The Centre will be co-hosting a one-day workshop on encampments and the Charter on February 28th along with the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights (University of Toronto). A small number of participant spots are available for U of A law students; please email mailey@ualberta.ca if you're currently enrolled as a JD student at the University and you would like to attend.
Workshop Synopsis:
The unhoused population has grown significantly across Canada in recent years, particularly in major cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, and Ottawa, and in areas in between. In urban centres, homeless encampments — consisting of tents, makeshift shelters, and informal settlements — have emerged across public and private spaces. These informal settlements are visible markers of the country’s housing crisis, and have attracted varied and often problematic responses from government. The result is a challenging range of legal, social, and political actions, with ongoing and complex interactions across all arenas.
This day long workshop engages with both the procedural and the substantive legal issues that shape provincial and municipal governments’ treatment of encampments and unhoused people, as well as the ways in which that treatment has been challenged. Parallels will be drawn with other pressing urban justice issues to set a rich comparative context for discussions. Panels will also deal with legal issues key to getting the perspectives of the unhoused before the courts, such as standing. The substantive issues of Charter rights and Indigenous rights will be examined too.
Workshop Participants:
Margot Young, Alexandra Flynn, Anna Lund, Martha Jackman, Estair van Wagner, Heidi Stark, Avnish Nanda, Chris Wiebe, Renee Vaugeois, Gerard Kennedy, Shaun Fluker
February 28, 2025, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
