Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Bill C-97.
This afternoon I'd like to speak briefly about the national housing strategy act contained within Bill C-97 and the right to housing.
For most Canadians, a home is something we take for granted. Unfortunately, for far too many Canadians, the lack of housing is a matter of life and death. Homelessness is experienced by 235,000 different Canadians every year, at an estimated cost of over $7 billion annually. Homelessness in Canada is on the same scale as our worst natural disasters, but unlike those disasters, homelessness is man-made.
Homelessness as we see it today has not always existed. Modern mass homelessness in Canada is a result of policy choices made largely by the federal government in the late 1980s and 1990s, specifically, decisions to eliminate affordable housing programs.
The national housing strategy begins to reverse those choices. Embedding the right to housing in the national housing strategy act as federal policy will ensure not only that Canada places in law important protections for vulnerable Canadians, but also that we can hardwire into the national housing strategy measures that will make it more effective.
The national housing strategy act makes a policy commitment to the progressive realization of the right to housing, consistent with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; creates an independent housing advocate supported by the Canadian Human Rights Commission; establishes a national housing council with explicit inclusion of people with lived experience of homelessness and inadequate housing; and commits to ensuring the participation of affected communities.
However, as it's written, the national housing strategy act lacks essential elements of a workable human rights accountability framework. Some additional elements need to be added for the legislation to implement an effective, rights-based approach, as promised when the national housing strategy was introduced in November 2017 and as required to bring Canada in line with international human rights standards.
We've been in ongoing conversations with the government and parliamentarians on a few simple amendments so that the national housing strategy act would establish a monitoring role for the housing council that does not simply provide advice, but tracks progress on implementing the progressive realization of the right to housing; that mandates the housing advocate to receive and investigate petitions identifying systemic housing rights issues and assess progress on the progressive implementation on the right to housing; that makes specific recommendations to the minister that the minister must respond to; and that establishes a procedure for the housing advocate to refer important systemic housing rights issues to public hearings before a three-person panel drawn from the housing council, ensuring that affected groups have a voice and that the panel's recommendations will be considered by the minister.
Legislation implementing a rights-based national housing strategy provides a historic opportunity for the federal government to address as a priority critical human rights issues at home and, at the same time, to provide leadership on human rights internationally.
This is the first time in Canada's history that legislation recognizing the right to housing has been introduced, and it's critical that we take the time to do it right. In the national housing strategy act, the government provides an historic policy commitment to the right to housing, but that commitment must include mechanisms to ensure that this historic policy commitment is meaningfully implemented.
Thank you very much.