Canadian Indicators for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

On this page

• Introduction
• General notes
• In this report

Introduction

This report provides indicators for selected articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities' (CRPD). These indicators are based on Canadian data.

Canada ratified the CRPD on March 11, 2010. The CRPD is an international human rights treaty. It is aimed at protecting the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities without discrimination and on an equal basis with others. The CPRD requires all parties to the convention to promote and make sure persons with disabilities enjoy full human rights. This includes full equality under the law.

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) has prepared this report. Data from Statistics Canada forms the basis for the indicators. It includes data from the Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) and other surveys. As new data becomes available, we will add more indicators or update existing indicators. The report includes indicators for the following articles:

• article 5 - equality and non-discrimination
• article 9 - accessibility
• article 10 - right to life
• article 16 - freedom from exploitation, violence, and abuse
• article 19 - living independently and being included in the community
• article 20 - personal mobility
• article 24 - education
• article 25 - health
• article 27 - work and employment
• article 28 - adequate standard of living and social protection
• article 29 - participation in political and public life
• article 30 - participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport

General notes

Gender vs Sex^{Footnote 1}:Gender refers to an individual's personal and social identity as a man, woman, or non-binary person (a person who is not exclusively a man or a woman). The measure of gender is different from the measure of "sex" that can be found in other parts of this report. The measure of men and women under the term "gender" refers to the respondents' current gender, which may be distinct from what was assigned at birth and/or their current legal documents. To protect the data confidentiality of non-binary respondents, who constitute a very small sample, non-binary respondents have been redistributed into the men and women categories in the survey data used in this report.

In accordance with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's Policy Direction to Modernize the Government of Canada's Sex and Gender Information Practices (2018), Statistics Canada has indicated that beginning in 2021 the gender variable is expected to be used by default in most census standard data tables and analyses. In order to conform with this change, the indicators based on data from the most recent surveys (which included a gender variable) report the results by "Gender" rather than "Sex".

Rounding: For the sake of simplicity, the reported estimates were rounded to the nearest whole percentage. This provides a broad perspective on persons with disabilities.

Disability Screening Questions (DSQ): The survey data used to develop the indicators in this report relies on the DSQ to identify persons with disabilities. Analysts developed these questions between 2010 and 2012. The questions provide a measure of disability based on the social model of disability which includes activity limitations to identify a disability. The social model of disability recognizes:

• that disability is linked to a person and to the degree of difficulty they have with certain tasks
• the level of impairment they experience
• the possible existence of a health condition
• that the person's environment as a key factor in determining disability

Target populations for data sources used in this report:

• CSD 2017: The population covered by the CSD includes all persons aged 15 and over (as of May 10th, 2016, Census Day), and who reported having difficulty "Sometimes", "Often" or "Always" to one of the Activities of Daily Living questions on the 2016 Census of Population long form. This included persons living in private dwellings in the 10 provinces and 3 territories. The survey did not include persons living on a First Nations reserve. Neither included were persons living in collective dwellings, such as institutional residences and Canadian Armed Forces bases
• CIS 2020: This is a Canada-wide survey, including all provinces and territories. It covers all individuals in Canada. It excludes:
  • persons living on reserves and other Indigenous settlements in the provinces
  • the institutionalized population
  • households in remote areas with very low population density

  Overall, these exclusions amount to less than 2% of the population

• GSS 2020: The target population for the 2020 General Social Survey is all non-institutionalized persons and non-residents of First Nations reserves 15 years of age or older, living in the 10 provinces of Canada
• GSS 2019: The target population for the GSS on Canadians' Safety is the Canadian population aged 15 and over, living in the provinces and territories. It does not include Canadians residing in institutions
• GSS 2018: The target population for the 2018 General Social Survey is all non-institutionalized persons 15 years of age or older, living in the 10 provinces of Canada
• GSS 2016: The target population for the survey is non-institutionalized persons 15 years of age or older, living in the 10 provinces. For the survey, a single eligible member of each sampled household is randomly selected by the computer program to complete the questionnaire, after the roster is completed
• GSS 2015: The target population for the survey is non-institutionalized persons 15 years of age or older, living in the 10 provinces. For the survey, a single eligible member of each sampled household is randomly selected by the computer program to complete the questionnaire, after the roster is completed
• SSPPS 2018: The target population for the 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces is all non-institutionalized persons 15 years of age or older, living in the 10 provinces or 3 territories of Canada

In this report

1. Article 5: equality and non-discrimination
2. Article 9: accessibility
3. Article 10: right to life
4. Article 16: freedom from exploitation, violence, and abuse
5. Article 19: living independently and being included in the community
6. Article 20: personal mobility
7. Article 24: education
8. Article 25: health
9. Article 27: work and employment
10. Article 28: adequate standard of living and social protection
11. Article 29: participation in political and public life
12. Article 30: participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport