SUPREME COURT OF CANADA DISMISSES CHALLENGE OF NEW WESTMINISTER’S RENOVICTIONS BYLAW
The Supreme Court of Canada has backed the city’s efforts to deter renovictions. According to a press release from the City of New Westminster, the Supreme Court of Canada informed the city on Dec. 9 that it had dismissed an application for leave to appeal the city’s rental units bylaw amendment. That decision followed a previous ruling by the BC Court of Appeal, which upheld the city’s right to adopt the bylaw amendment to deter the practice of renovictions and to help preserve affordable...
read moreP.E.I. DECLARES MORATORIUM ON ‘RENOVICTIONS’ FOR 2 YEARS
Prince Edward Island has enacted a two-year moratorium on what have become known as “renovictions” — evictions of tenants by their landlords in order to renovate their units. Politicians from all parties have acknowledged that the practice, allowed under the province’s Rental of Residential Property Act, is sometimes used by landlords to skirt around provincial rent controls. “What it means is that, immediately, there is a halt on people coming home and finding eviction...
read moreCANADA’S NEW HOUSING MINISTER FACES COMPLEX, CROSS-JURISDICTIONAL CHALLENGES
Ahmed Hussen is less than a week into his new role as the architect of the federal government’s housing strategy, but he’s already drawn up a blueprint. “I think the first and foremost thing is to build housing supply,” Hussen said of his priorities as the first federal housing minister in an interview airing this weekend on CBC’s The House. “It is to ban foreign ownership in our housing sector. It is to implement the promised tax on non-residential,...
read moreAFFORDABLE HOUSING FUND COULD ARISE OUT OF PERMISSIVE TAX EXEMPTION POLICY
The city will be turning a sow’s ear of permissive tax exemptions into a silk purse of affordable housing as it charts a course on a new financial policy. City staff will be digging deep during the 2022 budget planning process to find some funding alternatives to allow permissive tax exemptions (PTE) to operate as a tool to support the supply of affordable housing in Nelson, noted city chief financial officer Colin McClure in his report to council at the last regular council business meeting....
read moreONTARIO’S 2022 RENT INCREASE GUIDELINE
Based on the Ontario Consumer Price Index (CPI), the guideline on rent increases for 2022 in Ontario is 1.2 per cent. The CPI is a measure of inflation calculated monthly by Statistics Canada using data that reflects economic conditions over the past year. The guideline applies to most residential rental accommodations covered by the Residential Tenancies Act. It does not apply to rental units in buildings occupied for the first time after November 15, 2018, social housing units, long-term...
read moreFIRST RENTAL RULE ‘ENFORCER’ SELDOM NEEDS HIS NIGHTSTICK
When former Victoria police superintendent Scott McGregor was hired in May 2019 to lead the first compliance and enforcement unit for B.C.’s often contentious Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB), he was referred to as the “enforcer” by Housing Minister Selina Robinson. But, after two years on the job, McGregor says he was surprised at the level of co-operation among landlords and tenants, even when Canada’s toughest rental regulations were ushered in with COVID-19 in 2020. McGregor’s years of...
read moreMONTREAL CALLS A NEW HOUSING BYLAW ‘THE MOST POWERFUL IN NORTH AMERICA’ BUT CRITICS SAY IT’LL DRIVE UP COSTS
A new Montreal bylaw proposed and passed by Valérie Plante’s administration could reshape the way housing development works in the city, but not everyone is happy about it. Known as the bylaw for a mixed metropolis, it came into effect on April 1. It forces developers to include social, family and, in some places, affordable housing units to any new projects larger than 4,843 square feet (about five units) — or else they’re on the hook for hefty fines. And critics say they’re...
read moreEVICTION BAN MAY END SOON, SO WHERE WILL ALL THOSE PEOPLE GO?
Ontario’s ban on evictions may soon be coming to an end once the province reopens the economy, but a Guelph lawyer who represents some tenants is wondering where all of those people will go. The provincial government put a halt to residential eviction enforcement early during the pandemic, but Jeff Schlemmer, staff lawyer with the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County, told GuelphToday the tribunals that order those evictions have gone ahead. Some tenants may have come to the tribunal...
read moreYUKON RENT CAP COMES INTO EFFECT, OPPOSITION CALLS IT ‘MASTERCLASS IN BAD POLICY MAKING’
The Yukon government has delivered on one of its promises to the NDP — a residential rent cap that came into effect over the weekend. The move has already drawn fire from the opposition Yukon Party, and some landlords who say they won’t be able to afford their properties anymore. The cap came into effect on Saturday, and it limits any residential rent increases this year to one per cent, which is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Whitehorse in 2020. The percentage will be reviewed each...
read moreONTARIO RELEASES THREE-STEP ROADMAP TO SAFELY REOPEN THE PROVINCE
The Ontario government, in consultation with the Chief Medical Officer of Health, has released its Roadmap to Reopen, a three-step plan to safely and cautiously reopen the province and gradually lift public health measures based on the provincewide vaccination rate and improvements in key public health and health care indicators. In response to recent improvements to these indicators, Ontario will allow more outdoor recreational amenities to reopen, with restrictions in place, effective May...
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