Worried that they’d create too much new bureaucracy by hiring a new watchdog and setting up an adjudication system to enforce a right to housing they’ve promised, the federal Liberals appear ready to back off both.

The Liberals’ decade-long housing strategy, released a year ago, promised to recognize a right for every Canadian to have adequate housing and to remove government roadblocks to getting it, alongside aggressive spending to build and repair affordable housing units.

Under the $40-billion plan, that right was to be boosted by a federal housing advocate who would give people recourse if federal policy gets in the way of their ability to access an affordable place to live.

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