Renewed call for Canada-wide children’s commissioner to help at-risk / Aboriginal kids

The Tyee’s The Hook blog mentioned today that BC’s Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, has once again called for “a national children’s commissioner to advocate on the behalf of at-risk Canadian children, Aboriginal children in particular.”

The renewed call came as part of her Dr. Richard Splane Lecture in Social Policy at UBC yesterday.

According to The Hook‘s Katie Hyslop, the BCRCY office just co-released a report that found an

“incredible disconnect between the outcomes for Aboriginal children and non-Aboriginal children in every domain,” says Turpel-LaFond, referring to the report’s domains of health, learning, safety, family economic well-being, family, peer, and community connections, and behaviour. … Aboriginal children were more likely to be subjected to substances such as drugs and alcohol in the womb, more likely to smoke, met academic expectations less often than their non-Aboriginal peers, and were more likely to be put into government care at some point in their lives.”