Madam Speaker, I want to begin by stating that contrary to what was said, the Minister of Justice strongly endorses the premise of Bill S-11 and the hon. member's desire to take a concrete step forward to assist the poor in Canada.
To be denied services, accommodation or employment because one is poor is totally unacceptable in Canada and totally unacceptable by this government.
All Canadians are justifiably proud of their human rights protection. We believe strongly in the inherent worth and dignity of each member of society. If we are serious about protecting the poor, I believe we should do it right.
This government will soon be announcing a comprehensive review of the Canadian Human Rights Act. This review will give us the opportunity to look very seriously at how we can best enhance human rights protection for the poor in this country.
If we really wish to ensure adequate human rights protection for all Canadians, then we must proceed in a thoughtful and principled manner. We need to look at what human rights need to be protected and how they can be protected in the federal sector. In our opinion, this can best be done in the context of examining the Canadian Human Rights Act as a whole.
The present government is proud of its human rights achievements. We amended the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and we brought in legislation requiring that all victims of discrimination be accommodated.
Recently, we passed a bill to facilitate the integration of the disabled into the criminal justice system. We also increased compensation to victims of human rights discrimination and improved the structure of the human rights tribunal. We have brought about advances in the protection of human rights in Canada.
Our government's efforts to improve the rights of the disabled recently won recognition. During a visit to the United States, our Prime Minister was presented with the Franklin Delano Roosevelt award, an award given to the country that has most advanced the rights of the disabled.
The government has improved the CHRA in a time when some would limit or dismantle the protection given to the most vulnerable in our society. The Minister of Justice is not content to rest on these improvements. She is committed to an examination of the act in its entirety.
In September the auditor general indicated, first, that the current act needed to be modified to better serve Canadians and, second, that the Canadian Human Rights Commission needed updating in order to process complaints more efficiently.
These are some recommendations that merit a careful review. We understand that there are other concerns that also need to be addressed. This is why the Minister of Justice will soon be announcing the process for the comprehensive review. It is because we are launching the review that I am saying let us wait for the review to examine how we can best prevent discrimination against the poor.
It seems curious that we would begin to launch into examination of the prohibited grounds of discrimination under the CHRA on the eve of a more fulsome review of all aspects of the legislation. To simply add a new ground that is not well understood and may not produce the results that we all desire will not help the poor.
An overly simplistic response in the absence of a detailed analysis on this very important issue could result in endless litigation. That is not what we all want. We want changes to policies and programs to ensure that the already disadvantaged in our society are not further disadvantaged by attitudes and treatments that do not respect the dignity of all members of the human family.
While we believe it would be responsible at this time for the government to expand the prescribed ground of discrimination to take into account the real needs of the poor, I would like to make it clear we are not suggesting for a moment that we do not need to ensure that the act provides protection for the poor. For example, I am well aware of the recent provincial report on homelessness released in Toronto known as the Golden report which clearly demonstrates the need to address many of the problems facing the poor.
At the top of the list the problems confronting the poor in Canada is the issue of affordable housing. I would like to discuss this problem in some detail as it is a problem raised by some of the senators in supporting the bill and by many of the witnesses that appeared before the Senate committee.
Without question discrimination and accommodation is a serious problem that must be addressed. Individuals on social assistance, particularly single, separated or divorced mothers, face many burdens in obtaining any form of accommodation. The Golden report documents that the face of homelessness has changed and indeed there are now entire families that are homeless.
An Ontario Board of Inquiry, the Human Rights Code, December 22, 1998 decision in Kearney v Bramale Ltd., questioned the rules pertaining to the portion of an individual's income that can be allotted for accommodation. This income testing rule was held to be unfair as it unduly limited the small pool of housing available to the poor. There is a wide divergence across Canada in human rights codes and the use of terminology covering discrimination against the poor.
In Ontario, for example, the Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination on the basis of receipt of public assistance. It is this ground, along with the grounds of sex, marital status, citizenship, place of origin and family status, which is used in the Kearney case to challenge the income testing rules used by some landlords to determine eligibility to rent an apartment and which has as its impact the effect of denying housing to many individuals with a low income. It should be noted that the existence of a social condition type ground in Ontario is limited to occupancy and accommodation situations.
By comparison, in British Columbia the residential tenancy act prohibits discrimination on the basis of lawful source of income. Yet it is interesting to note that these two provinces only use this ground to prohibit discrimination in the field of accommodation.
Let me continue to review the provincial human rights legislation on this issue. In addition to Ontario and British Columbia, which I have already mentioned, in Alberta the human rights and multiculturalism act includes source of income as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Manitoba and Nova Scotia have a ground called source of income. Newfoundland protects social origin. Saskatchewan protects receipt of public assistance. Yukon, Northwest Territories and P.E.I. do not protect any poverty related ground directly. New Brunswick on December 9, 1998, introduced an amendment to the human rights act to add social condition.
Overall we can see there is diversity in the use and application of the term social condition. For the most part the term is used to apply to situations involving accommodation. In the federal sector there is very little residential accommodation outside housing for military, RCMP or foreign service officers.
Adding the ground of social condition to prohibit discrimination in housing is not necessarily a practical solution as housing is primarily a provincial matter. In this it may be that in the provincial context that the ground of social condition may have a greater impact.
At the present time, Quebec is the only province to ban discrimination on the basis of social condition. It added this to its legislation texts in 1976. It would be worthwhile to examine the repercussions arising in Quebec from its inclusion.
The term “social condition” refers to an individual's place in society. This is determined by a number of factors, particularly family background, employment, level of education, and physical capacities. The connection between social condition and the discrimination must be proven. A cause and effect relationship must be demonstrated in each case.
Even in Quebec, where the definition of “social condition” is a broader one, the majority of complaints relate to cases where an individual has been refused accommodation.
In this province there has been a few limited cases involving employment situations. In the case of Lambert v. Quebec, ministère du Tourisme, the complainant was in receipt of social security benefits. He participated in a government work program that provided him with less than the minimum wage. To permit someone on social assistance to receive less than the minimum wage was held to be discriminatory.
Now let us turn to the federal context. As I have stated, there is less scope for discrimination against the poor in the context of residential housing as this field is primarily a provincial jurisdiction. However there are other issues that do need to be examined in the federal sector.
We have all heard from Canadians about concerns raised with regard to situations that may arise in the banking and the telecommunications sectors, although the banks have made more recent changes to ensure that low income individuals have better access to banking services. Groups such as the National Anti-Poverty Organization have alleged that the banks may in certain situations discriminate against the poor. I am not in a position to judge or even comment on these allegations.
However, before we can amend the law we need to know the exact nature of the problem and how and whether we can resolve it with the human rights legislation. In other words the government is proposing a comprehensive review of the Canadian Human Rights Act in order to make sure that we do it properly.