Madam Speaker, 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness each and every year. In Saskatoon, a point-in-time count found that 475 individuals, including 26 young people and 11 children, experienced homelessness one night in April 2018.

In Toronto, 6,800 people experienced homelessness last night, including 523 young people and 802 women.

These are not numbers; they are people. We know the face of homelessness is changing. The fastest-growing population accessing homeless shelters in Canada are families with young children and women and children fleeing violence in shelters. Young people who identify as LGBTQ2S are overrepresented among those who are homeless, as are youth who have aged out of foster care and indigenous peoples in urban centres

For these reasons, and others, the New Democrats believe that all Canadians have a right to safe, affordable housing.

Why does it matter if Canadians have a right to safe and affordable housing enshrined in our laws? Tim Richter, the CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said it best in a public comment he made last year. He said:

We know that rights-based housing approaches are the most effective approach to resolving homelessness and housing need...Without these rights-based approaches, I think, the national housing strategy will not be as effective as it could be and may not meet its objectives.

In other words, we need a rights-based housing policy, because it is the most effective approach to solving homelessness. Without taking this approach, the government's housing policies and programs are likely to fail.

Why has the Liberal government failed to enshrine the right to housing into law, something we had expected from it? The obvious reason is that perhaps it does not believe that safe and affordable housing is a right. If it does not believe that, as a government it is under no obligation to uphold or protect that right. That is exactly what the government is doing. It is refusing to change our laws to ensure housing is a right, and I believe it is choosing to tolerate homelessness in Canada today, tomorrow and in the future.

The stated goal of the government's own plan to address homelessness is to reduce, by 50%, the number of chronic users of homeless shelters in 10 years. How can we end homelessness if ending homelessness is actually not the goal of the government?

If we fast forward a decade and assume that the government's homelessness policy is 100% successful in achieving its goal, what would we expect on April 4, 2029? We would see 3,408 residents still staying in homeless shelters in Toronto; 169 people would be homeless in Hamilton; 700 people would be homeless in Ottawa; over 1,000 people would be homeless in Vancouver; and in my community in Saskatoon, there would be 288 people homeless, including 13 young people and six children. That is if the current plan works.

I find this unacceptable. Therefore, my original question still stands. Why will the government not enshrine the right to safe, affordable housing in legislation? Why will it not commit to ending homelessness once and for all?

Sheri Benson

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Adjournment Proceedings

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