Media Release For immediate release July 6, 2018 Opinion Survey Finds Most British Columbians Unaware That Children Allowed to Work at 12 Years of Age Vancouver – A June public opinion survey commissioned by First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition found that only 6% of British Columbians could MORE
The BC Employment Standards Coalition released a report on Labour Day titled Workers’ Stories of Exploitation & Abuse: Why BC Employment Standards Need to Change that cites previous research and reports by First Call on the deregulation of child labour in BC and its impact on children and youth (pages 32-33). The MORE
The Honourable Shane Simpson, Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, has reached out to both the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition and First Call for preliminary consultations on a poverty reduction plan for BC. The PRC met with the Minister and staff on August 10, and First Call conducted a MORE
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2016, set ambitious targets that apply to rich countries as well as poor. The most telling sign of a nation’s progress towards meeting those goals will be how well it meets the needs of its children. The June 2017 UNICEF report card, Building the Future: MORE
WorkSafeBC has two campaigns to try to prevent youth workers from injury this year. Listen to Your Gut, is aimed at young workers, and What I Know Now targets their employers. According to WorkSafeBC, more than 32,000 workers aged 15 to 24 were hurt on the job between 2012 and 2016, and of these, 3,600 were injured seriously. MORE
First Call congratulates all new ministers on their appointments, and we look forward to educating key ministers about the work of First Call and addressing issues and recommendations related to our 4 Keys to Success. The First Call BC Election Toolkit addressed key policy areas, noted below, which we look MORE
Due to lack of data, Canada is not ranked on three key indicators in the index of countries in Stolen Childhoods, End of Childhood, a new report from Save the Children: Malnourishment and the percentage of stunting among children under 5, the percentage of school-age children out of school, and MORE
The BC Employment Standards Coalition has released its report Workers’ Stories of Exploitation & Abuse: Why BC Employment Standards Need to Change – Summary Report. This summary report includes some of the more than 145 stories gathered from 11 Workers’ Story Forums and puts forwards proposals for change to the MORE
On behalf of our 101 member organizations, First Call sent questions from our 2017 Provincial Election Toolkit to each of the three main parties in this election. All three parties have responded, and we encourage everyone to read their answers to our questions about putting the interests of children, youth MORE
The BC Employment Standards Coalition has scheduled another series of Workers Story Forums around Metro Vancouver: Wednesday, Feb. 15 – Surrey Recreation Centre/Arena (across from Surrey Central Skytrain Station), 12-7 pm Wednesday, Feb. 22 – New Westminster, Douglas College Student Union, 12-7 pm Thursday, Feb. 23 – Vancouver Community College MORE
A recent Employment Standards Tribunal decision on an appeal found that Colebrook Farms contravened the Employment Standards Act by employing an 11-year-old boy to pick blue berries without the permission of the director of Employment Standards and not paying the boy for the berries that he picked. This incident demonstrates MORE
The BC government has provided funding to the BC Law Institute to review the Employment Standards Act. The BC Employment Standards Coalition is holding public forums around Metro Vancouver to ensure workers’ stories are heard. It’s an opportunity for workers who have experienced unjust treatment in their jobs to speak to an MORE
Why should kids work at 12?, ask Catherine Evans and Adrienne Montani of First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition in this op-ed published July 11, 2016, in the Vancouver Sun. In 2004, when the B.C. government lowered the work start age to 12, our province became an outlier MORE
One of First Call’s long-time recommendations has been acted on by the new federal government. On June 8, the Canadian government announced it has ratified the International Labour Organization’s Minimum Age Convention, 1973. The minimum working age in Canada of 15 will come into effect June 2017. First Call has MORE
On May 11 Mable Elmore, MLA for Vancouver-Kensington, made a private member’s statement in the Legislature about BC’s inadequate protections for children and youth in the workforce. Read her statement and the reply from Linda Larson, MLA for Boundary-Similkameen in Hansard: (scroll down to [1050]) First Call’s research report, Child MORE