Progressive activists want to be able to dictate how other people raise their children. This is the root of the case for criminalizing corporal punishment. In their view, the government should decide how to raise children and it should impose its directives by force. They clearly favour an authoritarian approach.Nevertheless, proposals to outlaw corporal punishment of children are still receiving support from government officials, as reported recently by the Western Standard.In this case, the federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Benjamin Roebuck, has written a letter to the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee, calling for the repeal of Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which permits parents, teachers, and guardians to use “reasonable force” to discipline children. According to Roebuck, corporal punishment “contradicts the core principles of children’s rights.”Of course, this issue has been around for a long time.In the late 1990s, a “children’s rights” organization called the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law, launched a Charter challenge against Section 43. That organization argued Section 43 violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by denying children equal protection of the law. Adults are protected from all forms of violence, so equal treatment would provide children with the same protection, thereby criminalizing spanking.The case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Thankfully, in January 2004 the court upheld Section 43, so spanking remained legal within specified limits.Before the outcome of the case was known, Ted Byfield wrote a column about it for Alberta Report magazine. His column was entitled, “Heaven help some kids if the ideologues of the child rights brigade pull this off.”Byfield clearly explained the deficiency in the so-called “children’s rights” argument. He pointed out that it is completely reasonable to deny children certain rights and that this is widely recognized: “Of course, children are deprived of other rights not mentioned by the foundation. They may not vote. They are denied liquor and cigarettes. Sexual activity among them is discouraged, and sex with an adult prohibited by yet another Criminal Code section. They are forced to attend school. They are sadly restricted in the matter of credit cards, and ruthlessly prohibited from driving an automobile. The list of discriminatory curtailments on ‘the rights of the child’ is practically limitless.”As he noted, the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law was not advocating that children be allowed to engage in those other activities: “So the foundation’s case is not really about children being denied a right. Children are denied all kinds of rights. Neither is it fundamentally about law. It’s about child-raising — the philosophy and practicality of parenting—and let’s hope, however dim the prospect, the court sees it that way.”Thankfully, the court did see it that way. The good guys won for a change.The threat to parental rights now comes from a different institution, Parliament, and Ombudsman Roebuck is pushing for the so-called “children’s rights” perspective.But the “children’s rights” crusade is — more than anything — an effort to increase the power of the state.Children are not mature enough to foresee the consequences of their actions. Therefore, they must be under the authority of adults. Normally, the adults with such authority are the child’s parents, who care more for the child than anyone else and have more at stake in the child’s future than anyone else.If the parents don’t have that authority, someone else will. In the progressive view, that authority should reside with government officials. Therefore, the core issue in this debate is whether parents or the state should have authority over child-raising.In either case, the children do not get to exercise any “rights” themselves. The rights are in the hands of adults to exercise on the children’s behalf. In this sense, then, progressives use the “children’s rights” argument to advocate for more government power. Government officials will gain additional authority over families if corporal punishment is outlawed.The bottom line is that the term “children’s rights” is a justification for increasing the power of the state. Despite the term, children don’t get more “rights.” Instead, government officials are empowered over parents. In other words, “children’s rights” is a sugar-coated term for advancing authoritarianism.When you see a policy proposal rationalized by the term “children’s rights,” be sure to read the fine print. It may sound nice but it’s a Trojan Horse for government control.
