Over 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness annually, and 3.3 million Canadian households are considered “precarious,” meaning they are unaffordable, below standards or overcrowded. Nearly 20 per cent of households experience significant struggles with affordability and the United Nations has officially declared the lack of a housing strategy in Canada to be a “national emergency.”

That’s right: in one of the most affluent countries in the world, we have a homelessness emergency.

Leilani Farha, Executive Director of Canada Without Poverty and UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing advocates for a national housing program that sees housing as a basic human right, a declaration that would influence all decisions at the federal level as a result.

“Canada has been told by the UN on more than one occasion what the right to adequate housing means in the context of Canada and what has to happen to ensure that everyone is enjoying the right to housing,” she says.

So, if Canada were to implement a national housing program, where would it begin?

Earlier this month, the Liberal government announced that it will conduct a nation-wide homeless count. While acquiring data such as this appears to be a promising first step, housing advocates suggest that it misses several important elements.

“The homeless count gives you an indication at that particular time period on what’s going on, but it’s only one indication,” says Libby Davies, former NDP MP for B.C.’s Vancouver East riding. “What needs to be understood is that the housing crisis is much more complex.”

Both Davies and Farha point out that homelessness includes those who might be couch surfing, living in their car or staying with family members.

“Homelessness is very visible in some ways, but homelessness also includes people who live in very precarious housing situations,” says Davies. “They may not necessarily be on the street and they may not necessarily be in a shelter, but they can still be homeless because they don’t have any security of tenure, they don’t have any stable housing environment.”

As a result, Farha suggests the government should implement a tracking system that includes qualitative elements by interviewing both the visibly and invisibly homeless to understand the systemic cause for their lack of housing.

Even with these measurements, she cautions against remaining in the information-gathering phase.

“One of the things that worries me about measurement is that we might get sidetracked and stall,” she says.

Instead, Davies calls for a national housing program that commits to moving quickly.

“[The government has] to show that they are willing to move quickly to make an investment in housing but they also need to be clear that it’s going to be sustainable for the long term,” she says.

Ensuring this sustainability would require implementing goals, timelines and mechanisms for monitoring, both she and Farha suggest.

At the ground level, Jean Swanson, anti-poverty activist in Vancouver says the government needs to commit to building out-of-market, social housing that low-income people can afford. She also comments that many of the discussions surrounding lofty real estate price tags in cities, specifically Vancouver, tend to neglect the most vulnerable.

“Poor people who can’t afford housing are being lost in the discussion,” she says. “As a result homelessness is going up.”

Swanson also points to the problem of “social mix” housing that includes a requirement of social housing in one third of a building’s units. While these projects — most commonly seen in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside — might appear to be a viable, middle-ground solution, Swanson says that it means development of affordable units is extremely limited and the needs of low-income residents aren’t being met.

While these are the needs in Vancouver, communities across the country struggle with unique situations of housing affordability and availability. It’s this diversity that has led Cathy Crowe, street nurse and housing activist in Toronto, to suggest it’s not simply a collection of housing strategies that Canada needs, but a comprehensive, overarching housing program — in the same way that we have a national health-care program. This would help the country avoid, as she calls it, a “patchwork quilt” of solutions across the country.

Crowe also criticizes the government’s current strategy of “Housing First” which strives to place visibly homeless individuals who meet certain criteria into housing — then offering other supports if possible.

“Housing First is a detour. It’s smoke and mirrors,” she says. “It allows people to think that something is being done about homelessness in the absence of a housing program.”

With all these factors in mind there is no question that the task of creating an effective, nation-wide housing program is no small task. Yet Davies points out that there is an exceptional amount of expertise and knowledge on the issue across the country.

“The potential and the capacity is huge. It’s there; it’s waiting to be unleashed,” she says. “The problem has been a lack of a national program to tie it together and to provide the budgetary supports. We have this tremendous creativity and ideas on a local level…it just needs to be scaled up to a national level.”

After decades of struggle to bring abortion access back to Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.), Abortion Access Now (AAN) PEI has taken the matter into its own hands and advised the provincial government that it will file a legal challenge against the province’s discriminatory abortion policy.

AAN PEI is seeking full and unrestricted access to on-island, publicly funded abortion services for people in the province.

Currently, P.E.I. is the only province in Canada that does not provide safe, legal access to abortion. Residents seeking abortions must obtain a referral from a local doctor and travel off-island to complete the procedure in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.

The province has been dubbed a “Life Sanctuary” by anti-abortion groups since 1982 when the P.E.I. government removed funding for abortions from hospitals and the Therapeutic Abortion Committee.

The current P.E.I. government says that it is “moving forward with its commitment to address barriers to abortion access,” however, this has yet to happen.

“We’ve been continually underwhelmed and disappointed at the way that our government leadership treats women’s health,” says AAN PEI representative and long-serving pro-choice advocate, Dr. Colleen MacQuarrie. “It’s a pattern where they only do the least amount they can do to quiet us.”

Currently, the “least amount” includes posting information on Health PEI‘s website for how women can access abortions in other provinces — a resource that has only been available since 2011.

The province also covers the cost of the procedure in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, but they do not take into consideration the costs associated with time off of work, child care or travel, such as the $46 toll fee into New Brunswick.

“For young women, for marginalized women, those costs are prohibitive,” says Kim Stanton, Legal Director at Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF).

In fact, AAN PEI suggests that these restrictions turn this into a class issue. After all, if a woman lives in a position of privilege, then taking extended time off of work and paying the costs of travelling to another province might not be significant. For others, however, it can feel like an impossible hurdle to accessing the health care they need.

Chillingly, as a result of these cost and access barriers, MacQuarrie notes that some of her research has shown what lengths women will go to in moments of desperation including trying to induce their own abortions at home.

“Women would consider and do things they wouldn’t normally do when they had no other option,” she explains. “Our human rights should not be at the whim of our privilege.”

LEAF is supporting AAN PEI through the legal process by providing litigation support, research, medical advice and financial assistance. They have also helped AAN develop their legal challenge, identifying two key areas worth addressing.

Firstly, the challenge will contain a constitutional argument, suggesting that P.E.I.’s lack of abortion access violates the right of P.E.I. residents to equal access to health-care services as outlined in the Charter. Stanton notes that the province’s policy discriminates on the basis of sex and pregnancy while violating the right to exercise control over one’s own body.

AAN PEI’s challenge will also include an argument based on administrative law on the basis that the government of P.E.I.’s health-care system contradicts its own health plan’s principles of equity and efficiency.

As an example, Stanton points to an instance from 2014, when a doctor from Nova Scotia was willing to fly to Charlottetown multiple times per month to perform abortions. Health PEI developed a business case to determine whether this was a viable option, and found that it would be extremely cost-effective — even to the point of saving the province up to $37,000 annually.

In spite of this compelling research, the Liberal provincial government under former Premier Robert Ghiz stepped in and put a stop to the proposal.

Anti-choice group PEI Right to Life Association has also challenged the right to abortion in P.E.I. and AAN PEI’s legal challenge stating that “there is no constitutional right to abortion in Canada” and that P.E.I. is “in line with the Canada Health Act to determine which services are funded publicly and by what means.”

“The only reason we do not have access to safe, surgical abortion is a political one,” says MacQuarrie. “It has nothing to do with economics or health or legalities.”

After years of research on the effects of a lack of access to safe abortion, MacQuarrie comments that one of the most significant outcomes she has seen as a result of the province’s decision is the overall sentiment towards women’s health in the province.

“There’s a cultural pall, a cultural chill over women’s reproductive care here,” she says. “The silence and the stigma associated with this very basic, primary health care is phenomenal. That impacts all of us, really. It sends a message that abortion is illegal and it’s not — abortion is a legal procedure.”

In fact, abortion has been a legal procedure in Canada since 1988. Yet in spite of this, AAN PEI feels it needs to bring its government to court if it hopes to see this reality come to fruition.

As of Tuesday, January 5, AAN PEI has informed the provincial government of their intended challenge. Now, they must wait 90 days and if they don’t receive a response, turn to court proceedings.

How is the Trudeau government doing on women’s rights?

As Justin Trudeau’s government settles in, women’s rights groups look to this new leadership for action on important women’s issues.

In the mandate letter he wrote to the Minister of the Status of Women, Trudeau outlined several ways he promises to promote gender equality and safety for women. Matters such as missing and murdered Indigenous women, sexual violence and harassment have all made the docket.

Sandeep Prasad, Executive Director of Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, says that the Canadian government can address sexual violence and harassment against women by strengthening sexual health curricula throughout the country.

“Issues of sexual violence and harassment really need to be addressed right from the get go, from adolescence,” he said. “We need to see a curriculum that has strong components related to issues of sexual consent as well as diverse sexuality.”

Beyond school curricula, Action Canada also says there needs to be government-supported awareness campaigns. This includes repealing Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, which passed last year and was criticized by many as failing to protect the safety of sex workers. Prasad points out that repealing this law was something that, prior to the election, the Liberal Party committed to doing.

Keeping the government accountable in the months ahead, Action Canada will write cabinet ministers with their recommendations and engage the public on these issues.

“We have such an opportunity for positive movement on a range of issues,” said Prasad. “It’s quite an exciting time.”

Another group that was active in the lead up to the election and also hopes to see points in Trudeau’s ministerial mandate letter addressed is the Canadian Network of Women’s Shelters and Transition Houses.

Executive Director, Lise Martin, says the network has formulated a blueprint that they hope the new government will use as a starting point when developing Canada’s National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls. Put together in collaboration with 23 other organizations, the blueprint outlines the importance of developing a process that draws on the diversity, depth of knowledge and experience offered by organizations already working towards ending violence against women. Currently endorsed by 180 organizations, the blueprint acknowledges that women experiencing multiple oppressions face even greater obstacles, discrimination and marginalization which need to be addressed.

Martin says the network hopes funding will be restored to enhance current shelters and build new ones for women.

“There is a high rate of women that are turned away each day from shelters,” she said.

She added that funding would help address the point in Trudeau’s ministerial mandate stating the goal of seeing that “no one fleeing domestic violence is left without a place to turn.”

A third, and highly anticipated element in the mandate letter is developing a process for investigating murdered and missing Indigenous women. According to RCMP reports, between the years 1980 and 2012, there were over 1,100 police-reported cases of homicides and unresolved missing persons cases against Aboriginal women. Trudeau’s mandate clearly states that there is a need to investigate these cases.

Angela Marie MacDougall, Executive Director of the Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS), points out that while violence against Indigenous women has been documented for the past 30 years and is acknowledged by Trudeau today, it’s an issue that is as old as Canada itself.

“This is not a new issue,” she says. “What’s a big issue today is the fact that the history of the pervasive, gendered and racist violence against Indigenous women is increasingly more visible to mainstream Canadian society. But awareness isn’t enough…what change will come as a result of that awareness?”

Change that MacDougall hopes to see includes federal enforcement of local, behavioural adjustments within police responses towards Indigenous women. For example, she says that women have been struggling to make their voices and issues heard by police across the country — an issue that she wants addressed.

MacDougall also says that the national inquiry into missing women will help with this, but that the new Canadian federal government needs to pressure the RCMP, provinces and municipal governments to address ongoing discrimination of Indigenous women within law enforcement agencies.

While this list of issues is complex, these women’s groups remain hopeful that change will come under this new Canadian government.

“Behavior changes need to happen in Canada as a nation,” says MacDougall. “It’s been really important to have a federal government that’s prepared to examine these issues. It’s very encouraging after decades of this work.”