep seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Regulate Canadian-registered companies pursuing deep seabed mining so their activities do not harm the marine environment or violate rights abroad.

Ensure extraterritorial corporate accountability for environmental harm affecting Pacific Island peoples, Indigenous peoples, women and girls.

Revise the National Housing Strategy definition of chronic homelessness to include hidden homelessness and gendered homelessness affecting women, girls, Two-Spirit and gender-diverse people.

Provide adequate and consistent funding for an Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy co-developed with Indigenous communities and applying an intersectional gender lens.

Invest in permanent supportive housing and social housing for women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness or fleeing gender-based violence.

Reduce legislative and administrative barriers to supervised consumption services for women and gender-diverse people who use drugs.

Provide adequate, sustainably funded shelters and services for women fleeing violence, including women who use drugs.

Decriminalize drug possession and expand harm reduction, housing, income and health supports that protect women and gender-diverse people from violence and criminalization.

Create an integrated care strategy grounded in human rights and the ILO 5R Framework for Decent Care Work.

Improve wages, working conditions, collective bargaining access and labour protections for care workers.

Reduce and redistribute unpaid care responsibilities through accessible, quality public care services.

Ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and relevant ILO labour conventions.

Regularize status for migrant workers and make permanent residence pathways, including caregiver pathways, faster and more accessible.

Adopt a comprehensive, gender-sensitive monitoring system to ensure employers respect the rights of women migrant workers and provide effective remedies.

Strengthen Women and Gender Equality Canada as national machinery for implementing gender equality obligations across government.

Provide stable, long-term core funding for feminist research, advocacy and women's rights organizations.

Improve government-wide implementation, monitoring and accountability for Gender-based Analysis Plus.

Implement enhanced family legal aid services and trauma-informed wraparound clinics for people affected by family violence.

Prioritize parents receiving income or disability assistance for $10-a-day child care and expand public before- and after-school care.

Expand employment, training, post-secondary access, loan forgiveness and CERB debt relief measures for low-income parents.

Include women and gender-diverse people with disabilities in all gender-based violence strategies, monitoring and funding frameworks.

Address the incarceration of Indigenous women with disabilities and women with traumatic brain injuries through disability-informed decarceration and community supports.

Ensure housing, health, income and accessibility measures respond to intersecting disability, race, Indigeneity, migration status and 2SLGBTQI+ discrimination.

Protect 2SLGBTQI rights against provincial rollbacks, including restrictions on gender identity, pronouns, education and gender-affirming care.

Limit the use of the notwithstanding clause where it shields discriminatory laws from effective remedies.

Implement federal, provincial and territorial measures to address anti-2SLGBTQI hate and misinformation.

Provide mandatory, ongoing training for judges, lawyers and court staff on domestic violence, coercive control, gender and migration.

Adopt laws on domestic violence that include coercive control, psychological abuse and economic abuse.

Increase funding for family-law legal aid and ensure gender-sensitive courts and support services for survivors of gender-based violence.

Advance reparations alongside searches for information about Indigenous children who disappeared or died in institutional settings.

Prohibit imposed sterilization and ensure free, prior and informed consent in health care for First Nations and Inuit women.

Implement culturally safe health, justice and support services for Indigenous women affected by violence, discrimination and colonial harms.

Adopt federal, provincial and territorial legislation to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Fully implement recommendations from RCAP, the TRC, the National Inquiry into MMIWG and Quebec's Viens Commission.

Adopt targeted programs, policies and investments to improve Indigenous women's housing, health, education, employment and access to clean water.

Conduct an independent review of British Columbia's Mental Health Act led by people with lived experience.

Prohibit detention, involuntary treatment, seclusion or restraint based on gender, sex, gender identity or gender expression.

Ensure gender-affirming care, reproductive health care, perinatal psychiatric support and family access for women and gender-diverse people detained under mental health law.

Repeal all sex work-specific criminal offences and immigration prohibitions on migrant sex work.

Review anti-trafficking approaches that conflate sex work with trafficking and increase violence against sex workers.

Fund peer-led, culturally appropriate services for sex workers, including safe work spaces, health care, legal services, housing and income supports.

Fully eliminate remaining sex discrimination in the Indian Act, including the second-generation cut-off and related status rules.

Implement the remedies required by the Lovelace, McIvor and Matson decisions from UN treaty bodies.

Remove the bar to compensation and provide reparations, restoration of rights, apology and memorialization for women and descendants harmed by Indian Act sex discrimination.

Continue the suspension of new arms export permits to Israel and cancel or suspend existing unused permits.

Control military exports to the United States where they may be transferred to Israel or used in violations affecting women and children.

Revoke charitable status for organizations materially supporting foreign military forces committing, or at serious risk of committing, international humanitarian and human rights violations.

Increase women's meaningful participation in nuclear disarmament decision-making, not merely attendance at meetings.

Create forums and funding for civil society organizations, including women-led peace organizations, to engage with government on nuclear disarmament.

Participate as an observer in Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons meetings.

Adopt health policy reforms prioritizing the rights and autonomy of Indigenous women in health-care settings.

Amend Canadian health laws to explicitly prohibit coerced sterilization and comply with international human rights obligations.

Establish mandatory cultural competency and human rights training and independent oversight for allegations of coerced sterilization.

Cease fossil fuel production and invest in renewable energy through a just transition consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5 degree limit.

Mandate human rights impact assessments with gender and socioeconomic analysis for resource development projects.

Fund Indigenous-led monitoring, oversight and research on the impacts of resource extraction on Indigenous women and girls.

Invest in Indigenous mothers and families to prevent discriminatory child welfare apprehensions.

Renew the National Strategy to End Human Trafficking with timelines, deliverables and properly resourced Indigenous-led safe houses for girls and women escaping trafficking.

Create equal protection, investigation, support and civil remedies for trafficking survivors across all provinces and territories.

Develop a National Gender Equality Strategy and Action Plan addressing poverty, child care, housing and violence.

Establish a Gender-Based Violence Commissioner and National Accountability Framework for Gender-Based Violence.

Create a national mechanism to monitor and implement CEDAW and other treaty body recommendations in a coordinated, transparent way.

Strengthen enforcement of Canada's assisted human reproduction law so commercial surrogacy and disguised payments are not permitted.

Increase oversight of surrogacy agencies operating in Canada and cross-border arrangements using Canadian law.

Protect women and children from exploitation in surrogacy arrangements through clearer legal safeguards and monitoring.

Implement General Recommendation No. 39 by recognizing Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people as rights holders.

Create gender-responsive budgets and transparent progress reports on CEDAW implementation affecting MMIWG2S+ families and survivors.

Establish an independent monitoring body and prioritize Calls for Justice 1.1, 1.7 and 1.10.

Address the gender wage gap and employment discrimination affecting women in Canada.

Strengthen measures against violence against women, including domestic violence, femicide and sexual assault.

Improve implementation of equality guarantees through stronger monitoring, accountability and anti-discrimination measures.

Implement the National Action Plan on MMIWG2S+ and Calls to Justice that prioritize Indigenous women's safety and healing.

Co-create an accountability mechanism with Indigenous women to monitor outcomes, public reporting and rights-based implementation.

Fully eliminate sex discrimination in the Indian Act and provide core, sustainable funding for Indigenous women's organizations.

Repeal all sex work-specific criminal laws and bylaws in Canada.

Remove immigration regulations, including IRPR restrictions, that prohibit migrant sex work.

End raids, detentions and deportations that use anti-trafficking frameworks to target sex workers, and fund peer-led sex work programs.

Ensure Coastal GasLink and similar corporations comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Investigate RCMP and C-IRG/CRU harassment of Wet'suwet'en and Gitxsan women land defenders through an independent body.

Require extractive industries to fund social infrastructure and binding impact benefit agreements addressing Indigenous women's safety.

Fully implement the MMIWG2S+ National Action Plan and create independent oversight for the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

Create broad, accessible immigration status regularization programs for survivors of gender-based violence, intimate partner violence, human trafficking and sex work exploitation.

Amend the Income Tax Act so Canada Child Benefit eligibility is not tied to the immigration status of the applicant parent or caregiver.

Repeal all sex work-specific criminal laws.

Remove immigration regulations that prohibit migrant sex work.

End raids, detentions and deportations of sex workers carried out under anti-trafficking, anti-sex work and immigration laws, and fund sex worker-developed services.

Invest in income security, adequate housing, health care, education and community supports to prevent criminalization of women and gender-diverse people.

Restrict imprisonment and urgently decarcerate Indigenous women and gender-diverse people through community-based alternatives.

Reform the Custody Rating Scale, fully implement sections 81 and 84 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, abolish segregation and ratify OPCAT.

Study and mitigate the risks that Track 2 MAiD creates for women affected by violence, abuse, exploitation, trauma or poverty.

Repeal the planned expansion of MAiD eligibility based on mental illness alone.

Establish a permanent national anti-trafficking strategy with a survivor advisory committee, stable victim-service funding and training for law enforcement and frontline personnel.

Assess the impact of proposed actions on Indigenous peoples, including intersectional impacts on Indigenous women and girls.

Exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and punish all forms of violence against women and girls.

Enact or amend domestic legislation to protect victims, investigate and prosecute violence, and provide redress.

Recognize femicide as a distinct offence in the Criminal Code of Canada.

Recognize violence against women, including domestic violence, as capable of amounting to torture by non-State actors.

Strengthen legislative and policy measures to prevent violence against women and ensure accountability for state failures to protect women and girls.

Accelerate implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the FCTC Global Strategy.

Adopt measures that reduce commercial tobacco use among women and girls in populations with elevated rates of use.

Pursue evidence-informed tobacco-control measures beyond the FCTC where needed to protect women and girls.

Remove the second-generation cut-off, section 6(1)(f), section 6(2) and related status rules that continue Indian Act sex discrimination.

Remove the bar to compensation and provide reparations, restoration of band membership, compensation for lost benefits, apology and memorialization.

Implement recommendations to end MMIWG2S+ and address the links between Indian Act sex discrimination and gender-based violence.

Require timely public identification of domestic femicide cases as male partner violence where appropriate, while protecting victim privacy.

Publish annual coroner reports on domestic femicide identifying system and service failures.

Create effective monitoring and supervision of men charged with threats or assaults against female partners where release creates risk.

Fully implement PCEPA across provinces with updated policing policies, education for law enforcement and judicial actors, and comprehensive data collection.

Increase investigation and prosecution of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation offences with adequate penalties.

Invest in technology and prevention measures addressing online luring and sexual exploitation.

Extend tenant protections to transitional housing, especially long-term transitional housing where residents pay rent.

Ban evictions from transitional housing into homelessness.

Invest in low-barrier permanent supportive housing for women, gender-diverse people and their children experiencing homelessness or fleeing violence.

Expand family-law legal aid eligibility and eliminate financial eligibility limits for domestic violence survivors.

Increase legal aid certificate coverage for complex domestic violence files, vexatious motions and documented mental health issues.

Resource dedicated gender-based violence services in Ontario legal clinics as core services.

Distinguish sex work from trafficking in CEDAW guidance and recommendations.

Advocate for full decriminalization of sex work and inclusion of sex workers in anti-discrimination, health, privacy and labour protections.

End raids, deportations, detentions and immigration restrictions targeting migrant women working in the sex industry.