Ireland last month became the 47th country to outright ban the spanking of children.
Canada has not.
“In the past we have had laws that permitted assaulting servants, apprentices, prisoners, wives and children,” Lynn said. “The only people left who you can legally assault are children.”
-- ( editor's note by hannor - I honestly don't believe their was EVER a law saying you could beat or batter your wife.. but I think FOREVER their has always been a law saying it's legal to spank your wife.. and I think that it's still considered legal to spank your wife in Canada..)
The Supreme Court ruled on the Spanking Law in 2004 and, in a 6-3 decision, said a parent’s spanking doesn’t infringe on a child’s constitutional right to security, nor is it cruel or unusual punishment.
Among those who want the law rescinded are medical and legal associations, and human-rights activists. Those for keeping the law on the books include some teachers’ unions and school boards, some parents’ rights groups and the Justice Department.
Even the name, Section 43, has an Orwellian ring to it. You see it surface on social media from time to time: My parents used a wooden ladle on me and I turned out OK.
It’s basically the defence NFL superstar Adrian Peterson used a year ago after he was suspended for using a switch on his four-year-old son. (A switch, as Wikipedia delicately puts it, is a thin branch stripped of leaves that is “most efficient — i.e. painful and durable — if made of a strong but flexible type of wood, such as hazel.”)
The Supreme Court has ruled that that kind of spanking — using a belt, switch or any other weapon of choice — is no longer legal in Canada.
Nor is slapping your kid in the face or punching her in the head.
What is legal is an open-hand slapping of the buttocks, bare or clothed, of a child who is between the seemingly arbitrary ages of two and 12.
The Justice Department didn’t respond to a Province request to discuss the issue, but in appearing before the Supreme Court it argued that allowing spanking is a valid compromise between the rights of parents and children.
The Supreme Court also ruled spanking is OK as long as it isn’t degrading, inhuman, due to a caregiver’s frustration or harmful, but is corrective, trifling and a transitory use of force. To which critics ask, what’s the point then?
Regardless, that’s as far as the state should intrude into the realm of child-rearing, groups such as Real Woman feel.
“We have been against the removal (of Section 43) all along,” Diane Watts of Real Women said. “Section 43 is about reasonable discipline, the reasonable use of force to discipline children, but not hurt children. Section 43 protects parents against being charged with assault when they use reasonable force.
“We don’t get into whether spanking is good or bad, but we are in favour of retaining Section 43.”
gordmcintyre@theprovince.com
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The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which Canada ratified in 1991, says corporal punishment is any use of physical force intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light.
The countries that have passed laws to ban all forms of corporal punishment are:
Ireland, Benin (2015);
Andorra, Estonia, Nicaragua, San Marino, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Malta (2014);
Cabo Verde, Honduras, TFYR Macedonia (2013);
South Sudan (2011);
Albania, Republic of Congo, Poland, Kenya, Tunisia (2010);
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Republic of Moldova, Costa Rica (2008);
Togo, Spain, New Zealand, Netherlands, Venezuela, Uruguay, Portugal (2007);
Greece (2006); Hungary (2005); Romania, Ukraine (2004); Iceland (2003); Turkmenistan (2002); Germany, Israel, Bulgaria (2000); Croatia (1999); Latvia (1998); Denmark (1997); Cyprus (1994); Austria (1989); Norway (1987); Finland (1983); Sweden (1979).
— Source: Global Initiative to End AllCorporal Punishment of Children
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