The Commission is Canada's human rights watchdog. We are an independent, national voice for human rights in Canada. We rely on valued relationships within the human rights community, and collaborative dialogue with advocacy organizations, Indigenous organizations, Canadian employers, youth advocates, law societies, academics, and other human rights advocates across Canada. We also engage with the broader Canadian public reached our various multimedia platforms to raise awareness and encourage social change.
In 2021, it was more important than ever that we remained closely connected with our partners, with people in Canada, and with the voices of those with lived experience. Throughout the past year, we engaged with audiences through a host of virtual speaking events, through engagement with our human rights partners both within and outside government, and through an open dialogue with the Canadian media.
Across our various platforms, we worked to remain a bold, national voice for human rights in Canada by:
- Continuing to sound the alarm about systemic racism and discrimination in Canada, in all forms.
- Raising concerns about the rights of prisoners.
- Calling for all levels of government to help advance the human right to adequate housing for people experiencing homelessness.
- Recommitting ourselves to dismantling systemic racism and discrimination by developing and implementing our Anti-Racism Action Plan across our organization.
- Advocating for the rights of those disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Welcoming the coming into force of the Pay Equity Act and educating federally regulated organizations on their new responsibilities to proactively close the gender wage gap.
- Advocating for the investigation of all former residential school sites, calling on all nonIndigenous people in Canada to learn the truth about this shameful part of our history, and holding Canada accountable for meaningful action towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
- Advising lawmakers that medical assistance in dying should never be the only alternative, but rather, a meaningful choice among many viable and dignified options. And that any law on the issue should improve care, services, and substantive equality in Canada — especially for people with disabilities; and that any law on the issue should comply with and meaningfully monitor Canada's international human rights treaty obligations, and be developed in full consultation with diverse voices from Canada's disability community.
- Lending our voice on the urgent issue of systemic racism and racial discrimination in Canada's entire criminal justice system — from police surveillance, to profiling and targeting, to sentencing to incarceration.
- Talking to business leaders and decision-makers in Canada about how we are learning at the Commission that to be a leader in your industry also means being a leader in “The Big Three”: anti-racism values and practices; accessible service and accessible business, and creating a culture of pay equity and gender equality.
From left to right: Celeste McKay, Co-Author of the report; Professor Don McRae, Co-Author of the report; John Olthius, Counsel for the Innu Nation; Grand Chief Etienne Rich, Innu Nation; Deputy Grand Chief Mary Ann Nui, Innu Nation; Chief Eugene Hart, Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation; Yvette Michel, Innu Nation; Marie-Claude Landry, Chief Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission; and Keith Smith, Director General, Policy and Communications, Canadian Human Rights Commission.