March 24, 2025<\/p>\n
The Right Honourable Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada
\nThe Honourable Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
\nYves-Fran\u00e7ois Blanchet, Member of Parliament and Leader of the Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois
\nJagmeet Singh, Member of Parliament and Leader of the New Democratic Party,
\nElizabeth May, Member of Parliament and Co-Leader of the Green
\nMaxime Bernier, Leader of the People\u2019s Party of Canada<\/p>\n
Greetings Prime Minister and Party Leaders,<\/p>\n
We are writing to ask for the prioritization of children and youth in cabinet.<\/p>\n
As of March 14, 2025, a Minister of Children, Families and Social Development, a Minister of
\nWomen and Gender Equality and Youth, and a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions were
\nno longer included in cabinet. Whether this is a \u2018war-time cabinet\u2019 or an \u2018election cabinet\u2019 is indifferent.<\/p>\n
It is the welfare and human rights of children and youth that are the priority of Defence For
\nChildren International. We write to speak to this priority going forward from this juncture in
\ntime.<\/p>\n
We recognize all of these former portfolios worked to provide holistic approaches to the complex needs of children and youth across Canada. While the files are compacted within newly created portfolios, they are not prioritized.<\/p>\n
Civil society leadership who serve children and youth require a dedicated partnership in Ottawa
\nnot distracted with other issues within Cabinet. In the absence of Canada enacting a National
\nChild and Youth Advocate to date, a Ministerial portfolio is a bare minimum federal level
\ncommitment.<\/p>\n
Children are vulnerable by factor of their age alone.<\/p>\n
Youth are the only individuals in Canada taxed without representation.<\/p>\n
Multiple parties forming government continue to incentivize youth to work through funded programs. You all allow youth to vote in your party leadership races but not in general elections. And yet parties do not acknowledge their multi-sector service needs nor commit to meeting them
\nthrough the formalization of the files which support them under a dedicated Ministry.<\/p>\n
Therefore, we call on all parties to include in your pending election policy platforms:<\/p>\n
Whomever forms our next government and is given the leadership to set policy and present a budget for Canada, must bring the priorities of children and youth forward with you.<\/p>\n
On behalf of the Defence For Children International \u2013 Canada board of directions, I share that
\nwe eagerly stand at your service to assist in the prioritization of issues for this minister\u2019s mandate letter.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Dr. Wraychel Gilmore, Ph.D.
\nNational Director
\nDefence For Children International \u2013 Canada
\nCanadian Observer to Defence For Children \u2013 European Region<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March 24, 2025 The Right Honourable Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada The Honourable Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Yves-Fran\u00e7ois Blanchet, Member of Parliament and Leader of the Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Jagmeet Singh, Member of Parliament and Leader of the New Democratic Party, Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament and Co-Leader of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dci-canada.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}