Are the Liberals poised to make spanking kids a crime?
Posted December 21, 2015 2:52 pm.
Last Updated December 21, 2015 11:45 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Could spanking your kids soon be a crime?
According to a report in The Globe and Mail, the federal Liberals appear poised to outlaw corporal punishment after vowing to adopt every recommendation in the recent Truth and Reconciliation report into abuse at residential schools.
One of the recommendations in the report was the repealing of Section 43 of the Criminal Code which states:
“Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.”
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould told the Globe that the government is intent on adopting all recommendations in the report, including banishing the spanking law.
In 2012, the Canadian Medical Association Journal released an editorial calling for a ban on spanking.
“It is time for Canada to remove this anachronistic excuse for poor parenting from the statute book,” editor-in-chief John Fletcher wrote.
The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the law by a 6-3 margin in a landmark 2004 ruling.
Since then, several private members’ bills to ban corporal punishment have failed in the House of Commons and Senate.
