Leave No One Behind: Delivering on Canada’s Legislated Right to Housing Commitments through a Renewed National Housing Strategy and Federal Budget

Background

In 2017, the Government of Canada launched the country’s first-ever National Housing Strategy (NHS)—a significant and long-overdue step forward. After the federal government’s withdrawal from housing policy in the 1990s, responsibility had largely shifted to provinces, territories and other levels of government, leaving a fragmented system and deep gaps in access to adequate housing. The 2017 Strategy marked a renewed federal commitment to addressing these challenges.

With the current Strategy set to expire in the 2027–28 fiscal year, the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, Gregor Robertson, has begun the process of developing a new NHS.

The challenge is that Canada cannot simply build its way out of the housing crisis through the new NHS or with tools like Build Canada Homes without other measures that protect existing affordable housing stock, protecting renter rights (i.e. enforcing the Renters’ Bill of Rights), addressing inadequate incomes, the lack of accessible housing, and making sure that housing built by the federal government is genuinely affordable (i.e. though community housing).

Our 2026 Pre-Budget Submission:

In the National Right to Housing Network’s 2026 pre-budget submission—Leave No One Behind: Delivering on Canada’s Legislated Right to Housing Commitments through a Renewed National Housing Strategy and Federal Budget—we provide 11 recommendations on how the federal government can align the new National Housing Strategy with human rights-based targets and outcomes that will genuinely make housing more affordable and accessible for people in greatest need.

Recommendation snapshot:

1. Anchor the 2027-2037 National Housing Strategy in Canada’s National Housing Strategy Act, and “target clear, measurable, outcomes-focused objectives grounded in the right to adequate housing.”

   As a key measure to implement this, we recommend committing to the following three long-term goals:

   1. End homelessness by 2040

   2. End low-income housing need by 2050

   3. Ensure that everyone in Canada has access to an affordable and adequate home by 2060

2. Implement the recommendations of the Federal Housing Advocate, and housing expert Carolyn Whitzman, to:

   1. Commit 2% of GDP (approximately $47.4 billion in the 2027-28 fiscal year) per annum for the next decade to finance and otherwise enable two million community housing units (public, cooperative, non-profit, and community land trust housing).

   2. Undertake conditional agreements with provinces, territories, municipalities, regions, and Indigenous governments, as part of the 2027-37 National Housing Strategy, which provides infrastructure funding in return for these governments setting appropriate rights-based targets and providing annual outcome reports to be published by the federal government (for example through the Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights and Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund agreements).

3. Deliver on the Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy, and prioritize this for the 2027-37 Strategy.
4. Release an action plan on how the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure will implement the human rights recommendations that came out of the Neha review panel.
5. Increase investment in the Tenant Protection Fund to $30 million over 5 years to increase access to justice for tenants.
6. Amend the federal building code and incentivize provincial, territorial, and other jurisdictions to similarly amend their building codes to meet and exceed accepted standards on accessibility.
7. Require reporting of how projects funded by the federal government (including Build Canada Homes) will respect the rights of tenants, following the elements of the Renters’ Bill of Rights.
8. Outline a federal plan to restrict no-fault evictions—including renovictions—particularly by corporate and financialized landlords. 
9. Announce a strategy to regulate landlords against using Artificial Intelligence Software to increase rents.
10. Help more low-income renters better afford housing now while we wait for new supply. This could include working with provinces and territories to increase social assistance benefits, for example extending existing funding for Canada Housing Benefits beyond the current 2028 timeline and more.
11. Renew rental assistance, in alignment with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada recommendations, for at least ten years.

READ THE FULL SUBMISSION