The issue of whether Omar Khadr had been a child soldier simply did not arise at the SCC.

However, his age was always a significant factor to the SCC (and the lower courts hearing his cases earlier on), as this excerpt from the 2010 SCC decision headnote reveals:

"The interrogation of a youth detained without access to counsel, to elicit statements about serious criminal charges while knowing that the youth had been subjected to sleep deprivation and while knowing that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects."