Evidence of meeting #47 for Status of Women in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was shelter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
Ms. Nguyen, could you speak so we can check to see if the interpretation is working?
Liberal
Chi Nguyen Liberal Spadina—Harbourfront, ON
I can repeat the question. It was about what was working well in the rapid housing initiative—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
Bear with us for a moment, colleagues. There's no interpretation.
Liberal
Liberal
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
We seem to be having trouble hearing you, Ms. Nguyen, so I'll give the floor to another colleague.
Ms. Nathan, the floor is yours.
Liberal
Juanita Nathan Liberal Pickering—Brooklin, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Through you, I'll ask this question of Sandy Torres. I want to ask about your research and some of the intersectionalities. The newcomer women....
The region I am from is Durham. It's east of Toronto. It's a GTA riding. We have a lot of South Asian communities and other communities moving in, and they often face language and cultural barriers when disclosing violence or accessing shelters.
Can you speak to this? In your research, how is housing insecurity compounded for immigrant and racialized women, specifically?
Researcher, Observatoire québécois des inégalités
Yes, some women are more exposed than others. In addition to being a woman, when you are a racialized woman, an immigrant woman or a woman living with a disability, you are more exposed to financial difficulties, discrimination in housing and trouble finding decent, adequate housing.
As for domestic violence, what I've seen is that there's a lack of data—I'm speaking for Quebec—because it's still an under-reported and underassessed problem. Therefore, it's hard to get a clear picture of what's going on. From what I read, immigrant women may also tend to under-report their situation even more than other women. That is an untested assumption, but it means that, in the statistics, the problem can be less apparent than it should be, because we know that these women are more affected. Qualitative research and interviews with immigrant women and stakeholders from community organizations demonstrate this.
Liberal
Juanita Nathan Liberal Pickering—Brooklin, ON
Thank you.
Your research further identifies indigenous women and women with disabilities as a particularly vulnerable group when adequate housing is unavailable. What should governments consider when designing housing responses for these particular populations, for women with disabilities?
Researcher, Observatoire québécois des inégalités
In my introduction, I set the stage a bit by saying what the Observatoire québécois des inégalités does. We definitely want to identify solutions, but we're not experts in solutions. We're going to do more tracking and bring together partners who have more specific expertise to suggest options.
What I can emphasize is the importance of a housing policy that coordinates short-term actions, but also provides a longer-term vision to meet the diverse needs of populations based on the constraints and difficulties they may experience. We need to take a longer-term view while solving the current problems. In Quebec, in any case, this overall vision is still sorely lacking. In Canada as well, in my opinion, it must be renewed and adapted to the problems we're seeing.
Liberal
Juanita Nathan Liberal Pickering—Brooklin, ON
Thank you.
This question is for Mr. Harris. What have you learned from operating both shelter services and long-term housing that could help government prevent homelessness rather than simply respond to it? I also want to add on to that to see how federal housing investments can best complement what municipalities and frontline organizations are already doing.
What I'm trying to get at is this. I know that federal governments don't directly give money. This is a one-off that we are doing right now with the housing builds we are going forward with. In Toronto and Ontario particularly, the province does not take on housing. It's the municipality that does. Can you talk a bit about that? Is that good or bad in terms of building more homes, especially for women who are fleeing violence?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
Mr. Harris, I am very distressed to have to interrupt you.
That concludes our first discussion with our first guests.
I'd like to thank each and every one of you for agreeing to speak with us and speaking from your heart. I wish you safe travels home.
I will suspend the meeting for a few moments before we begin our second meeting.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
Ladies and gentlemen, we are resuming the meeting.
I would like to give you a few instructions, as usual.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon—
Ms. Ménard, do you want to speak?
Liberal
Marie-Gabrielle Ménard Liberal Hochelaga—Rosemont-Est, QC
Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you.
We're at the beginning of the session. This is the first time we've heard from witnesses since our return, and I think there's a great lack of sensitivity in the room. There are a lot of colleagues who don't seem to be interested in the testimony and have been talking to each other throughout. Quite honestly, I find it distressing for this committee. I would like to be heard on this. The decorum that we have always had honours us, so I frankly find it distressing.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
The point has been made, Ms. Ménard. If I can improve decorum in this room, I'll gladly do so. I will pay particular attention to that. Thank you for the comment.
I'll go back to my instructions for the participants.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the raise hand function.
For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: either floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. I would like to remind the witnesses that committee members can ask their questions in French or English. If they need interpretation, I would ask them to take the time to select the desired channel.
We have two witnesses for this second hour: Mitzie Hunter, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Women's Foundation, and Kelly Tallon Franklin, chief executive officer of Courage for Freedom.
Ms. Tallon Franklin, the floor is yours for five minutes.
Kelly Tallon Franklin Chief Executive Director, Courage for Freedom
Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee, presenters and parliamentary staff.
My name is Kelly Tallon Franklin. I am a human-trafficking survivor, and I'm the CEO of Courage for Freedom, a survivor-led organization with experience working across Canadian provinces and territories, from urban centres to rural, remote and fly-in communities.
I'm here today to speak about the gap that survivors of human trafficking continue to experience, the gap between being removed from immediate danger and actually having somewhere to safely rebuild their lives.
Over the past weeks, I've been in communities including Winnipeg, Kenora, Rainy River, Hamilton, London, Chatham, Niagara, Windsor, Ottawa and Toronto. Months prior, I was in Coquitlam, Kamloops, Steinbach, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Moncton, Peel, Sudbury, and the beautiful landscapes on treaty and non-treaty lands. I've been on the waterways, airways, trains and highways, at borders and in remote areas. I've been in ethnic, faith, language, orientation, socio-economic and cultural communities in homes, apartments, shelters and even tents. What I continue to hear is remarkably consistent and deserves your attention today.
We are asking systems that were not designed for human-trafficking survivors to carry the responsibility for human-trafficking survivors. Emergency shelters and transitional housing are essential. Shelter workers are doing important work, so this is not a criticism of those workers or those shelters. The problem is that human trafficking has been added to systems that were largely designed around homelessness and intimate partner or domestic violence, without consistently providing the specialized infrastructure, funding, security, training and long-term supports that trafficking survivors need. This distinction matters.
The needs may overlap, but the circumstances of exploitation are very different. A trafficking survivor may be dealing with multiple perpetrators, multiple buyers, ongoing coercion, threats, surveillance, financial control, trauma bonds, and continued relationships with people connected not only to the exploitation but maybe even to the crimes. Leaving is not always a single event for them. It can be a process. When that process happens inside a system designed primarily for short-term emergency shelter, we can unintentionally create another cycle of their instability and even criminalize survivors.
A survivor leaves exploitation, and there is no appropriate transitional placement, so they go to a shelter. The shelter cannot safely meet the level of security and specialized support required, so the survivor leaves or is transferred out. Then they move again, and the question becomes this: Where do they go next? That is the gap I am asking this committee to address.
We cannot define success as simply getting someone out of immediate danger. We need to create a pathway from safety to homed stability. This is particularly urgent with young people involved in the child welfare system. In the national report of shelters in 2025, there was a marked increase in that demographic.
When young people are already vulnerable to trafficking and we're moving them among group homes, foster placements, emergency shelters and hotels—and when even couch surfing becomes one of the arrangements—we are jeopardizing not only their safety but also their lives. We need to stop treating repeated placement changes as a solution. We need specialized options that recognize trafficking risks and provide continuities of care.
There's also a geographic inequity. A survivor should not have to leave their community, culture, family, school, employment and existing support networks simply because specialized housing does not exist. This is especially important in rural, northern, remote and fly-in communities.
There is another issue I really want to emphasize. It's that survivors are not the problem. Sometimes behaviours associated...cause them to be problematic. It happens when staff do not know what to do or how to look after them because they have a myriad of other issues that they're dealing with.
I'm asking the committee to consider five recommendations.
First, recognize human-trafficking housing as a specialized service need rather than assuming that existing shelter infrastructures can continue to absorb it—and failing.
Second, establish consistent human trafficking-informed standards of practice for trafficking-specific emergency and transitional shelters.
Third, provide stable, ongoing funding for specialized housing, security, staffing, training and wraparound supports to keep the community safe.
Fourth, build a genuine housing continuum—from emergency safety to transitional housing to permanent housing—for all women and girls.
Fifth, survivor leadership should not simply be inviting me to a committee. It should be asking us to review what your recommendations are before you finalize them.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
Thank you, Ms. Tallon Franklin. That will be the last word, but you will have the opportunity to come back to these recommendations with my colleagues.
Good afternoon, Ms. Hunter. You have the floor for five minutes.
Mitzie Hunter President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Women's Foundation
Thank you so much.
Good evening, everyone. It is so great to be here. Thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee today on behalf of the Canadian Women's Foundation, which is Canada's public foundation for gender equality and justice.
The work of the Canadian Women's Foundation and of the organizations we support takes place on traditional first nations, Métis and Inuit territories. We're grateful for the opportunity to meet and work on this land.
The foundation advances gender justice and equality by growing support for grassroots feminist action, partnering with community organizations and building diverse leadership and knowledge for sustainable change. For more than three decades, we have addressed gender-based violence through funding, public education, research and advocacy. Since 1991 our generous donors and supporters have contributed over $290 million to fund over 3,500 life-transforming programs throughout Canada, in every province and territory. Many of those are focused on gender-based violence, or GBV.
GBV shelters and transitional housing provide women, children and gender-diverse people leaving violence with access to safe and supportive living spaces. Funded five decades ago with a one-time grant, the shelter movement has led responses to GBV, expanding services and providing a pathway to living safely in community. Today, in addition to refuge from violence, shelters provide a range of essential services that include school liaison; accompaniment to medical, legal and administrative appointments; financial literacy; and housing workers. They are currently operating at a crisis level.
In terms of capacity pressures, what we're seeing is that it's severe across the shelter continuum. It is directly tied to the national housing and affordability crisis. Shelters are routinely operating above what is officially funded as the demand for services continues to increase. Because of the housing and affordability crisis, survivors are extending their stays in shelters, which means that fewer beds and units are available for new survivors. A report from Women's Shelters Canada shows that shelters provide services for increasingly diverse populations with complex needs and strive to fill system gaps, but capacity constraints and chronic underfunding make this work difficult.
A DAWN Canada report shows that accessibility should be the standard, not an afterthought. Disabled and deaf women, girls and gender-diverse people in Canada experience GBV at disproportionate rates. We need to fund and enforce physical, sensory, cognitive and communication accessibility, ensuring that shelters and transitional housing allow children and provide disability-related support.
The median year of GBV shelter construction in Canada is 1981, which means that half the shelter stock is at least 45 years old. Almost half, or 45%, will require major repairs. A further 31% are in need of minor repairs. Of those needing repairs, 53% lack the required funding. These older structures are much less likely to include accessibility features for people with disabilities. Again, infrastructure and uneven accessibility have emerged as among the most urgent and persistent challenges, particularly in remote, northern and indigenous shelters.
Accessibility barriers remain entrenched, with fewer shelters being fully accessible. Less than half of shelters, or 48%, are generally accessible for wheelchairs and mobility devices. These infrastructure and accessibility issues can force shelters to turn away survivors with accessibility needs or place them in spaces that do not fully meet their needs, undermining safety, dignity and inclusion. In some remote regions, including Nunavut, accessibility challenges are nearly universal amongst surveyed shelters.
Older women are facing a shelter gap. The lack of affordable housing has become a significant issue in the prevention of the abuse of older women, especially in rural areas.
With only 15 shelters for older women—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dominique Vien
Ms. Hunter, I have to interrupt you. Thank you very much for the presentation.
We're going to begin the discussion with the members, and we'll start with our Conservative colleague.
Mrs. Borrelli, the floor is yours for six minutes.
Conservative
Kathy Borrelli Conservative Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Chair.
My first question is for Kelly Tallon Franklin.
Ms. Franklin, women may have different reasons for accessing shelters, but many women share a similar story in their pathways from being in an unsafe situation to securing support for stable housing. From your experience in working alongside women and children fleeing gender-based violence, can you describe the experiences and challenges they face in their effort to secure safe and secure housing?
Chief Executive Director, Courage for Freedom
Thank you for the important question.
I can speak directly to those who are exiting human trafficking and sexual exploitation who might have a history of domestic partner violence and interpersonal violence. That's usually intersected through their lives, but for those who are exiting and looking for assistance to find safe housing that's emergent and then ongoing and transitional, the needs of a human trafficking and sexual exploitation survivor, as quoted in the DSM-5, are different in the responses they need for their trauma.
I can give you a quote. There was actually a study done and a report put out in the province of Ontario by Hiatus House to shelter workers. One of the things that a brave shelter worker who was quoted said was that whatever workers say that they know, they don't know. What's missing is their “understanding of the complexities and the many faces of human trafficking, resulting in the under-identification of human trafficking experiences”, both within and outside the shelters. It gives survivors a feeling of “a lack of guidance and professionalism pertaining to their case management [and of] confidence [in] the course of action” that they could be provided. The support services actually can put survivors and clients within the shelter at risk. I'm quoting from the document.
The other thing I would say is that one of the issues is that we're trying to do more with less. In the 2026 national shelter survey summary and executive report, that's splashed across their banner. If you talk to any woman or girl who's been through the shelter system, they'll tell you what is going on, to the point that we're now seeing things like shelter shopping, and we're seeing things like regional referrals being refused. It's very harmful.
The worst-case scenarios are the continual transitions of women and girls, especially those with children, who are trying to keep their life together in one piece when, every six months, just when they feel like they're getting stabilized, a case manager is saying that it's time for them to go and they have nowhere for them to go.
Conservative
Kathy Borrelli Conservative Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON
It's interesting that you mentioned Hiatus House. Hiatus House provides services in my community of Windsor, and it does amazing work—
