Last year, we began putting the systems in place to monitor the right to housing in Canada. One of the Federal Housing Advocate's roles is to keep track of how Canada is doing on the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing. Having comprehensive monitoring tools and frameworks that are grounded in human rights will help us to see what progress Canada is making and where we still need to improve.
Building the big picture
In 2021-2022, we partnered with Statistics Canada to release a series of fact sheets on housing experiences in Canada, which shed light on the disproportionate levels of housing need across disadvantaged groups.
Disaggregated data as well as human rights-based indicators and measurement tools are critical to understanding systemic housing issues and proposing practical recommendations and solutions.
We must give decision-makers access to the best information available to understand how inequality takes shape in our housing system and who it impacts most. We must also provide statistics and analysis in an easy to understand format to empower citizens impacted by inadequate housing and homelessness to communicate their housing needs.
In November 2021, we launched the first ten of 24 fact sheets examining the housing experiences of different population groups in Canada.
The reliable, disaggregated data produced by this partnership is key to help us understand who is being left behind and how we can focus our solutions on the most disadvantaged as we remedy the inequalities in our housing system.
We will continue to work with Statistics Canada and other stakeholders to ensure that disaggregated and human rights-based data is accessible and is being used to guide reforms to legislation, policies and programs that affect housing.
Developing a monitoring framework
Over the past year, we gathered research and information as well as collaborated with partners on how we can establish an effective monitoring framework to track progress on housing and homelessness in Canada.
The unique legislated role of the Federal Housing Advocate means that there is little precedent internationally to inform its monitoring duties. We are therefore developing a “made-in-Canada” approach informed by engagement with experts, rights holders and duty bearers, and international good practices.
We are also collaborating with the Canadian Human Rights Commission's National Monitoring Mechanism (NMM), whose mandate is to monitor the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. In its 2020 engagement, the NMM received feedback from rights holders to prioritise issues of housing and disability. We will work together to coordinate efforts to create a consistent human rights-based approach to our respective monitoring duties.
Throughout 2021-2022, we met on a preliminary basis with the NMM and a range of experts to discuss our respective monitoring duties. These meetings included national Indigenous organizations and leaders, people with lived expertise, civil society organizations, both the current and former Special Rapporteurs on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal and Leilani Farha respectively, academics, and federal departments responsible for housing policy.
We also worked with a human rights legal expert to provide advice and direction on draft human rights-based principles, targets and indicators for monitoring housing and disability rights. This advice will help us continue our participatory engagement and inform our work to establish targets, indicators and tools for implementing and monitoring the right to adequate housing.
As part of our monitoring work related to the National Housing Strategy, we partnered with experts to gather the research that is detailed throughout this report. This research and advice contributed to the Recommendations to the Minister in this report and will continue to inform the Advocate's assessment and recommendations of the Strategy.
The Advocate's monitoring duties will help to provide the Minister responsible for housing and other decision-makers with a solid evidence base to make necessary policy and legislative reforms to address systemic housing issues in Canada.