Finance committee  Good afternoon and thank you. I am Leilani Farha, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing. I was appointed to this position by the UN Human Rights Council in 2014. In this capacity, my role is to monitor and assess the enjoyment and implementation of the ri

Finance committee  Thanks for your comments and your question. I'm deeply concerned about the state of housing and homelessness for indigenous peoples in this country. It's completely unacceptable, so yes, of course, there should be both: a separate strategy for indigenous peoples and housing, bot

Finance committee  Though it wasn't a question, I will just reference it. I take your point well. There isn't a place I've been in the world where there isn't poverty and homelessness, rural, suburban and in cities, so I take your point. It was a short statement and one sentence.

Finance committee  Thanks for that interesting comment and question. Absolutely, I've been working quite extensively at the municipal level in the last couple of years. Interestingly, my conversations with municipal governments are the same as my conversations with national or federal governments,

Finance committee  It depends on the context. Every city is different, the way in which zoning works or doesn't work—

Finance committee  Sorry—

Finance committee  Examples of what?

Finance committee  I'm not sure of the relevance of this to the legislation that we're talking about today, but seeing as you're interested, in Dublin, for example, there's a real issue of developers sitting on land and waiting for that land to have increased value before they do anything with it.

Finance committee  Perhaps you misunderstand my job, Mr. Poilievre. I am the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing. I generally interact with national-level governments.

Finance committee  When I interact with city-level governments, the discussion is about human rights and housing. Those discussions tend toward discussions around what would the right to adequate housing look like if it were implemented in a city. In that case, I don't meddle in the details of a c

Finance committee  Could I please finish?

Finance committee  Your interaction with me is unfortunately rather predictable.

Finance committee  It would be essential that the housing advocate be independent because they would be reviewing the policies and programs of CMHC and the ministry.

Finance committee  Absolutely, and I would iterate that it should only be systemic complaints, actually.

Finance committee  Absolutely. I mean, that's simply just good practice of accountability and transparency.