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July 1, 2021
This Canada Day, CLAIHR believes there is no better opportunity to stand firmly in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and reflect upon the hundreds of Indigenous children whose remains have been found buried on the grounds of several former residential schools across Canada in the past few weeks. CLAIHR is deeply saddened at the deaths of these children, and the thousands of other Indigenous children who never made it home from residential schools.
CLAIHR also recognizes that these tragic deaths occurred as a result of a widespread and systematic racist government policy. Residential schools were part of Canada’s colonial strategy to eradicate Indigenous culture, language, community and spirit. CLAIHR believes that there is strong evidence to suggest that they constituted, at least, crimes against humanity and cultural genocide. They certainly rank among the gravest mass atrocities ever to be committed on this continent. These human rights violations are not just part of Canada’s history, but are firmly rooted in the present. The last residential school in Canada only closed in 1996, and the pain, suffering and intergenerational harm and trauma of residential schools continues to reverberate today.
CLAIHR urges the government of Canada and the churches involved to work with Aboriginal communities to fully implement all of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (“TRC”) Calls to Action, particularly 71 to 76, which deal with missing children, unmarked graves and residential school cemeteries. As the TRC itself noted, this work is far from complete. Many relevant documents and records on the deaths of Aboriginal children in the care of residential school authorities have not been shared or reviewed. Ongoing work is required to identify, document, maintain, commemorate and protect residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children were buried. Thus far, graves have only been discovered at a few of the dozens of residential schools that were operated across Canada.
This is, however, only the beginning. Tangible policy change is also required to remedy the decades of violence that Canada has inflicted on Indigenous peoples through human rights abuses such as the residential schools program. For example, Canada should immediately discontinue its litigation against Indigenous children who were removed from their homes, including many survivors of residential schools, in two cases being appealed from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT). The government must also resolve all long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserves. In these and other respects, CLAIHR is committed to supporting Indigenous communities, where useful, in their efforts to hold the Canadian government to its obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), as well as under the various international treaties it has concluded directly with First Nations across the country.
To learn more, see the resources provided by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (https://nctr.ca/records/reports/) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (http://www.trc.ca/reconciliation.html). The National Residential School Crisis Line is available 24-hours a day for survivors and family: 1-866-925-4419.
This Canada Day, CLAIHR calls on all Canadians to do their part to address the human rights violations committed against Canada’s First Peoples.
Could you patent the sun? – Polio vaccine inventor, Jonas Saulk
By Harmit Sarai and Karen Segal
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020, and a pandemic on March 11, 2020. At the time of writing, over 150 million people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19) and the global death toll has exceeded three million people. Over the last two months, the number of new COVID-19 cases globally has almost doubled, nearing the pandemic’s peak infection rate. As the infection rate began multiplying faster, the epicentre of the pandemic shifted to developing countries like Brazil, Mexico, and India—all three countries have surpassed the United Kingdom and Italy in numbers of confirmed fatalities from the virus.
CLAIHR and Accountability Counsel provided feedback to the operating procedures of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Social Enterprise (CORE).
This office receives and reviews claims of alleged human rights abuses arising from the operations of Canadian companies abroad in the mining, oil and gas, and garment sectors.
CLAIHR has long been concerned by the failure of Canadian officials to regulate Canadian companies operating abroad. Together with Accountability Counsel, CLAIHR called on the CORE to implement greater measures to protect and support those who file requests or complaints to the CORE.
Specifically, CLAIHR and Accountability Counsel call for the following:
Review CLAIHR and Accountability Counsels’ complete submissions here.
On November 13, 2020, CLAIHR filed submissions with the Responsible Business Practices division at Global Affairs Canada regarding Canada’s approach to Responsible Business Conduct abroad.
CLAIHR states that Canada’s current RBC strategy fails to fulfill Canada’s international human rights obligations. Canada cannot rely on voluntary codes of action and behavior; it must adopt legislative and administrative measures to ensure that corporations registered, headquartered, or with a principal place of business in Canada do not violate human rights in their operations outside of Canada. Canada must also ensure that victims of corporate human rights abuses have access to effective judicial and non-judicial remedies in Canada.
Read CLAIHR’s submission here.
(Ottawa) Canadian unions and civil society organizations sent a letter today to Canadian mining company Orvana Minerals, condemning the company’s actions in firing the entire workforce at its Don Mario Mine Complex in Bolivia in February of this year. The company is the sole owner of Empresa Minera Paititi (EMIPA), which operates the gold mine in eastern Bolivia that, up until February, supported 130 unionized mine workers and their families.
The letter condemns the company for apparently taking advantage of the Bolivian political crisis to fire its entire workforce, in the middle of a global pandemic. Organizations were troubled to hear that this campaign of intimidation and threats against the union began in October 2019 as the political crisis began to unfold in Bolivia, and just days after the company had ratified an agreement with the union guaranteeing “labour security”.
The organizations request that the company immediately “commence dialogue in good faith with the Paititi union, in order to repair the harms that have been committed against the workforce at the Don Mario operations, and to afford them the rights guaranteed to them by Bolivian law and by the collective agreement that your company ratified in October 2019.”
The organizations also demand the “immediate and just re-incorporation of the entire productive workforce at EMIPA.”
The organizations signing the letter are:
UNIONS
British Columbia General Employees Union (BCGEU)
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
CWA-Canada, The Media Union
National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE)
Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)
United Steelworkers (USW) Canada
CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS
Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR)
Christian Peacemaker Teams – Colombia
Comité por los derechos humanos en América Latina (CDHAL)
Common Frontiers, Canada
Foundation for Development and Education
MiningWatch Canada
Toronto Association for Peace & Solidarity
The original letter sent to the company can be found attached to the original post here: https://miningwatch.ca/news/2020/10/20/canadian-unions-and-civil-society-organizations-support-bolivian-mineworkers-union
By Shalu Atwal
While the Canadian health care system is widely touted for its universality, three provinces – Ontario, Quebec[1] and British Columbia – do not allow landed immigrants[2] to access provincial health care coverage until three months after their arrival.[3] According to a piece published by the Toronto Star, entitled “Ontario urged to eliminate OHIP wait,” there are two main rationales behind this policy.[4] First, the policy operates as a cost-saving measure. The three-month wait has supposedly resulted in $90 million in savings per year for Ontario. Second, delaying access to federally-funded health care serves to discourage medical tourism. In other words, the three-month wait disincentivizes persons moving to Ontario for a brief period of time solely for the purpose of taking advantage of free medical services. Instead, the Ontario Government provides alternatives for landed immigrants, including advising immigrants to obtain private insurance before arriving to Canada.[5] The government also funds several Community Health Centres (CHC), which provide primary care free of charge.[6]
By Kevin Laforest
The intersection of the local with the global has found a new manifestation in Canada’s urban cores. Toronto, where this writer is based, was recently crowned Canada’s child poverty capital. The report released by Campaign 2000, indicated that 28.6% of children in Toronto are living in low-income households. This is down only slightly from 2014’s 29%, a startling 149,000 children. This is not to say this is exclusively Toronto’s, or even Ontario’s concern – urban and childhood poverty can be found across the country. And despite the sheer scope of this problem, Canadians everywhere will have to act quickly as the international spotlight is fast approaching.
This coming spring, the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, (CESCR) the body which oversees the implementation of the ICESCR, will be conducting a review of Canada. The last time the Committee visited was in 2006. Ratified by Canada on 19 May 1976, the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is o
ne of the ten core international human rights treaties.[1]
Toronto’s involvement with the ICESCR began in the mid-1990s when local services realignment saw municipalities in Ontario take on a number of new roles as social assistance providers – something that the provincial government had previously been in charge of. The scale of this project can be seen in the table 1, above.[2]
As the city’s social assistance provider for nearly 20 years, Toronto’s response to the current child poverty crisis, entitled TOProsperity, will target six areas of need: housing stability; access to services; transportation; food access; quality jobs and living wages and; institutional change. The intersection of the Committee’s visit and the City’s poverty reduction strategy proves a timely moment to reflect on these obligations, and the different strategies employed to meet them.
There is a tension in the emergence of municipalities as international actors. The Supreme Court in 1994’s Shell Canada Products Ltd. v City of Vancouver which concerned the City’s boycott of Shell’s products due to the latter’s business interests in apartheid South Africa, held that municipalities, “must be restricted to municipal purposes and cannot extend to include the imposition of a boycott based on matters external to the interests of the citizens of the municipality”[3]. The ratio in Shell Canada provides an interesting challenge for municipalities in the increasingly globalized world – global actors with a limited jurisdiction.
This emergence of municipalities onto the global stage provides opportunities for positive change, but remains shrouded in uncertainty. One the one hand, municipalities engaging with issues such as childhood poverty shows great potential for the creation and implementation of bespoke solutions to very local issues. On the other hand, as creatures of statute, cities are limited in the scope of the solutions they may implement. Given this challenge, there is the need for cooperation across provincial and federal and potentially international jurisdictions to engage with the diversity of issues which accompany poverty. This is precisely what international treaties envision.
Downloading the responsibility of urban poverty onto municipalities increases the risk that international treaties become a highly pluralistic regime, subject to localized interpretations of provisions. Nevertheless, TOProsperity and other municipally crafted anti-poverty strategies provide a much more accessible forum for lawyers and concerned citizens alike to ask that all levels of government recognize and respect Canada’s international obligations. TOProsperity, in its closing remarks, declares itself a movement, not a moment[4]. In which direction this movement is going, we have yet to find out.
[1] OHCHR Human Rights Bodies, online: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/Pages/HumanRightsBodies.aspx
[2] Andre Cote & Michael Fenn “Provincial-Municipal Relations in Ontario: Approaching an Inflection Point” (2014) 17 Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance, at 10.
[3] Shell Canada Products v Vancouver (City) [1994] 1 SCR 231 at para 101; [1994] 1 RCS 231, [Shell Canada].
[4] City of Toronto TOProsperity, online: City of Toronto <http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-81653.pdf>.
By Lauren Pinder
Tonight approximately 30,000 Canadians will spend the night homeless. 1 in 5 low-income Canadians spend more than 50% of their income on accommodation. Paradoxically, Canada has signed and ratified several international human rights treaties that identify the right to adequate housing as a fundamental human right. There is an inherent disconnect between recognition of the right to adequate housing and the persistence of homelessness and unaffordable housing in Canada.
In 2007, the UN Special Rapporteur of Adequate Housing visited Canada and published key findings and recommendations for the country. The report identified that a key obstacle in upholding the right in Canada is that the right is not recognized in any Canadian legislation. Eight years have passed since this evaluation took place. Has Canada made any steps towards recognition?
International Recognition of the Right
Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights outlines ‘the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions’.
Article 25.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states ‘everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing…’
National Human Rights Act
Canada’s Human Rights Act does not outline a right to adequate housing. In regards to housing, the Human Rights Act states that the purchase of tenancy of accommodation cannot be denied based on prohibited discriminatory grounds. These include race, gender, source of income, etc. This is the only mention of accommodation of housing in the Act.
Provincial Human Rights Legislation
The Special Rapporteur’s Report identified that while no provinces outline a right to adequate housing in their human rights legislation, two provinces in some way addressed social and economic rights that are associated with housing.
Article 45 of Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights, short of directly including a right to adequate housing, guarantees for any person in need “the right for himself and his family to measures of financial assistance and to social measures provided to him by law, susceptible of ensuring such a person an acceptable standard of living.”
In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Human Rights Code was amended in 2006 to include ‘source of income’ – whether social assistance, employment insurance, wages, etc. – as a prohibited ground of discrimination for seeking occupancy.
Since the report was released, most provinces have amended their human rights legislation to include source of income and/or social class as a prohibited ground of discrimination along the lines of the national Human Rights Act and Newfoundland and Labrador. To this date, no province has taken the bigger step of including a specific right to adequate housing.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms
In the report, the UN Special Rapporteur stated that since the 1982 induction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the right to housing had seen advances. The Charter does not directly recognize a right to housing, or address housing in general. The report speculates that the section 7 right to life, liberty and security of the person or the section 15 equality right would provide an indirect route to addressing violations of the right to adequate housing.
Last year, this was put to the test with Tanudjaja v Canada Attorney General. Four homeless individuals challenged the constitutionality of the Canadian and Ontarian governments’ failure to implement strategies to address homelessness and provide affordable housing options. A successful challenge would have effectively created a positive duty for the government to create programs to provide affordable, adequate housing.
The case went to the Ontario Court of Appeal where it was dismissed in a 2-1 majority decision on two key grounds. First, the claimants did not identify legislation that violated their rights which is standard in a Charter Challenge. They instead argued that the failure to act was in violation of their right to housing. The decision states that in framing their argument this way, the claimants had made the issue one of politics and policy-making instead of a legal issue within the mandate of the judicial system. This framework could make any exploration of and determination regarding the issue resemble a public inquiry instead of a judicial application of law.
Second, the majority found that there is no law that confers a freestanding right to housing or a positive duty to establish programs that provide affordable housing. The court deferred to the legislature the ability to recognize the right to adequate housing.
In June of this year, the case was denied leave to the Supreme Court of Canada. This suggests that Canadian courts will likely only uphold the right to adequate housing if this right is directly recognized in legislation.
Building a Stronger Foundation
It does not appear that Canada has taken steps to recognizing the right to adequate housing in legislation since the Special Rapporteur’s report. However there have been positive advancements that could indicate a shift in approach. Last month a group of homeless people in British Columbia won a case at the B.C. Supreme Court that allowed them to set up tents and shelters in which to sleep in overnight. Within days of that judgement, Ontario announced that – following the recommendation from a panel of housing experts appointed in the spring – it has set a 10 year deadline to end homelessness in the province. This winter will mark the first point-in-time survey of the homeless population across Canada with the hopes of capturing the state of homelessness in Canada on any given day. The newly elected federal government ran on a platform that included a national housing strategy, which Canada does not currently have. Hopefully, these factors indicate that Canada is building a solid foundation for a future recognition of the right to adequate housing.
