Make a Submission

When preparing your written or oral submission to the Review Panel, there are a few things you should know:

Individuals, groups, and organizations/agencies can make submissions

You can make one as an individual, and as part of a group or organization

The format of your submission is totally up to you!

Line here of what the RP is calling for

After you make a submission, you may be invited to participate in the oral hearing.

What should you consider when developing your submission?

When developing your submission, consider that the Review Panel benefits from various forms of information: lived experiences, research and statistical evidence, policy analysis, human rights analysis, and arguments related to why the issue falls within federal jurisdiction. Your submission can make a significant impact.

Can I only make an oral submission?

We can offer transcription and submission to support to get your evidence submitted.

Our Human Rights Claims were successful in part because we were able to bring all of these elements together. To strengthen your submission, we highly recommend including several (or all!) of the following elements that were instrumental in our success:

Lived Experiences

Lived expertise of women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness, illuminating how and why homelessness is a gendered experience requiring gendered solutions.

Stories and narratives directly from lived experts, documented in their words and on their terms, are an integral and significant part of the evidence building process.

Research & Statistical Evidence

Draw on research to demonstrate the points you are trying to make. This research can be from academic journal articles, public reports, Statistics Canada, or any other reputable source.

Relevant Human Rights Law

Outline the relevant dimensions of the right to adequate housing under the ICESCR, the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the UNDRIP and other international human rights to which Canada is bound under
international law.

Jurisdiction

The NHSA focuses primarily on federal jurisdiction. It can be helpful for the Review Panel if you are able to identify areas of responsibility that fall under the umbrella of the federal government and make recommendations with that in mind.

Recommendations

The Review Panel will benefit from your clear, concise recommendations for policy change that would tangibly improve housing for women and gender-diverse people. Don’t forget to include these!

Identifying key issues

Your role in shaping impactful engagement with the Human Rights Review Panel is crucial. By clearly identify the issues you want to address, you are contributing significantly to the cause. The issues you identify may pertain to different levels of government and involve different government and non-governmental departments or agencies. The most effective strategy in issue identification is narrowing in on specific policies or legislation instituted by government or non-government agencies that create systemic housing rights violations. We strongly encourage youo present critical issues with recommendations or proposed solutions.

Download our Issue Identification Template to guide the process!

Gathering supportive evidence

Once you’ve identified your key issues, gathering evidence to support your claim of human rights violations is essential. Any data that supports your key issues and recommendations can count as evidence. As detailed above, your supportive evidence can take different forms.

Evidence can be:

A research paper you read
A news report
Stories and narratives from community members
Meeting minutes from a local city council meeting

Consent Forms

When collecting stories and narratives from community members, make sure that they are fully aware of what they are participating in and what impact their participation in the Review Panel will have. You can collect verbal consent before having a conversation with a community member and documenting their story.

Regardless of the medium, it’s crucial to ensure the community member’s consent. If a community member is sharing their story or narrative via email, you can send them this script and guide the conversation to ensure their consent over email as well: Download Email Script Here

Organizing your evidence

Gathering evidence can be a big and sometimes overwhelming task. We understand this, and we’re here to support you. One of the best ways to organize your evidence is by ensuring it supports the key issues you have identified. To help guide you in this process, we have provided a template below that might be helpful.

Remember: We can support your efforts in organizing your evidence. Email [email protected] to learn more!

Situating your evidence within relevant human rights law dimensions

An essential part of your submission will show how your evidence relates to relevant dimensions of the right to adequate housing under international laws that Canada is bound to, such as the ICESCR, the CEDAW, and the UNDRIP. If you happen to have a human rights lawyer or legal expert as a collaborator, this might be a good place to tap into their expertise. Want to include legal or jurisdictional analysis to your submission but not sure how? WNHHN and NIWHN staff and volunteers can work with you to include appropriate references to legal and jurisdictional frameworks in your submission. Get in touch with us at [email protected]

Research to support your submission

The WNHHN, NIWHN and our collaborators, have done some of the most extensive research on gendered homelessness in Canada. You can find it all HERE!

Preparing your written submission

How you develop your submission is up to you, and we welcome and value all formats. Whether you decide to craft your submission as a story or a narrative, or you opt for a structured template to cover multiple issues, the choice is yours. However you choose to present your submission, we encourage you to include analysis and recommendations, as they are key to highlighting rights violations.

Our draft template may be of assistance to groups, organizations, or agencies preparing a submission (template adapted from the National Right to Housing Written Submission Template):

Our submission outline includes:

Contact Information

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Key Issues

Part 3: Arguments (evidence) broken down by issue

Part 4: Policy and human rights analysis

Violation of the right to adequate housing

State responsibility and government’s role

Remedies and solutions

Part 5: Recommendations

Part 6: Conclusion

Further tools to help you develop your submission

Incorporating Human Rights Language

A guide to support organizations and rights claimants in incorporating human rights language in their written submissions to the review panel.

How to use this tool: You can refer to this guide as you are drafting written submissions to better infuse human rights language and framing. If you have not engaged with rights- based frameworks before, this can help you use human rights-based language to strengthen your arguments and recommendations. It also explains key terms, concepts, and principles of international human rights law

Meaningful Advocacy Spaces

Tools for reflection and deepening engagement with impacted communities in a safe, respectful, and inclusive way to build community capacity in engaging with the right to housing.

How to use this tool: You can use this tool to assess your current practices for creating impactful spaces centered on advocacy and justice, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes that will deepen your engagement with communities affected by human rights violations, as well as bolster their capacity to claim their right to housing.

Ethical Standards

A guide that provides human rights-based insight to complement university-based research ethics boards, to centre individuals and communities participating in research as agents of their own experience.

How to use this tool: You can use these ethical standards as a benchmark for respectful, meaningful, and culturally appropriate engagement, as well as consent and confidentiality in a human-rights informed research framework. Pages 6-11 are particularly useful for reflecting on how to meaningfully engage with research participants.