Canadian Human Rights Commission Submits Review to UN

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights created a mechanism in 2006 to review the state of human rights in member countries. Canada’s turn comes up in 2009. The first step in the process is a self-evaluation by the target country. Canada submitted its report in September, and has made the submission publicly available here.

I’ve had only a brief look so far, but the report looks very interesting. The first bit provides insight into what programs/legislation/processes are in place to create a society which meets the goals of the UN. The second part provides a point-for-point analysis of the member country’s success in meeting those goals. For example:

17. Canadian women have achieved considerable progress towards equality in the past few decades, but are still far from having reached full substantive equality. For instance, in 2000, the average employment income for full-time female employees working year-round was 70.8% of the income of male workers.²⁵ In addition, gender interacts with other factors, such as race, ethnic origin and disability to compound that economic disadvantage.²⁶ Another persistent barrier to equality for women is gender-based violence in the form of spousal and sexual assaults, for which the majority of victims still do not seek support from the criminal justice system.²⁷ Accessing justice is a major concern for Aboriginal women, who experience high rates of violence ranging from assault to murder.²⁸

In the recent (controversial) economic statement, the government attempted to tie salary increases negotiated in collective agreements to retroactive payments to successful claimants in pay equity disputes in the federal civil service. The Pay Equity Commissioner of Ontario caught the logical error and called the Finance Minister on it in this letter to the editor of the Globe and Mail. I’m not sure that the Finance Minister had access to the report to the UN before drafting his statement. Too bad.