“Do I ghost her again?” » | Minister Duranceau’s office ignores questions about the right to housing

(Saint-Jean) The office of the Minister of Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, prefers to openly ignore the requests of journalists.

This is what an email obtained by The Canadian Press reveals.

The minister’s office was questioned about the recognition of the right to housing as a fundamental individual right.

Asked another time to respond a week after a first request, the press secretary sent The Canadian Press an email which was probably intended for another member of the firm’s staff: “Relaunch. I ghost Again ? Otherwise, general response which does not respond to say that Housing is a priority for our government? »

The opposition took no time to react at the end of the day. “This is what France-Élaine Duranceau thinks about the right to housing in Quebec,” wrote MP Joël Arseneau on the X network, formerly Twitter.

“We suspected it a little, the reality is even more tragic,” he commented.

The Canadian Press asked each province whether it agreed with the federal housing advocate that housing is a human right, and whether it intended to pass legislation guaranteeing that right.

Friday afternoon, Minister Duranceau’s office had still not responded to La Presse Canadienne’s request.

As more and more Canadians struggle to find affordable housing, the country’s smallest province is the only one that could benefit from a law recognizing housing as a fundamental individual right.

Prince Edward Island responded with a link to its Residential Tenancies Act, the first line of which acknowledges that Canada has signed a United Nations treaty affirming that housing is a human right – although critics point out that there is nothing in the provincial law that subsequently supports this right.

Most provinces did not respond directly to the questions, listing a long list of initiatives launched to address the brewing housing crisis.

Manitoba responded that the government recognized “Canada’s rights-based approach to housing”, and Newfoundland and Labrador indicated that it agreed with federal and international laws recognizing housing as an individual right.

In her report on homeless encampments released on February 13, the federal housing advocate urged each province to recognize in law “the individual’s right to adequate housing as defined by international law.”

Marie-Josée Houle wondered in an interview if the provinces simply did not understand what it would mean to explicitly state that they consider housing a human right.

M^me Houle says that under the bilateral agreement they all signed as part of the National Housing Strategy in 2018, this would mean the provinces would adopt a “human rights-based approach to housing.”

For the housing advocate, this means meeting and listening to homeless people and trying to find them housing that meets their needs, rather than deciding what is best for them without their input and leaving them force them to take temporary measures, such as shelters, where they do not want to go.

This also includes providing heat, electricity and toilets to people living in homeless encampments if adequate housing is not available, argues M^me Swell.

Essentially, it’s a commitment from the recognition that homelessness is a systemic problem and that people are homeless because governments at all levels have failed them, she says.

And to the provinces, she says: “We need all the players at the table”.

Dale Whitmore of the Canadian Center for Housing Rights says provinces could take a simple first step toward recognizing and respecting housing as a human right by adding a clause to their rental law stipulating that Eviction should be a measure of absolute last resort.

For Mr. Whitmore, it is essential that the provinces follow Mr.^me Swell and pass laws that recognize housing as a human right, but also then defend that right. He thus emphasizes that even if the rental law of Prince Edward Island recognizes this right, it offers nothing to enforce it.

“We need regulations that keep rents affordable and protect tenants from unreasonable and predatory rents, and we need eviction protections to prevent people from losing their homes to unaffordable rents,” he said. -he declared in an interview. And we’ll need it even more as the housing crisis continues to worsen. »