(Montreal) Québec solidaire believes that it is no longer tolerable to let landlords evict tenants in order to convert their homes into Airbnbs, especially in the midst of a housing crisis.
The parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, asks the Legault government to quickly proceed with a simple modification of the Civil Code which would prohibit evictions for the purpose of conversion into tourist accommodation.
Mr. Nadeau-Dubois was notably in the company, on Wednesday in Montreal, of two tenants who are threatened with eviction from the dwellings they have occupied, one for 25 years, the other for 22 years.
Québec solidaire argues that Quebec has lost 116,000 affordable housing units, including 90,000 in Montreal in recent years and, although these losses are not all attributable to the conversion into tourist accommodation, this seriously aggravates the current housing crisis.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois stresses that it is inconceivable that these evictions are still legal where tourist accommodation is permitted in the current context, the tenants in question finding themselves most of the time unable to relocate to housing comparable to the same price.