Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to address this committee. My name Harriett McLachlan, the interim deputy director of Canada Without Poverty, and I am joined this afternoon by CWP's legal education and outreach worker Michèle Biss.
For those who are not aware of our organization, Canada Without Poverty is a non-partisan, not-for-profit, charitable organization dedicated to the ending of poverty in Canada. The organization was created in 1971 as an outcome of the Poor People's Conference, a national gathering of low-income individuals, as the National Anti-Poverty Organization, or NAPO. Since that time, CWP's board of directors is comprised entirely of people with a lived experience of poverty.
In Canada, 4.8 million people, or one in seven, live in poverty, including 1.2 million children. Poverty, homelessness, and food insecurity also disproportionately impact marginalized groups across the country, including persons with disabilities, single parents, women, racialized persons, indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ2S youth.
While budget 2018 must look towards solutions to the staggering rates of poverty in this country, Canada also has a legal obligation to address the violations of human rights that poverty, homelessness, and food insecurity represent. As signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other human rights treaties, Canada is obliged under international human rights law to meet the right to housing, food, work, health, and an adequate standard of living. Adherence to these human rights obligations would also be an important step forward, towards the commitment and further realization of the UN's sustainable development goals.