The latest in our Housing Tell blog, professors Sarah Buhler and Anna Lund unpack the legal implications behind the City of Saskatoon’s October 8 sweep of the Avenue K encampment, and what courts across Canada suggest could come next.
Sarah Buhler is a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law. Anna Lund is a Professor at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law.
Background
On October 8, 2026, the City of Saskatoon dismantled an encampment on Avenue K, displacing over a hundred people who had been living there. Just days before, several residents went to court to claim their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the part of Canada’s Constitution that protects our most basic rights and that every government must respect. They told the court they had nowhere else to go, and that the encampment was the safest place they had to shelter. They asked the court to recognize that, under the Charter, forcing them out would violate their rights to life, liberty, security of the person, and equality.
This claim is scheduled to be heard by the Court for a first appearance on October 27, 2026.
Despite being aware that the encampment residents were seeking to assert rights and to ask for protection from the Court, the City of Saskatoon chose to move ahead with a sweep of the encampment, acting primarily under its fire and property maintenance bylaws. The City stated that the site had become dangerous, citing in particular the ongoing risk of fire. In other statements the City has referred to alleged criminal activities, sanitation issues, and nuisance to surrounding areas. The City may also have considered that two different judges declined to grant emergency injunctions to halt the closure of the site.
We hear about bylaws, injunctions, and the Charter. So how should people understand the legal frameworks that govern what happened in Saskatoon on October 8th, and what might happen next?
Why the Injunction Rulings Aren’t the Final Word
An injunction is a court order telling someone to stop doing something. In this case, the residents asked for a temporary one: an emergency order to stop the City from clearing the encampment until a judge could hear their full Charter case. The Court declined to grant these injunctions – but that does not mean the Court decided the residents’ rights weren’t violated, or that it gave the City permission to do what it did on October 8. Emergency injunctions are hard to get, and judges deciding them don’t fully examine the constitutional questions at stake.
In other words, no Saskatchewan court has yet ruled on whether dismantling encampments in this province violates the Charter. Yet as we know, police and fire services went ahead and dismantled the encampment anyway.
So, was the City legally allowed to do what it did? Did its actions violate the constitutional rights of encampment residents? To get an idea of the answers, we can look at court decisions from other provinces.
What Courts Across Canada Have Said
Many Canadian courts have said if there are not enough adequate, accessible indoor shelter spaces available for the unhoused people in a community, a municipality violates a person’s Charter-protected right to life, liberty and security of the person if they prevent them from erecting overnight shelters.
Evidence shows that when cities deny people the ability to erect temporary shelters, this can increase people’s risks of death, hypothermia, violence, loss of belongings necessary for survival (such as tents, tarps, and blankets), as well as loss of dignity: these all impact constitutional rights to “life, liberty and security of the person”.
In other words, when a city prevents a person from sheltering under a tent or tarp or other makeshift structure, this likely violates the unhoused person’s rights, unless there are indoor spaces available and accessible to them. The availability and accessibility of indoor shelter spots is an important determining factor in many of the cases. A shelter space may be generally available, but not accessible to a specific person.
For example, a woman-only shelter space is not accessible to an unhoused man. A shelter space with a sobriety requirement is not accessible to someone in active addiction. A shelter with stairs at the entrance is not accessible to a person who uses a mobility device. In Saskatoon, evidence about how shelter spaces are available and accessible is not totally clear, but most sources seem to show that there are not enough spaces for everyone currently sleeping outdoors. Indeed, preliminary reports indicated that of an estimated 120 people displaced from the encampment, only two immediately moved into shelter spaces.
The Waterloo Case and Canada’s Right to Housing Law
In a recent Ontario decision about an encampment in the city of Waterloo, the Court noted Canada’s right to housing law, the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA), which recognizes housing as a fundamental human right.
In this case, the Court accepted that constitutional rights must be interpreted to conform with Canada’s commitment under the NHSA and international human rights instruments. These instruments oblige governments to work towards providing adequate housing, to protect security of tenure, and to protect against forced evictions. In explaining what the international human rights law requires in the situation of encampments, the Court said that it requires meaningful and robust consultation with affected encampment residents and for governments to explore all reasonable alternatives to forced evictions.
But what about situations where fire officials invoke issues of safety and fire risk to justify the closure of encampments?
In a case from Vancouver, a judge said that a fire chief seeking to dismantle an encampment due to imminent fire and safety risks still owed a duty of fairness to encampment residents whose rights to life, liberty and security of the person would be impacted. The Court indicated that officials must consider the constitutional rights of residents before issuing closure orders, including weighing the harms of encampment closures against the risk of fire and considering the availability of indoor shelter spots. If it is still determined that removal is required, then officials must give notice to residents and provide them with the opportunity to make submissions about the impact of removal on them.
In short, officials must show that their decision–making has carefully considered the Charter rights of residents every step of the way.
The day after the Saskatoon encampment sweep, the Ontario Court of Appeal released a decision about an encampment in Hamilton, Ontario. The decision emphasizes that the issue of how cities deal with encampments is of great public importance and that municipal actions with respect to encampments require careful and robust scrutiny by courts when challenged.
What Comes Next in Saskatchewan
The cases discussed above are not binding in Saskatchewan, and the law in other jurisdictions is evolving and still unsettled. But it would be surprising if a Saskatchewan court did not draw on the legal frameworks we see elsewhere in the country. The cases elsewhere emphasize that how cities deal with encampments is a deeply important issue that impacts the very survival of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Interfering with people’s ability to take shelter in the absence of adequate and accessible indoor shelter spaces engages people’s constitutional rights.
Where there are serious and imminent public safety issues present, municipalities should be prepared to show how they have put the constitutional rights of unhoused residents at the centre of their decision-making, how they worked to mitigate safety issues, and how they provided residents with a chance to be heard before moving ahead with a closure. A Saskatchewan judge will soon have a chance to consider these deeply consequential issues.
