Toronto Disaster Relief Committee
15 May 2000
Chair
UN Human Rights Committee
United Nations
New York
To the UN Human Rights Committee:
When Canada appeared before you last year the Canadian delegation
made a promise to your Committee. They have failed to keep that
promise.
In your April 7, 1999 report on Canada you highlighted as one of
the “Principal positive aspects” the promise of the Canadian
delegation “to inform public opinion in Canada about the
Committee's concerns and recommendations, to distribute the
Committee's concluding observations to all members of Parliament
and to ensure that a parliamentary committee will hold hearings
of issues arising from the Committee's observations.” It is in
paragraph 3 of your report:
3. The Committee welcomes the delegation's commitment to take
actions to ensure effective follow-up in Canada of the
Committee's concluding observations and to further develop and
improve mechanisms for ongoing review of compliance of the State
Party with the provisions of the Covenant. In particular, the
Committee welcomes the delegations' commitment to inform public
opinion in Canada about the Committee's concerns and
recommendations, to distribute the Committee's concluding
observations to all members of Parliament and to ensure that a
parliamentary committee will hold hearings of issues arising from
the Committee's observations.
There has been no follow-up in Canada on your report and
recommendations. There has been no distribution of your report
by the Canadian government. Finally, the federal minister
responsible for homelessness has in fact asserted that the
federal government will not hold Parliamentary hearings.
“Responding to a clamour by the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee
for parliamentary hearings to be launched to examine the problem
of homelessness in Canada, Bradshaw said enough studies have
already been done on the subject.
“Toronto committee spokeswoman Cathy Crowe has called on Bradshaw
to begin the hearings immediately and that she (Bradshaw),
Finance Minister Paul Martin and Alfonso Gagliano, the minister
responsible for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, be
the first witnesses at them. ‘The federal government can't wait
six months or a year before holding parliamentary hearings,’ said
Crowe.
‘Homelessness is a national disaster. Here in Toronto, there are
an average of two homeless people dying every week and many
others are dying across the country,’ she said.”
”Bradshaw rejects notion of hearings” by Charles Perry, The
Moncton Times and Transcript, July 20, 1999.
Yet the deaths of homeless Canadians continue. There are so many
that the Provincial Coroner's Office now keeps count.
>From November 1999 to May 2000 there have been 24 deaths of homel
ess men and women in Toronto alone, the youngest was 20 years
old. There are now almost weekly vigils in City Hall plaza
calling for government action.
In addition. a University of Toronto researcher, Dr. Stephen
Hwang, MD, of the Inner City Health Research Unit, has published
the results of his study of the death of Toronto’s homeless men
in the April 26, 2000 issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association.
"The study population consisted of 8933 men who stayed at
homeless shelters in Toronto in 1995… We identified 201 deaths in
the cohort … The mean age at death was 46 years (range, 20-84
years). Death occurred outside a hospital in 41% of deaths…
Deaths were relatively evenly distributed across months of the
year… The coroner's office performed an autopsy on 57% of the
decedents… Men who use homeless shelters in Toronto experience
significant excess mortality compared with the city's general
population."
-- Journal of the American Medical Association, 283(16), April
26, 2000.
In your April 1999 report on Canada you explicitly highlighted
the problem of death among Canada’s homeless people, calling on
Canada to take positive measures.
"12. The Committee is concerned that homelessness has led to
serious health problems and even to death. The Committee
recommends that the State party take positive measures required
by article 6 to address this serious problem."
There have been no “positive measures.” Only public relations
events.
The problem is so serious that the federal Cabinet has engaged in
a public relations effort in order to be able to claim that they
care. A junior minister without any power or money was appointed
as “minister responsible for homelessness” in March 1999.
She spent most of the year doing nothing except touring the
country and in December staged a press conference with five other
federal ministers, announcing a small three-year spending program
that may eventually help a few people in the homeless shelters.
As of May 2000, six months after the pre-Christmas “good news”
press conference, not a dollar has been spent. Also, not a
dollar of the money is to be used for affordable housing. Just
services and emergency relief. There is still no effort to
reduce the number of houseless destitute people in Canada.
Canada continues to be in violation of Article 6 of the Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights: “Every human being has the
inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No
one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”
We call on you, on behalf of the homeless people of Canada, to
require the Canadian government to report back to you and account
for their continued violation of this most fundamental human
right. We call on you to exercise the moral suasion you possess.
Action must be taken to begin to end homelessness in Canada, a
nation of great wealth and prosperity.
We are doing what we can as a grassroots NGO. We need you to at
least make the Canadian government keep its promise to you about
Parliamentary hearings and to begin taking positive measures to
reduce the number of homeless Canadians.
We would appreciate an opportunity to appear before your
Committee and present a more detailed account.
Submitted on behalf of the
Toronto Disaster Relief Committee
J. David Hulchanski, PhD
Professor of Housing and Community Development
Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto
246 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
tel 416 978-1973; fax 416 978-7072
and a founding member of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee
Housing Now!
Cathy Crowe, RN
[log in to unmask]
416-703-8482 (117)
416-703-6190 (fax)
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