Protecting and Advancing the Right to Housing

From the Diocesan Website:

This year’s Social Justice Vestry Motion addresses several of the key obstacles to the realization of the human right to housing in our province.

This motion was presented to the College of Bishops and the Regional Deans in September 2023 and received final approval by the College of Bishops on Nov. 1, 2023.

In addition to the motion and backgrounder below, we have collected some additional print and video resources to shed light on this motion. You can find them below under “For further reading/viewing”

As we have done for the past few years, we have invited members of the Diocese to submit questions on this year’s motion. We have responded to them in the Video Q&A which you can watch.  For the link to this video and other information, Click Here

Background information on this motion is attached as a Download Link below. 

The motion itself reads:

We, the parish of Church of the Ascension, call on all levels of government to take the following measures to protect and advance the human right to housing: • We call on the Government of Canada to ensure that federal subsidies and incentives are targeted to those developers and projects that demonstrably address housing need and uphold the human right to housing by meeting clear conditions on affordable rents, non-displacement policies and eviction prevention measures. • We call on the Government of Canada to end the favourable tax treatment of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and tax them at the regular corporate rate, with resulting revenues being directed toward the creation and preservation of affordable housing. • We call on the Province of Ontario to enact rent controls and vacancy controls on all rental housing and put restrictions on Above Guideline Rent Increases. • We call on the Province of Ontario to work with municipal governments to enact and enforce restrictions on short-term rentals to protect rental housing stock.