Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Bill C-97 tonight.
My name is Anita Khanna and I'm the national director of public policy and government relations for United Way Centraide Canada. We are a federated network of member offices serving more than 5,000 communities across Canada. In 2019, our movement is marking our 100th year. Across Canada, United Ways and Centraides engage Canadians through a network of individual donors, service agencies and labour and business partners to make poverty and exclusion unignorable.
Today, United Way is an essential part of Canada's social fabric. We inject half a billion dollars into important social programs annually, making strategic investments that are based on local evidence to support the most vulnerable.
My remarks today will focus on divisions 19 and 20 in clause 313 of Bill C-97, the national housing strategy act and the poverty reduction act. Each proposed act is an important social policy milestone for Canada. They represent history in the making and we must get them right, for this generation and for future ones.
Strong evidence shows that federal leadership on housing and poverty is essential to building strong communities. This is why we actively drew on our national network of local experts to ground our policy recommendations for the poverty and the national housing strategies. We are very pleased to see that both acts include many of United Way Centraide Canada's recommendations.
United Way Centraide local members are leaders in evidence-based community investment for lasting social change and impact. As such, we have proposed changes to strengthen the housing and the poverty strategies over the last years. Most recently, we sent a letter to the Hon. Bill Morneau calling for amendments to clarify and strengthen the human rights elements of division 19, the housing legislation.
These included clear recognition of housing as a human right, consistent with international law; outlining a clear monitoring role for the housing council; ensuring the independence of the advocate outside of the national housing strategy; and including through reporting as well as mandating the housing advocate to receive and investigate petitions identifying systemic housing rights issues.
We believe these and other amendments outlined in the letter I distributed, which was sent to the Hon. Bill Morneau, will strengthen the human rights accountability of the national housing strategy act. These are necessary to align with Canada's human rights commitments and also to begin to truly establish Canada as a world leader in legislating the progressive realization of the right to housing.
Within the proposed poverty reduction act, in division 20, we welcome the elements specified: Targets, timelines, robust measurement and the advisory council. In the spirit of continuous improvement, United Way Centraide Canada recommends the following amendments:
Strengthening the overarching target of the poverty reduction strategy outlined in 6(b) so that the stated goal of the legislation is to achieve the end of poverty in Canada. The current 50% reduction aligns with the minimum standard of the UN's sustainable development goals. Given Canada has met its 20% reduction target ahead of schedule, we urge the government to adopt a more ambitious approach to poverty reduction.
Further, in section 11, the poverty reduction act currently calls for the dissolution of the national advisory council on poverty once the, "Minister is of the opinion that the level of poverty in Canada has been reduced by 50% below the level of poverty in 2015." Given the ultimate goal we have outlined for the elimination of poverty, we call for the removal of this clause so that the council can continue its work until poverty is eliminated.
Our final recommendation also relates to the national advisory council on poverty. We are extremely pleased to see the council positioned as an independent body with a membership reflecting the diversity of Canadians, including those with lived experience of poverty and indigenous communities.
We believe that the council's resourcing will ultimately be what determines its independence. Looking back at the experience of the National Welfare Council, we note that that council was eliminated by the stroke of a budgetary pen. For this council to avoid that same fate, we must have an independent source of income sufficient to meet its mandate on an ongoing basis.
In a paper by Michael Mendelson for United Way Centraide Canada, we have identified that this could be done, for example, through the creation of a dedicated endowment fund. This would guarantee public accountability and efficient management of those funds. We further propose that the council be subject to the financial oversight of the Auditor General.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important process. United Way is ever committed to working with all parties and our business, labour and community partners to build stronger, more prosperous communities for all.
Thank you.