Published In
European Review of Contract Law
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Subjects
contractual federalism, housing, Canada
Abstract
Canada’s housing crisis continues to deepen, exacerbated by constitutional fragmentation and intergovernmental reluctance to implement human rights-based housing policy. While the federal National Housing Strategy Act recognizes housing as a human right, its application is limited and its legal force is limited to the federal level, leaving provinces and municipalities unbound. This article argues that contract law – particularly conditional funding agreements between the federal government and subnational actors – can serve as a pragmatic and legally coherent mechanism to bind municipalities to housing obligations, including the recognition of housing as a human right. Drawing on the Canada Health Act as a functional precedent and supported by constitutional jurisprudence, this paper demonstrates how the federal government can use contracts as justice-oriented tools to implement the right to housing. Contracts, though not a constitutional panacea, offer a legal and institutional bridge between aspirational rights and material obligations in a complex federal system.
Citation Details
Alexandra Flynn, "Binding Rights: Contractual Federalism and the Right to Housing in Canada" (2025) 21:3 European Review of Contract Law.