Engagement Report – April 2022

Participants

The Federal Housing Advocate met with:

• Tim Richter, Chair of National Housing Council
• National Housing Council Members
• Departmental staff of Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)
• Deputy Minister Jean-François Tremblay, Employment and Social Development Canada
• Deputy Minister Christiane Fox, Indigenous Services Canada
• Deputy Minister Daniel Quan-Watson and Associate Deputy Minister Paula Isaak, Crown-Indigenous and Relations Northern Affairs Canada
• National Right to Housing Network members (NRHN)
• Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network members (WNHHN)
• Deputy Minister Kelly Gillis, Infrastructure Canada

Summary

These sessions took place in the form of small to large virtual conferences in an introductory capacity, as well as bilateral meetings with key partners, rights holders, and duty bearers. The Advocate had the opportunity to attend a quarterly meeting of the National Housing Council; to be briefed on the program work of colleagues at the CMHC; and spoke at a Town Hall-style conference by the NRHN and WNHHN, with the aim of introducing their mandate and duties to an audience of lived-experts and frontline housing program administrators, as well as to hear direct feedback from those most experienced in dealing with the harshest systemic housing issues.

The Office of the Federal Housing Advocate also took the opportunity to present research and findings to the National Housing Council related to the housing financialization.

Key themes

Advocate introduction of mandate and duties:

• Met with key partners to present mandate and duties, and to establish working relationships.
• The Advocate shared a listing of systemic housing issues that were prepared by her office for consideration in the year ahead, including:
  • Encampments;
  • Financialization of housing;
  • Security of tenure and evictions;
  • Gendered aspects of housing;
  • Housing for people with disabilities; and
  • Housing for First Nations, Inuit and Métis