Pearl Eliadis

McGill University | McGill · Max Bell School of Public Policy

Canada is legally required to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate housing. Some obligations are immediate in nature while others are assessed on a longer term basis and subject to a reasonableness standard. Immediate implementation is required for establishing plans to achieve adequate housing and equality rights, among others. Canada...

Did evaluation meet the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis? How were evaluation practices, architectures, and values affected? Policy Evaluation in the Era of COVID-19 is the first to offer a broad canvas that explores government responses and ideas to tackle the challenges that evaluation practice faces in preparing for the next global crisis. Prac...

À la suite de consultations auprès du milieu et de 18 mois de recherche menée par une équipe multidisciplinaire composée de membres de l'Université McGill et d'organismes communautaires, le Collectif québécois pour la prévention de l’itinérance (CQPI) présente des recommandations concrètes de réforme du droit québécois pour mieux protéger les victi...

Based on consultations with the community and 18 months of research led by a multi-disciplinary team from McGill University and community organizations, the Québec Homelessness Prevention Policy Collaborative (Q-HPPC) released a policy paper with recommendations that focus on two areas: the right of victims of IPV and their families to live in safe...

Cette analyse s'adresse à l’exclusion des femmes migrantes à statut précaire de la couverture d’assurance provinciale pour les services et soins essentiels en santé sexuelle et reproductive au Québec. Les auteurs sont d'avis que cette exclusion va à l’encontre de nombreuses garanties juridiques et ils dressent un dispositif qui viserait à offrir un...

Stakeholder involvement in evaluation practice is a common strategy, but it should be grounded in human rights-based approaches to public policy. Shifting from a needs-based and system-focused approaches to people-centred approaches will actively values the voices of marginalized and vulnerable communities and serve to narrow the gap between the su...

Canadians are generally in favour of government restrictions on their rights during the pandemic, but the the haste and lack of clarity is threatening the rule of law ON MARCH 13, Quebec declared a public health emergency. Since then, the provincial government has issued five orders-in-council and almost 20 ministerial orders that have turned our l...

“Enabling Civil Society” is a research initiative spearheaded by the national advocacy group Voices-Voix. Voices-Voix (2010-2019) by Canadians, Canadian organizations and labour unions in response to the Harper government’s unprecedented federal funding cuts to civil society organizations (CSOs) and to measures that targeted progressive organizatio...

Cameroon is experiencing a largely ignored human rights catastrophe in the North West and South West regions of the country, home to most of its Anglophone population. Ten percent of that population has been forcibly displaced, making the tiny country the unlikely sixth largest source of displaced persons in the world.

On June 3, 2019, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa released the joint report, “The Unfolding Crisis in Cameroon” . The report highlights the ongoing crisis between the minority Anglophone community and the government and provides provides evidence of widespread and systemic atrociti...

Canada has been at the forefront of institutional innovation for human rights commissions and national human rights institutions for more than a decade. This paper surveys recent developments and postis two key factors that are relevant for commissions to work effectively. The first is an enabling environment, a concept that allows us to focus on t...

Book review

In October 2016, the Supreme Court of British Columbia decided to exercise its jurisdiction to hear claims resulting from alleged human rights violations and civil torts in the case of Araya v. Nevsun Resources Ltd. The Nevsun proceeding had commenced in 2014 on the issue of whether foreign plaintiffs can sue in a Canadian court for violations they...

Overview of the signficance of a dedicated and integrated analysis of fundamental freedoms in the context of dissent and protest.

Interculturalism has been posited in Quebec as an alternative to Canadian multiculturalism that is more respectful of Québec's linguistic and cultural specificity. This article demonstrates that interculturalism in fact has been deployed by nationalists to target minorities and principally Muslim women. The article tracks several attempts to legisl...

Eight Global Principles for capacity assessments of NHRIs have been identified on the basis of considerable experience and good practices developed over the years. These principles encompass compliance with human rights norms and standards, highlighting the values that underpin effective practices. The Global Principles and the wealth of analysis c...

Review of Dominique Clément "Equality Deferred: Sex Discrimination and British Columbia’s Human Rights State, 1953–84

Between 2010 and 2015, the federal government of Canada engaged in an unprecedented attack of civil society organizations, activists and human rights defenders. This chapter focuses on the systematic undermining of Canadian CSOs and advocates, drawing on 70 case studies (Annex 1) involving 108 organizations and advocates (Annex 2). The case studies...

In 2006, conservative writers Ray Pennings and Michael Van Pelt published an article in Policy Options about the model of government that emerged after Pierre Trudeau’s election as prime minister. They described it as operating on a “pan-Canadian consensus” based on, among other things, tolerance and an “aggressive human rights polity.” The authors...

This book, which builds on the 2008 collection The Harper Record, continues a 25-year tradition at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives of periodically examining the records of Canadian federal governments during their tenure. As with earlier CCPA reports on the activities of the Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin governments while in office, thi...

The rapidly expanding catalogue of human rights has generated concern about “too many rights” and “rights inflation” from many scholars and writers who are concerned about a proliferation of rights making human rights less relevant and legitimate. This commentary critically assesses the arguments in favour of "rights inflation" drawing on original...

Serious concerns about access to justice, fairness, and delays for human rights complaints investigated by commissions have led three Canadian jurisdictions to change their human rights systems by permitting complainants to send human rights complaints directly to tribunal with no prior investigation by a commission. In a fourth jurisdiction, Saska...

The capacity of CSOs to engage in advocacy and dissent depends on a complex interplay between regulatory, political and social factors. The concept of an “enabling environment” has emerged to define the scope of these factors and goes beyond identifying the restrictions that prevent groups from existing, functioning and growing and extends to inclu...

A critical analysis of the rhetoric and reality surrounding human rights commissions and tribunals, Canada's most contested administrative agencies. Canadians like to see themselves as champions of human rights in the international community. Closer to home, however, the human rights system in Canada - particularly its public institutions such as...

Today, many human rights commissions are threatened or are no longer in existence. This book argues in support of our human rights institutions, including the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights. These arguments debunk current challenges to our human rights commissions and tribunals. Further, they chronicle the ways in which governments have backe...

the ability to protect human rights and to promote social justice and a sustainable society in Canada and internationally is being compromised. This chapter documents the "disabling environment" for CSOs, characterised by funding cuts, political interference, verbal attacks or manipulation. These developments in Canada were the subject of a submiss...

This essay considers the two Canadian "culturalism's" – multiculturalism and interculturalism – from the perspective of human rights. Interculturalism is seen by some in Quebec to offer a distinct approach to social cohesion and to managing diversity, but it also attracts an ethnocentric approach that has been adopted enthusiastically by Quebec nat...

A critical analysis of the role that interculturalism is playing in Quebec from a human rights perspective.

This collection examines the degree to which evaluators seek power for their own interests, and the degree to which evaluators take into consideration self-interest in an open and transparent manner.

Published by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Overview of the role of the Canadian Human Rights Act in national security issues in Canada

This report was published under the Voices-Voix coalition to document how Canadian governments have limited dissent, public debate and democratic participation in Canada. Between 2006 and 2016 there was an unprecedented intensification of the use of these silencing tactics, particularly by the federal government. Deliberate funding cuts affected th...

The primary objective of the Framework is to provide reliable and policy-relevant data on equality rights in Canada, by examining the social and economic well-being of groups protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and provincial and territorial human rights legislation. For the purpose of this Framework, the term “protected group” is used t...

A “national human rights institution” (NHRI) is an institution with a constitutional and/or legislative mandate to protect and promote human rights. When in compliance with the Paris Principles, NHRIs are cornerstones of national human rights promotion and protection systems. NHRIs also serve as relay mechanisms between international human rights...

National human rights institutions (NHRIs) are expected to have broad mandates as well as the necessary powers and resources to effectively protect and promote human rights. International experience has shown that NHRIs face unique challenges in living up to this expectation. They may encounter limitations on their mandate or powers resulting from...

Actes du 6e Symposium de la Chaire de recherche du Canada en études québécoises et canadiennes

Comment on Chapter by Jeffrey Reitz and Rupa Banerjee

This article traces the extent to which federal policymakers integrate human rights and Charter norms and considerations into medium-term policy development. The lack of the human rights-based approaches to policy development in Canada has had an impact on several areas of policy development, including poverty and exclusion.

The paper examines normative or human-rights based approaches to public policy development in the federal public service of Canada. It considers the extent to which human rights are or are not a driver of public policy in the development of medium term policy priorities. .

Implications for human rights adjudication of the introduction of direct access systems in British Columbia and Ontario

How do governments govern today and how well do they do it? How do governments choose the tools or instruments they will use to get things done? In today's world, how could these decisions be improved from the standpoint of efficiency, effectiveness, legitimacy and accountability? "Designing Government" brings together leading experts to examine th...

Trends in new approaches to remedies in human rights systems

This paper examines normative approaches to poverty and exclusion with a focus on legal policy perspectives as drivers of policy rather than policy outcomes. Please note that an updated version of this article is available in: "Inscribing Charter Values in Policy Processes" (2006) 33 SCR Law Rev 229.

Dans ce document, on se propose d’examiner des approches normatives applicables à la pauvreté et à l’exclusion; on s’intéresse aux perspectives ressortissant aux orientations juridiques plutôt qu’aux résultats sur le plan des politiques. Les politiques juridiques apportent une aide précieuse aux décideurs qui doivent se prononcer sur la justificati...

The use of legislation as a tool of public action sends a strong signal about addressing poverty and social exclusion as multi-dimensional phenomena that require a coherent policy response. Available online at http://www.pri-prp.gc.ca/eng/content/research-brief-legislative-approaches-addressing-poverty-and-social-exclusion-quebec-belgium

Overview of selected decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, with regard to women's rights under the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms

Book review of human rights of women: national and international perspectives, by Rebecca Cook (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania press, 1994)

Overview of the tensions between rights and culture in Canada and in international law.

Surveys some of the shift away from the expansive approach to the rights of refugee claimants in the Singh case to a monstre constrained approach to Canadian immigration and refugee law in the 1980s and early 1990s, with a focus on the ability of noncitizens to claim basic human rights.

The proliferation of television broadcasting by satellite spawned a spinoff industry – piracy seek to crack the encryption satellite television signals. This article addresses the efficacy of , federal laws in the early 1990s, principally under broadcasting copyright legislation to stop acts of satellite piracy in Canada.

Collectied volume examining the evolution of internaitonal human rights law and the impact on Canadian law on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the UDHR.