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Hill Times: Why Canada must protect the existing affordable housing stock

OPINION | BY NDP MP JENNY KWAN | January 31, 2024
 
Affordable housing across Canada is being lost at a seriously alarming rate; not to alien abduction, as the leader of the official opposition sarcastically wondered, but to housing profiteers who care most about their bottom line. These investor-landlords are looking to maximize their profits by buying older rental apartments and often displacing long-time tenants by renovicting or demo-evicting them to jack up rents.

Housing expert Steve Pomeroy has said that Canada lost more than 550,000 units of affordable housing between 2011 and 2021, which represents a loss of 11 units for each new affordable housing unit built. In cities like Vancouver and Toronto, the rate is even more drastic. Worse yet, Winnipeg and Hamilton, Ont., are losing 29 units of affordable housing for each new one. When Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were in power (with Pierre Poilievre at the table), 800,000 affordable homes were lost as corporate landlords bought in bulk while renovicting or demo-evicting low-income tenants, and the Affordable Housing Initiative was axed. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have lost another 276,000 affordable homes to developers.

CBC: Teenage surfing star Erin Brooks granted Canadian citizenship, now sets sights on Olympics

Brooks's citizenship bid was initially turned down. But Immigration Minister Marc Miller had a change of heart after a December ruling by Ontario's Superior Court of Justice that it is unconstitutional for Canada to deny automatic citizenship to the children of foreign-born Canadians who grew up abroad.

The Brooks family then refiled its application under a hardship status, based on the recommendation of the Immigration Department, to accelerate the process.

"I love Canada. I have never been prouder to wear the Maple Leaf," Erin Brooks said in a statement released by the family. "To Minister Marc Miller and MP Jenny Kwan, you have changed my life. I believe that I will do something truly special for my country thanks to your gift of citizenship."

Kwan, the NDP's immigration critic, helped advocate for Brooks.

Surfer: Teenage Surfer Erin Brooks Granted Canadian Citizenship for Paris 2024 Olympics Bid

“Lost Canadian Erin Brooks has been granted her Canadian citizenship after reconsideration by the Minister of Immigration. Erin Brooks, a 16-year old surfing prodigy and has worked hard for her whole life for the chance to compete for Canada at the Olympics.

“When Erin was born, she’d the right to Canadian citizenship. Conservative C-37 revoked that right in 2009. As a result of this unjust law, Erin was denied this life-changing opportunity to represent Canada in the 2024 Olympics.”

Open Letter to Vancouver Mayor and Council: Human Rights and Respect for the Unhoused

Park Rangers had moved to decamp the unhoused in Oppenheimer Park. This effort follows a series of previous actions from the City to further displace the unhoused without a plan in place to house them. Shelters are at maximum capacity, people have no where to go and their meagre possessions were being confiscated, and their tents being dragged away in front of them.

This week we are seeing the temperature drop to -13 Degrees Celsius in Vancouver. These individuals are living in tents for survival. This decision will only put their lives further at risk. I find it unconscionable that anyone could support displacing marginalized people, and confiscating what little they have, when they have no homes to go to.

I am sure you are aware that the 2023 Point-in-Time Homeless Count for Greater Vancouver show that there is a 32% increase since the last count in 2020, and Indigenous peoples are disproportionately represented. This is the latest in a failed string of actions – decampments, street sweeps, and evictions. This approach is neither collaborative nor productive – it serves only to trample the human rights and dignity of our most vulnerable residents, hoping that their needs can be swept under a rug if they are displaced to a less visible part of the city.

OPEN LETTER: Calling for Change in Policy Directive of 1000 Application Cap to the Special Family Reunification Program for Gaza

Many civil society groups and stakeholders have been vocal in their condemnation of an arbitrary application cap for over a week. Many feel the cap was unfair and discriminatory when they look to other temporary special immigration measures, such as the CUAET measure for Ukraine, that have not arbitrarily limited applications.

The confusion caused by the public policy and the unfortunate delay in clarification created tense conditions for the Palestinian-Canadian community. To many families, these applications mean the difference between the life and death. Not knowing when the online portal would open but understanding that spots are limited caused many people to stay awake through the night, continually refreshing the application portal to not miss the chance for a spot. I know you agree that Palestinian- Canadians have endured enough and do not need their anxieties needlessly exacerbated.

            

Hill Times: Palestinian Canadians race against time and each other as Gazan visa cap threatens hopes of family reunification

NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s immigration critic, and MP Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, Ont.) also wrote a letter to Miller, calling the imposed cap “shocking” and “indefensible.”

“In this catastrophic environment, families in Canada with loved ones trapped in Gaza should not be pitted against each other out of fear that their application will not be considered when the arbitrary 1,000 applications quota is filled,” reads the Jan. 5 letter calling on the government to immediately retract the cap on applications. 

In a Jan. 8 interview with The Hill Times, Kwan said she was initially relieved to hear the announcement of the program, rewatching Miller’s press conference twice and signing up for the briefing the next day in order to provide as much accurate information as she could during a Zoom meeting later that evening with Palestinian Canadians across Canada who had hoped to access the program. Kwan said that when she joined the call, she was met with more than 1,000 participants, each with family members of their own in Gaza who they hope to bring to Canada.

“It was such an important announcement that gave people hope that they could bring their loved ones to safety,” Kwan said. “When [Miller] announced the cap, disappointment doesn’t even begin to describe it … they gave them hope, and now they’re going to shut the door quickly and say ‘good luck to the rest of you.’”

Kwan said she has no doubt that the cap would severely limit the number of people who would have otherwise accessed the program, noting that even without the cap, there were already significant hurdles to getting people to safety outside Gaza.

OPEN LETTER: Arbitrary cap of 1000 applications for special family reunification measures for Gaza

This announcement was widely welcomed, albeit overdue. Nobody was more appreciative than those Canadians and permanent residents with family members trapped in Gaza. These same members of our communities have endured the longest and most unbearable months of their lives. Unfortunately, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has not been forthright about this policy but shrouded certain details in uncertainty. In particular, the cap of 1,000 applications for the family reunification program that has been imposed is shocking.

Considering the unbearably horrific and inhumane conditions facing the nearly two million civilians that have been displaced in the Gaza Strip, the decision to cap the number of temporary resident visa applications at 1,000 is indefensible.

Families and children in the Gaza Strip are facing shortages of essential supplies including food, water, electricity, medicine, and fuel. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder has stated that “children face a serious threat of mass disease outbreak.”

  

CBC: 'Lost Canadians' win in Ontario court as judge ends 2 classes of citizenship

Ontario's Superior Court of Justice has ruled it's unconstitutional for Canada to deny automatic citizenship to children born abroad to parents who were also born overseas but have a substantial connection to Canada — a big win for "Lost Canadians" trying to reclaim citizenship rights.

"It's a wonderful Christmas gift," said Sujit Choudhry, a constitutional lawyer in Toronto representing seven multi-generational families living in Canada, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States who challenged what's known as Canada's "second-generation cut-off rule."

"It removes a second-class status that people had because of the accident of where they were born."

Choudhry filed a constitutional challenge in December 2021, suing the federal government for denying his clients the right to transmit their citizenship to their foreign-born offspring.

In a 55-page ruling released this week, Justice Jasmine Akbarali found that the second-generation cut-off rule violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it "treats differently those Canadians who became Canadians at birth because they were born in Canada from those Canadians who obtained their citizenship by descent on their birth outside of Canada.”

City News: Gov’t to offer 3-year visas to Canadians’ extended family in Gaza, starting in 2024

This development comes after the Liberals faced pressure from families and the federal NDP to find special pathways to bring extended family members of Canadians out of the region. Recognizing the advocacy from Canadians that led to Thursday’s announcement, Miller said the policy changes are about keeping families together.

“New Democrats welcome this long overdue announcement by the federal government,” NDP MP Jenny Kwan said in a statement. “Families have been waiting for this day for too long.” 

The minister has said while Canadian officials remain in contact with consular staff on the ground pushing for more evacuations—as an estimated 200 individuals registered with Global Affairs Canada remained trapped— the situation in the war zone remains precarious.

CBC: Canadian trapped in Gaza pleads for help as Ottawa announces new immigration measures

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan welcomed the government's announcement but said it was "long overdue."

"As more than two million people remain trapped under the devastating siege, many Canadians have been enduring daily distress that is beyond comprehension," she said in a media statement.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked earlier in the day why the government didn't act sooner.