Canada has signed a significant number of international human rights treaties that are legally binding in international law, but the federal government believes that it can pick and choose among its obligations – according to the official document tabled at the United Nations’ Rights Council in Geneva today. The good news is that the federal government has accepted its responsibility to take a stronger role in ensuring all Canadians are adequately housed, but the federal government says that companion initiatives to address deep and persistent poverty and income inequality are mostly the responsibility of provinces and territories (and not the national government). The federal government refuses to officially incorporate its international rights obligations into domestic law (even though many other countries, including the United States, do this as a matter of course), it won’t ratify a new international agreement that allows for a more robust investigation of human rights violations within Canada and it won’t allow Canadian courts to take on cases involving international human rights violations.
Canada is in the midst of a Universal Periodic Review of all of its international human rights obligations, and member countries of the UN have raised 68 specific concerns about Canada’s failure to meet recognized international standards. Two of the main sources of international human rights law are the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – both of which have been ratified by Canada, along with a number of other international rights instruments.
International human rights cover a wide range of economic, social, cultural, civil and political activities (such as the right to vote, and the right not to be imprisoned without trial). The Wellesley Institute focuses much of our work on the internationally-recognized right to adequate housing, the right to health and the rights that relate to persistent inequalities (including poverty).
On housing and homelessness, the federal government dismantled most of Canada’s national housing program in the 1990s, and has replaced it in recent years with a fraying patchwork of short-term and unco-ordinated funding and initiatives at the national and sub-national level. Housing insecurity and homelessness are nation-wide realities. The feds have a series of short-term intiatives, including the Affordable Housing Initiative, the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program and the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, that only reach part of the country and aren’t adequately funded. In their response tabled in Geneva today, the federal government has promised to do better on housing and homelessness issues.
In order for Canada to meet the commitments that it is making today in Geneva to “intensify” its housing and homelessness work, the federal government needs to follow the practical strategy set out by Miloon Kothari, the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, whose final report on his official fact-finding mission to Canada contains a series of pragmatic suggestions to bring Canada into compliance with its international housing rights obligations.
Other national and international NGOs are preparing their own analyses of today’s report from Canada to the UN, and we’ll post links as they are available.