Submission to the Committee Against Torture in advance of the Committee’s development of the List of Issues Prior to Reporting for Canada’s 8th Periodic Review

Following the expiration of the mandate of the Panel, some of its members released four reports33 regarding the implementation and operation of the SIUs, which raise a number of serious issues that the CHRC wishes to bring to the Committee’s attention. [...] While the CHRC welcomed the release of the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls36 (MMIWG) in 2019, the CHRC has remained concerned over the lack of overall progress in implementing the 231 Calls for Justice contained in the report. [...] In light of the recent discovery of the remains of 215 children at Kamloops Residential School, the CHRC joins the call for a thorough investigation of all former residential school sites, and stands with residential school survivors and their families, Indigenous leaders and communities, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Huma. [...] INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND INVOLUNTARY TREATMENT OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES Beyond the situation of people with disabilities in prisons, the CHRC wishes to bring to the Committee’s attention the broader issue of institutionalization of people with disabilities, their treatment in these institutions, and the lack of access to adequate and appropriate supports and services that people with disabiliti. [...] While the CHRC welcomes its designation as the body responsible for monitoring the Government of Canada’s implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the developments listed above, the CHRC remains concerned that the current system continues to perpetuate a patchwork approach to progress without a foundational structure of monitoring and implement.