Housing Bill | Promote the eviction of tenants, without realizing it

Bill 37 tabled on May 25 by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Andrée Laforest, seeks to respond to a multitude of abusive situations that have arisen in recent years in terms of housing. One of the changes made aims to add several articles in order to regulate the evictions of tenants of residences for seniors when the owner no longer wishes to maintain the residence status of the dwelling for seniors.

Olivier Grondin
Master’s candidate in law at UQAM and researcher in housing law

Although the minister claims to want to protect our seniors by adopting these amendments, this bill risks undermining the very foundations of the tenant protection regime in Quebec.

To understand this perverse effect, we must look at the source of this protection. Thus, since 1994, the Civil Code of Québec has only provided for five grounds for eviction of a tenant who has not committed any fault:

• the change of use (the accommodation becomes a commercial space);

• the subdivision of housing (a six and a half becomes two three and a half);

• substantial enlargement (two 3 and a half become a 6 and a half);

• the demolition of the dwelling;

• and the repossession of the dwelling by the owner to live there or to house a member of his family.

In 2003, however, the Court of Quebec decided that removing or adding the certification of residence for seniors to a dwelling constituted a change of assignment, even if the dwelling remained offered for residential purposes.

In practical terms, this judgment had the perverse effect of allowing real estate speculators to buy seniors’ residences at low prices, empty them, and then re-let the units at high prices.

Especially since as a bonus, the fact of withdrawing the status of residence for seniors is considered a change of assignment, these “new” dwellings have rents excluded from any control for five years.

An easy “cash pass”, as we say in good French. So easy that you wonder how it is possible.

The answer is quite simple. It should never have been possible, because, in the spirit of the Civil Code, a change of assignment “while remaining offered for residential purposes” is nonsense. It is the repossession of the dwelling which makes it possible to evict a tenant who has committed no fault, while allowing the dwelling to remain offered for residential purposes.

This is where the greatest weakness of Minister Laforest’s bill is to be found: instead of reminding the courts that a change of assignment “while remaining offered for residential purposes” does not legally exist , it instead chooses to specifically regulate this type of eviction in the case of residences for the elderly.

A bill that encourages abuse

Imagine that the right to housing is a house. It is protected by walls: rent control and the right to maintain occupancy.

There are limits to these walls, for example the law provides for doors (repossession) and windows (eviction). To prevent the tenant from being abused, the law provides that to enter through the door, one must be authorized by a security guard.

According to this analogy, the 2003 judgment of the Court of Quebec has the consequence that if a driver manages to get his car in through the living room window, it is because in reality the living room window is a garage door which allows to override the security guard.

The consequence – all in all fairly predictable – is that more and more cars are trying to enter people’s homes through their living room window.

The bill thus attempts to solve this problem of cars in salons, which in itself is commendable. The problem stems from the chosen remedy. Instead of trying to clarify the use of the doors and windows, the Minister proposes instead to put a car access ramp from the window to the living room, simply specifying that a security guard will be placed at the foot of the ramp to ensure that drivers of red cars do in fact hold a driving licence. Cars of another color will be able to set off freely.

The image is absurd, but it demonstrates the problem well.

An eviction for change of assignment must not allow the dwelling to remain offered for residential purposes.

Trying to regulate this type of eviction for change of assignment, other than by clarifying that it is not legal, amounts to encouraging abuses and future excesses.

In the midst of a housing crisis, tenants deserve a bill that will truly protect them from abuse and eviction.