Operating context 2024–25

Focus on combatting racism

As Canada's National Human Rights Institution, the Commission has long acknowledged that systemic anti-Black racism is real in Canada. No organization is immune, and it is up to all of us to uncover and reject all forms of racism and discrimination whenever they arise. That is exactly what the Commission is doing and will continue to do. The Commission is committed to doing what is necessary to ensure that everyone in Canada can trust in the Commission to conduct its work with integrity and accountability.

The Commission is ensuring that anti-racism work is embedded across all our work — in our complaints system, in our public guidance, in our advice to Parliament, in our policy research, in the cases we litigate, in our public statements, in our human resources and procurement, in all that we are and all that we do. Through new guidance, we are also promoting how anti-racism work might be implemented by federal departments, agencies, and other institutions across Canada.

New mandates

In recent years, the Commission has evolved to support the targeted human rights work of the Federal Housing Advocate, the new Accessibility Commissioner, and the Pay Equity Commissioner as they carried out their respective mandates. The Commission also received a designation to monitor Canada’s implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). The support to these mandates will continue to affect the activities of the Commission’s Internal Services — mainly human resources; procurement; accommodations; information management and technology; communications; legal and financial management services.

The Commission is committed to identifying, removing, and preventing barriers for each person in Canada, including our employees, clients, stakeholders, and all rights holders. As part of our ongoing commitment to be an accessible and inclusive organization, in 2022–23, the Commission launched our Accessibility Plan. Guided by the key principle of “Nothing Without Us,” it was most important that we consulted with people in a way that is meaningful, accessible, and inclusive. All the invaluable feedback informed this first iteration of our organizational Accessibility Plan.

Pressing human rights issues

Complex and pressing human rights issues such as hate and intolerance, Islamophobia, antisemitism, accessibility, gender equity, homophobia and transphobia, economic, social, and cultural rights, reconciliation, and systemic racism in Canada continue to require action at every level of government.

There has been a dramatic rise in anti-trans, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and racism-fuelled hate in Canada and globally over the last few years, with even more recent spikes in hate incidents. Comprehensive action is required to address this issue.

People with disabilities continue to live in situations of social and economic disadvantage at disproportionate rates, subject to negative stereotyping, adverse living conditions, and discrimination. Complaints accepted on the ground of disability continue to make up almost half of all discrimination complaints at the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

For many, systemic inequality results in inadequate and unequal access to services – for example, they cannot get the health care they need because of where they live, they cannot live in their community because the housing they need is not accessible, and they cannot afford crucial medication because it is not covered by their health care plan.

Canada urgently needs to fulfill its obligation to ensure that everyone, including people with disabilities, can live with full enjoyment of social and economic rights – the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to adequate housing, the right to health care and the right to accessible services. These are fundamental human rights that are essential to living a life of dignity.

While some progress has been made towards recognition in legislation of economic and social rights as human rights, the ability to pursue judicial or other recourse for violations of these rights remains extremely limited.

In this last year of the Federal Housing Advocate’s three-year term, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, continues to support her mandate, duties and functions, including initiating research, engaging with key stakeholders, receiving submissions from individuals and groups on systemic housing issues, conducting reviews of systemic housing issues, and launching a strategy to monitor the right to adequate housing in Canada as well as the impact of the National Housing Strategy Act.

The Federal Housing Advocate makes it a priority to meet with people who are directly affected by inadequate housing and homelessness. One of the Federal Housing Advocate’s duties is to consult with rights holders and civil society groups on the right to housing across Canada. Meeting with people, right where they live, allows the Advocate to build relationships directly with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit and to have personal conversations with people experiencing inadequate housing and homelessness who may not always have access to virtual meeting technology. These visits are key to informing the Advocate about the unique realities faced by people in different parts of the country. They offer opportunities to work with partners across all sectors to find meaningful solutions. Importantly, the Advocate’s engagement visits inform her reviews, research, reporting, and recommendations to government duty bearers.

Financial pressures

The Commission continues to face significant financial pressures because of limited baseline funding, and this will be compounded in 2024–2025 by the sunsetting of funding.  As of January 2024, the Commission is still awaiting confirmation of several budget requests.

More specifically, the Commission has the following budget asks:

1. to support the legislative duties and functions of the Federal Housing Advocate for 2024–25 and ongoing;
2. to provide ongoing funding for the activities related to the National Monitoring Mechanism for the UNCRPD; and
3. to provide support to the Commission to realize the government’s commitment to implement Justice Arbour’s 2022 recommendations, to address longstanding cultural shortcomings that have allowed systemic gender discrimination, and sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.