Monitoring the Rights of People with Disabilities

About the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international agreement. It is sometimes called the "CRPD" or the "Convention."

This agreement promotes and protects human rights for people with disabilities. Canada agreed to follow the rules of the Convention in 2010. Many groups developed the Convention, including governments working with people with disabilities, organizations for people with disabilities and human rights commissions, among others.

The Convention has 50 articles. Articles explain what rights people with disabilities have under the Convention. These Articles cover many parts of a person’s life. For example:

  • the right to live free from discrimination
  • the right to an inclusive education
  • the right to employment
  • the right to make one’s own decisions

The Commission's job is to make sure that Canada is fulfilling these rights.

Monitoring the CRPD in Canada

Who we are

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is responsible for monitoring Canada's implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention promotes and protects human rights for people with disabilities.

The Commission is in charge of keeping track of, or monitoring, how the Convention is put into action in Canada. It is the Commission's job to identify gaps and problems that need to be fixed.

Monitoring the Convention is an important responsibility. We involve other people and groups in our monitoring work. We work with people with disabilities, with organizations that advocate on their behalf, and with families and caregivers of people with disabilities. Together, we work to make sure Canada follows the rules of the Convention.

What we do

In 2019, the Canadian Human Rights Commission became responsible for monitoring Canada's implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ("CRPD" or the "Convention"). When we do this monitoring work, we are officially called the National Monitoring Mechanism (NMM).

Monitoring means we will track how the Convention is put into action in Canada. It also means that it is the Commission's job to identify gaps and problems that need to be fixed.

To do this monitoring work, we will work in close collaboration with people with disabilities, with organizations that advocate on their behalf, and with families and caregivers of people with disabilities. The monitoring work should be meaningful for people with disabilities, and contribute to real change.

We are on a journey together with people with disabilities to improve their rights. The first step of the monitoring work was to engage with people with disabilities in Canada. This helped us to listen and learn about their experiences and points of view. In the next step of the monitoring process, we are moving forward with a plan for how we will take action on what people told us. This plan requires us to work together to move forward in our journey.

How we monitor

Listening and learning

"We need to know that the Convention exists. The general population needs to be more familiar with it." – Dialogue session participant

In 2020, the Commission, in its role as the NMM, undertook a public engagement process with people with disabilities across Canada, with organizations that advocate on their behalf, and with families and caregivers of people with disabilities. The process included an online survey and small online dialogue sessions. This allowed us to hear about the experiences of people with disabilities in Canada. We learned about the barriers and discrimination they face. We also learned what can be done to reduce and remove those barriers.

People also gave us their views on what the monitoring process should look like, who should be involved, what information should be collected, how that information should be shared and what supports they might need to take part in the Commission's monitoring work.

Almost 3,000 people took part in this engagement process, and a majority identified as having a disability.

We know that not everybody was able to take part in this process. But we will continue to engage with as many people as we can. Diverse ideas and views will make the monitoring process better.

The information below summarizes what people shared during the public engagement process. This information is very important. It will guide how the Commission does its work and makes plans. It will help us know what to monitor and how. If you would like to learn more about what we heard, please click on your preferred format below.

Quick facts
Executive Summary: Easy read
Full Report: Plain Language
Infographics: With image description

Taking action

One thing came through loud and clear in our engagement process: People want real action that will make a difference in their day-to-day lives.

In order to do this, the Commission, in its role as the NMM, has developed an Action Plan. This Action Plan is directly informed by what people told us in our public engagement process in 2020. This is where people from across Canada provided their views on both what we should monitor and how we should conduct our monitoring work. The Action Plan is an evergreen document that will evolve over time and with input from partners.

The Action Plan establishes that the top three priorities of the NMM are poverty, housing, and work and employment.

It also provides broad direction on how the NMM is going to do its monitoring work, which includes who should be involved, what information will be collected, how that information should be shared, and what supports might be needed for others to take part in the monitoring.

If you would like to learn more about the Action Plan, please click on your preferred format below. The Action Plan includes Sign language videos and closed captioning. It can also be read with a screen reader.

Read the four (4) key areas of the Action Plan
Action Plan: HTML with ASL and closed-captioned videos
Action Plan: PDF

The right to housing for people with disabilities

Access to adequate housing is a human right. It means more than just having a place to live. It means being able to live in dignity. For people with disabilities, it also means getting to choose where to live. It means having a home that is accessible. It means having supports to live independently.

But the reality is that people with disabilities continue to face many barriers to housing. This needs to change.

We are working with the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate. Together, we are monitoring the right to housing for people with disabilities in Canada. We want to know how well Canada is doing in this area. What are the housing situations of people with disabilities? What types of barriers do people face? What could help make things better?

Learning from people with disabilities

In 2022, we met with people with disabilities, their families, and caregivers. We asked them about their housing situations. They told us about barriers they face.

Read our report to learn more about what people told us: What we learned: Housing for people with disabilities. Read more about these ideas for solutions in our calls to action infographic.

Monitoring framework

We created a system to monitor the right to housing for people with disabilities. It is called our Monitoring Framework. We created it with people with disabilities and experts.

Our framework looks at the housing situations of people with disabilities. It lists the information we will collect and study. The framework helps to know what information should be monitored in eleven key areas. For example, we are collecting information about people with disabilities who live in institutions. We are also looking at the accessibility of housing.

This information will show where Canada needs to improve. We will use this information to advocate for change. We will share our results to help monitor whether governments in Canada are making progress on their human rights obligations.

Read more in the Monitoring Framework on the Right to Housing for People with Disabilities.

Results

The early results show that people with disabilities face many barriers to housing. They did worse in every area of inadequate housing and homelessness than people without disabilities.

  • People with disabilities were four times more likely to experience homelessness, and more likely to become homeless due to violence.
  • They are more likely to live in unaffordable housing.
  • They are almost two times more likely to live in core housing need.
  • Many people don’t have the physical aids they need in their homes.
  • A lot of information is missing about the housing situations of people with disabilities. This makes it hard to track progress over time or know what barriers exist.

These results are a starting point. More work is needed to address these issues.

Learn more about our results: Monitoring the right to housing for people with disabilities – Results.

Our work at the United Nations

We are Canada's national human rights institution. That means we protect, monitor, and promote human rights in Canada.

Canada has agreed to follow international human rights laws. We track how well Canada is following these laws.

If Canada does something that could harm the human rights of people in Canada, we speak out on these problems.

Our work involves monitoring human rights, including disability rights in Canada.

One way we do this is by sharing information with the United Nations. Here are some examples.

United Nations Committees

We share information with the committees listed below. These committees are made up of experts from around the world. They look at how well countries are following international laws.

Human Rights Council

We share information with the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Council promotes and protects human rights around the world. Here are examples of the tools it uses to do this.

Other human rights organizations

We engage with national human rights institutions (NHRIs) from other countries around the world through:

  • The Global Alliance of NHRIs and its regional network, the Network of NHRIs of the Americas.
  • Other networks of NHRIs such as the Commonwealth and the Francophonie.

Resources and more information

Learn more about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Learn more about the Commission's work on the Accessible Canada Act
Submit a human rights complaint to the Commission

Publications

Contact us

If you would like to be included in our mailing list to stay informed and engaged in our monitoring work, please email NMM-MNS@chrc-ccdp.gc.ca.

If you have questions about our monitoring work, please contact the Commission

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