Study on Aging Out of Foster Care

Moved:

That the first report of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, entitled Nothing to Celebrate: The Crisis of Youth Aging Out of Care, deposited with the Clerk of the Senate on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, be adopted and that, pursuant to rule 12-23(1), the Senate request a complete and detailed response from the government, with the Minister of Jobs and Families being identified as minister responsible for responding to the report, in consultation with the Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy, the Minister of Indigenous Services, and the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

She said: Honourable senators, I rise today as Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights to highlight the release of our report: Nothing to Celebrate: The Crisis of Youth Aging out of Care.

The report’s findings and recommendations are based on the committee’s 2024 study on the challenges that children and youth in Canada face as they age out of child protection systems and other forms of out-of-home care.

I’d like you, all for a moment, to think back to your eighteenth birthday. I imagine that, for many of us in this chamber, it was a happy occasion that marked a new and exciting stage of life. Perhaps you started college, university or your first full-time job. Maybe you moved to a new city or travelled to different countries. For the vulnerable youth at the heart of this report, a birthday around that age usually isn’t a milestone worth celebrating.

Too often, an arbitrary birthday triggers an abrupt and destabilizing transition out of care that leaves them without vital support services. As a result, these youth are left vulnerable to poverty, homelessness, mental health challenges and involvement with the criminal justice system. Even more vulnerable are Indigenous, Black and 2SLGBTQI+ children and youth who age out of care, as well as those with disabilities.

Youth protection and child and family services fall under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, so policies and legislation related to child welfare vary widely across Canada. Depending on where they live, youth in care might transition to independence as early as 16 years of age, or they might have supports available to them up to the age of 27. An accident of geography can be the difference between support and abandonment.

All children have a legal right to receive the level of care necessary for their well-being. Canada has a legal and ethical responsibility to protect, respect and fulfill that right at all levels of government. Yet, the committee heard unequivocally that our country is failing to meet its obligations and has been failing for decades. We are one of the very few Western countries that does not have national legislation or standards that support the transition to adulthood of youth in care.

This is not the first time the Human Rights Committee has sounded the alarm on this issue. In 2005 and 2007, it released an interim report and a final report on the rights of children. Those reports called on the federal government to establish an independent children’s commissioner and to improve supports for youth exiting the child protection system. Two decades of federal inaction later, the committee is now reissuing its previous recommendations, among others.

Of our eight recommendations, four call for specific systemic changes, while the rest call for the creation of direct supports. There is no single system to reform. Because of this, all levels of government and child protection agencies must work together so that youth in care across Canada thrive — and not just survive — from childhood to adulthood.

I invite all honourable senators to read the full report on the committee’s webpage and to join our calls for desperately needed change.

To conclude, the committee would like to sincerely thank all the witnesses who testified or submitted written materials for this study. It takes immense courage, strength and resilience to speak about distressing and traumatizing experiences. Our witnesses’ valuable insights were critical to our understanding of this important topic, and they helped inform the report’s final recommendations. We couldn’t have done it without them. Thank you. Meegwetch.