Canada's combined second and third periodic review in 2025.
Core documents, civil society submissions, NHRI submissions, statements and concluding observations for Canada's 2025 CRPD review. Documents are mirrored here as PDFs from the OHCHR treaty-body session page.
Repeal Track 2 MAiD and prevent expansion where disability, poverty, lack of supports or social deprivation drive requests to die.
Increase individualized funding, services and supports so persons with disabilities can live with dignity and independence in communities of their choice.
Coordinate federal, provincial and territorial implementation of CRPD rights with meaningful participation of diverse disability communities.
Collect and publish disaggregated disability rights data across major issue areas.
Implement the CRPD through an explicit intersectional and racial justice lens for Black disabled Canadians.
Give Black disabled people and Black-led disability organizations direct decision-making power in disability policy and funding priorities.
Recognize systemic anti-Black racism as a barrier to disability rights in health, housing, education, employment and child welfare.
Develop distinct First Nations-led disability legislation, policy and accessibility frameworks consistent with First Nations jurisdiction and governance.
Provide equitable and sustainable funding for First Nations disability services, accessibility and regional disability networks.
Improve First Nations disability data, while respecting First Nations data sovereignty and free, prior and informed consent.
Strengthen legal protections against physical and sexual violence affecting persons with disabilities.
Revise disability laws and policies to provide enforceable access to basic needs, safety and remedies.
Improve monitoring, accountability and prevention measures for violence in homes, institutions and community settings.
Recognize chronic diseases as disabilities where they create barriers to equal participation.
Integrate systemic racism and intersectionality into federal, provincial and territorial disability and health policy.
Develop culturally tailored healthcare and family support programs for Black communities, including Black families affected by disability and chronic illness.
Ensure MAiD is not chosen because poverty, inaccessible housing, inadequate health care or lack of disability supports make life undignified.
Strengthen the Canada Disability Benefit so it meaningfully lifts persons with disabilities out of poverty.
Address disability-related housing insecurity, employment discrimination, education barriers, transportation accessibility and health care inequities.
Improve data, monitoring and implementation of CRPD rights across jurisdictions.
Adopt a comprehensive national action plan to implement the National Dementia Strategy with targets, timelines, benchmarks and accountability.
Link CRPD monitoring directly to monitoring of the National Dementia Strategy.
Reform laws, policies, programs and services that fail to respect legal capacity, autonomy, support and participation of people living with dementia.
Address disability rights for off-reserve and non-status Indigenous peoples through culturally inclusive, distinctions-aware policies.
Improve access to housing, education, health care, employment, mental health supports and disability benefits.
Include off-reserve and non-status Indigenous persons with disabilities in policy design, data collection and implementation.
Fund specialized training for health professionals on Ehlers-Danlos syndromes and related neurological complications.
Improve access to specialized imaging and radiologists trained to identify EDS-related conditions.
Create multidisciplinary clinics and coordinated care pathways for EDS patients.
Strengthen legal recognition and protections for people with multiple chemical sensitivities and environmental disabilities.
Improve accessibility in public spaces, workplaces, schools, housing and transportation by reducing harmful chemical exposures.
Increase public awareness, professional training and research funding on environmental health disabilities.
Repeal Track 2 MAiD and prevent further expansion to mental illness, mature minors or advance requests.
Address the disproportionate impact of MAiD on women with disabilities and the devaluation of disabled lives.
Provide poverty relief, housing, health care, gender-based violence prevention and community supports so women with disabilities can live with dignity.
Address violations of economic, health and legal rights experienced by persons with disabilities.
Strengthen social protection, accessible health services and legal remedies for disability discrimination.
Use disability data and policy reform to respond to rising disability prevalence, including mental health-related disabilities.
End overbroad criminalization of HIV non-disclosure and align law with science and human rights standards.
Address the gendered harms of criminalization, including increased exposure to violence and abuse for women living with HIV.
Ensure HIV-related disability and health policy protects privacy, equality, health care access and freedom from stigma.
End immigration detention of persons with disabilities and expand community-based alternatives with support.
Guarantee legal capacity, due process and procedural accommodation in immigration detention and admissibility processes.
Create remedies for rights violations and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in immigration detention.
Combat discrimination and stigma against persons with intellectual disabilities, including persons with Down syndrome.
Ensure equal access to education, employment, health care, public life and community participation for persons with intellectual disabilities.
Provide non-directive prenatal information and counselling that does not reinforce disability stereotypes.
Address school interruptions and exclusions affecting students with disabilities in Quebec.
Ensure inclusive education, reasonable accommodation and continuity of schooling for students with disabilities.
Strengthen accountability for education systems that deny equal participation to students with disabilities.
Close the gap between formal anti-discrimination protections and the lived social and economic exclusion of persons with disabilities.
Improve access to employment, housing, services and public facilities for persons with disabilities.
Strengthen implementation, monitoring and enforcement of disability rights laws.
Adopt culturally informed approaches to CRPD implementation for M?tis persons with disabilities.
Ensure access to Elders, Knowledge Keepers, traditional medicines, nutrition and food supports.
Address geographic barriers, discrimination in service access and lack of culturally safe disability services.
Improve disability literacy in public services, supervision and programs serving people with ME, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.
Address gaps in health care so people with ME and fibromyalgia can access diagnosis, treatment and support.
Recognize episodic and energy-limiting disabilities in workplace accommodation, benefits and service delivery.
Investigate allegations of non-consensual experimentation, surveillance and mind/body control harms.
Protect the right to free and informed consent and freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Provide accessible complaint pathways and remedies for persons alleging serious rights violations.
Repeal Track 2 MAiD and prevent expansion on the basis of mental illness, mature minors or advance requests.
Create stronger safeguards so MAiD is not used where suffering is driven by poverty, isolation, lack of care or inadequate supports.
Maintain protections for persons with disabilities by requiring objective standards, reflection periods and oversight.
Stop direct, indirect and re-exported arms transfers where they may facilitate grave violations against persons with disabilities in Gaza.
Adopt mandatory human rights due diligence for arms exports and corporate conduct with extraterritorial impacts.
Make Canada?s foreign policy and export controls consistent with CRPD obligations, international humanitarian law and disability rights.
Use the appendix as supporting evidence for the IHRP/GHRC submission on Canada?s role in arms transfers linked to violations of disability rights in Gaza.
Assess Canadian direct, indirect and re-exported military items for their impact on persons with disabilities.
Apply CRPD obligations extraterritorially where Canadian policy or corporate conduct contributes to disability rights violations abroad.
Increase the Canada Disability Benefit so recipients can afford adequate housing and live with dignity.
Invest in accessible, supportive housing and specialized services for people with disabilities experiencing homelessness.
Require disability training for shelter and housing staff and create advisory mechanisms led by affected communities.
Develop a rights-based, Autistic-led strategy to combat discrimination, stigma and institutional violence against Autistic people.
Centre Autistic people in policies on therapies, health care, education, employment, legal capacity, independent living and MAiD.
Reject awareness campaigns that perpetuate burden narratives and instead promote active acceptance and disability justice.
Create a national plan to ensure all laws, policies and programs comply with the CRPD across Canada.
Ensure children with disabilities and their families are supported and involved in CRPD implementation.
Address gender-based violence, discrimination, accessibility, education, employment, income security and independent living through enforceable CRPD measures.
Bring federal, provincial and territorial laws into compliance with the CRPD, including legal capacity and supported decision-making.
Address intersecting discrimination affecting women and girls with disabilities, Indigenous persons with disabilities and migrants with disabilities.
Ensure CRPD implementation is systemic, coordinated and led with disability organizations.
End deeming laws and practices that reduce income security for workers with work-acquired disabilities.
Protect employment injury benefits as a source of dignity, autonomy and economic security.
Align workers? compensation systems with CRPD rights to work, social protection and non-discrimination.
Strengthen the Accessible Canada Act with clear regulations, timelines and implementation duties.
Ensure accessibility legislation applies to First Nations communities with adequate resources and respect for Indigenous rights.
Advance CRPD implementation through monitoring, data, consultation and independent human rights oversight.
Housing and homelessness - paragraphs 12 and 56: The Committee recommended that Canada "Mainstream gender and disability into all poverty and homelessness laws, policies and strategies" and ensure disability issues are included in the National Housing Strategy. This links to WNHHN, FAFIA, CHRC and CAP concerns about inaccessible housing and homelessness.
Children with disabilities, childcare and family supports - paragraph 14: The Committee recommended that Canada allocate "sufficient human, technical and financial support" so children with disabilities have equal access to daycare and early childhood programs, and review restrictions under Jordan?s Principle and the Inuit Child First Initiative. This links to civil society concerns about child and family support gaps.
Indigenous disability rights and community supports - paragraphs 14, 40 and 50: The Committee recommended that Canada ensure policies affecting Indigenous children with disabilities are "fully responsive to the requirements, experiences and cultural context of those children" and urgently address accessible housing and community supports in Indigenous communities. This reflects AFN, CAP, M?tis National Council and CHRC concerns.
MAiD, dignity and supports - paragraph 20: The Committee recommended that Canada "Repeal the Track 2 medical assistance in dying provision" and "Significantly invest in and implement" measures addressing poverty, health care, accessible housing, homelessness, gender-based violence, community-based mental health support, care services at home, personal assistance and employment support. This responds to ARCH, CHRC, FAFIA and EFC concerns.
Humanitarian emergencies, opioids and environmental racism - paragraph 22: The Committee recommended that emergency plans, including those concerning "climate change, environmental action, the opioid crisis and public health, are disability inclusive" and that environmental justice implementation address ableism. This responds to environmental health, racial justice and disability justice concerns raised in the submissions.
Living independently in the community - paragraph 40: The Committee recommended a nationally consistent rights-based framework for "community-based supports and services, including accessible housing, home support and personal assistance" that respects self-direction and individual control. This responds to ARCH, AFN, CAP, WNHHN and CHRC concerns about institutionalization and lack of supports.
Education - paragraph 48: The Committee recommended a national inclusive education action plan "to transition from segregated education to quality, inclusive education." This responds to Ligue des droits et libert?s/CIDDHU, Autistic United Canada and broader civil society concerns about exclusion and school interruptions.
Health care, dementia and disability-specific services - paragraph 50: The Committee recommended a "nationally consistent approach to disability-inclusive healthcare" and a comprehensive national action plan for the National Dementia Strategy with access to services, supports and respect for autonomy. This reflects submissions from CHRC, the dementia coalition, EDS Canada, ME/FM advocates and environmental health organizations.
Employment and work-acquired disability - paragraph 54: The Committee recommended identifying systemic barriers to employment and developing "a strategy with specific timelines and measurable outcomes" to transition from sheltered workshops to open, inclusive and accessible employment. This links to ONIWG, CAP, CHRC and other submissions on income security and employment discrimination.
Adequate standard of living and poverty - paragraph 56: The Committee recommended that Canada ensure disability entitlements, including the Canada Disability Benefit, "support an adequate standard of living and alleviate poverty for persons with disabilities." This reflects concerns from CHRC, ARCH, WNHHN, CAP and other submissions about poverty, inadequate benefits and social protection.