Four months after a tense spring, the Minister of Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, will have to defend Bill 31 and the restriction on lease transfers starting this Thursday in Parliament. A debate which will continue in the street where tenant associations also plan to demonstrate.
In the vicinity of Parliament in Quebec, we still find posters showing a false Minister Duranceau who has just been arrested. ” Hazard. Minister France-Élaine Duranceau. Enemy of tenants,” we can read.
Now is the time for her to face the situation in the more formal context of the parliamentary committee responsible for studying her bill.
Tabled in June, it considerably restricts lease transfers which allow tenants to transfer their apartment to third parties without the owner’s consent, which is used in particular to prevent rent increases.
We already know the position of the groups expected in parliamentary committee this Thursday. The Corporation of Real Estate Owners of Quebec (CORPIQ) is for it, as is the Association of Construction Professionals (APCHQ).
The tenants’ associations are only expected in committee next week. But they will seek to make themselves heard before that. The Regroupment of Housing Committees and Tenant Associations of Quebec (RCLALQ) announced yesterday that it was organizing demonstrations on Saturday around a central idea: “Minister Duranceau must step back and preserve the transfer of lease.” The cities of Montreal, Quebec, Rimouski, Rouyn-Noranda and Sherbrooke are targeted.
Attacked on everything it doesn’t contain
For the rest, Bill 31 will likely be criticized for everything it does not contain. The FADOQ network, which is expected on Wednesday, has already deplored the absence of measures to prevent the conversion of seniors’ residences into regular housing, such as at Résidence Mont-Carmel.
As for the Quebec Network of Housing Organizations (RQOH), it is demanding more effective measures in terms of social housing.
Finally, the Work Unit for the Implementation of Student Housing (UTILE) will demand more measures to help young people.
Will the minister make adjustments? The only one to which she is committed aims to add tax measures to help CEGEPs that want to build new student residences.
With its handful of measures, the bill remains limited in the face of the scale of the housing crisis. The “action plan” is yet to come. When ? In interview at Duty at the end of August, she seemed to be aiming for December, but already we can expect that measures will be taken before then by her Finance colleague, Eric Girard, in the economic update planned for November.