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Homelessness - General. Restoule v. Canada (Attorney General)
In Restoule v. Canada (Attorney General) (Ont CA, 2021) the Court of Appeal considered basics of justiciability. In the process it made an odd reference to 'homelessness' (the case itself is about native rights) and how it is a non-justiciable subject, which - on it's face - says that it's a political matter not to be litigated. I would challenge that, as one major basis of homelessness is the fact that our legal system allows massive property concentration (which is by it's nature a monopoly right) for investment and other business purposes. Those rights are based in both common law and statute law - both of which are amenable to Charter law:The Governing Principles Concerning Justiciability
[209] The doctrine of justiciability imposes limits on judicial review of executive action. It is based on the sense that there are public policy issues that are beyond the jurisdiction of the courts. Stratas J.A. noted:In rare cases … exercises of executive power are suffused with ideological, political, cultural, social, moral and historical concerns of a sort not at all amenable to the judicial process or suitable for judicial analysis. In those rare cases, assessing whether the executive has acted within a range of acceptability and defensibility is beyond the courts’ ken or capability, taking courts beyond their proper role within the separation of powers.[133] Examples of such rare cases would include the deployment of military assets, entering into foreign treaties, and addressing homelessness.
[210] The issue of addressing homelessness was raised in Tanudjaja, where the court found that there was “no sufficient legal component to engage the decision-making capacity of the courts”, and that “[i]ssues of broad economic policy and priorities are unsuited to judicial review.”[134] The application in that case asked the court “to embark on a course more resembling a public inquiry into the adequacy of housing policy.”[135] The court noted, “the issue is one of institutional competence [and] whether there is a sufficient legal component to anchor the analysis” and concluded that the application was not justiciable.[136]
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