Blog

In June 2008 the Canadian Policy Research Network and Ontario Trillium Foundation held a roundtable of government and business leaders on indicators to measure and help guide planning for healthy and vibrant communities. A useful primer and range of presentations have been published.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission, an independent agency that reports to the provincial Legislature, released a dynamic new report today called “Right at Home” that is both historic and ground-breaking. The report draws powerful links between international housing rights – which have been ratified by the Canadian government – and Ontario’s desperate crisis of housing insecurity and homelessness. Most importantly, it sets out a framework of action starting with a call for a national housing strategy (Canada is one of the few major countries in the world without a national housing strategy), then sets out a series of practical actions aimed at all levels of government, the Ontario government in particular, partners in the development of affordable housing, social housing providers, private-market housing providers, service providers and the Ontario Human Rights Commission itself.

Don Mount Court is the first public housing project in Toronto to be redeveloped - coming in just ahead of Regent Park, the biggest and oldest public housing neighbourhood in this city (which has started the redevelopment process). Don Mount, in the east end of downtown Toronto, had to be redeveloped because a growing number of the buildings were unfit for human habitation. The official opening for the new Don Mount - now called Rivertowne - was held yesterday.

Toronto Community Housing Company, the city's housing agency, faces the tough job of managing the biggest housing portfolio in the country (the second largest in North America) with precious little support from senior levels of government. TCHC is forced to cannibalize its portfolio by selling-off bits and pieces of its land and housing in order to finance the long over-due redevelopment. If senior levels of government (especially the negligent federal government) paid their fair share, then TCHC would have much more flexibility with the redevelopment plans and could more effectively address the social and economic issues facing its almost 60,000 tenant households. 

There is widespread recognition that local community driven initiatives play a key role in alleviating health disparities. Determine, the second stage of the EU's Closing the Gap project, has created a detailed report highlighting some innovative bottom-up case studies from around that world that deal with health equity.

All eyes will be on the Ontario Human Rights Commission on Tuesday morning as it releases the first-ever (for Canada) official report on the human right to adequate housing.

Human rights function as both a moral ideal and as a “deeply pragmatic political tool” at both the international and national levels, to paraphrase Professor Conor Gearty, the Director of the London School of Economics Centre for the Study of Human Rights. In other words, the rights-based approach to housing allows us to set realistic goals and at the same time implement practical and effective solutions.

Last fall, the Wellesley Institute sponsored a community forum on the international right to adequate housing with Miloon Kothari, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, who was on an official fact-finding mission to Canada. OHRC Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall was a guest speaker at that forum, and in her comments she made a strong link between the international right to adequate housing guaranteed in dozens of treaties, covenants and other legal instruments, and the realities of massive and growing housing insecurity in Toronto and throughout Ontario.

The Fraser Institute says it wants to launch a national debate on urban issues, but its first urban "alert" offers remarkably thin gruel – especially compared to more authoritative surveys released by others over the past year.

Two principal contributors – right-wing ex-politicians Mike Harris (former premier of Ontario) and Preston Manning – promise to launch "a national dialogue and understanding of urban issues" as part of their "Strong and Free Canada" (their capitals) initiative.

The "Fraser Alert" on Toronto was released in late June. It lacks the usual bombastic rhetoric that emanates from the business-backed organization that proudly proclaims its faith in uncontrolled, unregulated and undemocratic private markets.

The headline "Is Toronto in decline?" has an uncharacteristically equivocal question mark, something we don’t expect from an outfit that is almost always loud and firm in its opinions.

The increasingly troubling socio-economic landscape in Toronto and the surrounding metropolitan region has been well documented in previous studies, including: