The Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, expects that the adoption of her Bill 31 will help both owners and tenants. But how and when? The duty tries to answer it.
Adopted by majority on Wednesday in the National Assembly, Bill 31 “modifying various legislative provisions relating to housing” will come into force upon its sanction by the Lieutenant Governor, during the afternoon. The legislative text contains a series of measures which will quickly affect the daily life of landlord-tenant relations.
Restrictions on the transfer of lease
This is undoubtedly the most controversial section of the bill. As soon as it comes into force, it will allow an owner to refuse that a tenant transfers his lease to another. If he previously had to cite a “serious reason” to say no to a transfer, the landlord will no longer need to do so. In the event of refusal, the lease will be terminated at the scheduled time of transfer.
The act of subletting or transferring a rental contract “for a profit” also becomes prohibited. The restrictions on the transfer of lease are applicable from the sanction of the law.
Clause “G” and clause “F”
With these articles, Minister Duranceau wants to offer more transparency to tenants. Little respected by owners, clause G of the lease contains the lowest rent paid in the last twelve months. From now on, a landlord who “knowingly fails” to register it will be liable for punitive damages.
Once the bill comes into force, the inclusion of clause F will also become mandatory in buildings “newly built or which have been the subject of a recent change of use”. This indicates the maximum rent that a landlord intends to charge in the next five years.
Protection against evictions
Although opposition groups keep telling her that this will not be enough, the Minister responsible for Housing believes that the measures she is putting in place to protect tenants from evictions will bear fruit. After the refusal by the other parties represented in the National Assembly to quickly adopt the bill in December, she maintained that “each day that passes, these are evictions that could have been avoided”.
In practice, “Law 31” will offer tenants increased compensation. Currently, a person evicted from their home is entitled to the equivalent of three months’ rent and reasonable moving expenses. With the adoption of the CAQ bill, the compensation must now represent a sum equal to “one month’s rent for each year of rental”, but could at most be equivalent to “24 months’ rent”. The three-month minimum remains in effect.
Adjustments to urban planning rules
These sections of the bill do not directly affect landlord-tenant relations, but rather the powers of cities in matters of housing. In order to accelerate the construction of rental units, the bill will allow municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants and having a vacancy rate of less than 3% according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to authorize projects of three or more dwellings on their territory without taking into account their town planning regulations.
This proposal has raised fears of “favoritism” and “corruption,” according to experts, but Minister Duranceau maintains that all the safeguards have been put in place. From the coming into force of the law, a city will be able to notify the ministry of the intention to use these new powers for a period of three years. Afterwards, this period may be extended for two years, at the discretion of the minister in place. Cities like Gatineau or Longueuil will, for example, be able to use these provisions of the law.
The former prosecutor of the Charbonneau commission Sonia LeBel, now president of the Treasury Board, does not fear any slippage. “The Quebec Municipal Commission has all the necessary powers to regulate this clause,” she said a few weeks ago.
What the bill does not contain
In the eyes of opposition groups, Bill 31 is a “missed opportunity” to address the housing crisis. This is because Minister Duranceau rejected several of their amendments in recent months to add provisions to the bill.
Among these, the establishment of a national rent register, which would have made it possible to know the last rents paid for each rental lease, and the reversal of the provisions on the transfer of lease.
Despite the grievances of Québec solidaire, who was accompanied last week by a father who is preparing to lose his home at the hands of a renovation in Shawinigan, the minister also said no to the establishment of a moratorium on renovictions. “There is no alternative. That’s the problem,” insisted Jonathan Simard, who was preparing to be evicted from the apartment where his four young boys live. “From the moment there is no alternative, it is as if we are alienating, in a certain way, the tenant from his right to housing. »
Despite proposals from the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire, the “Françoise David law”, which protects vulnerable seniors against evictions, has not been extended to people aged 65 and over.
What they said
The government does not claim that this bill will solve the housing crisis. That would be completely unrealistic. That said, I think it includes some extremely useful tools that will allow us to tackle two pressing issues: increasing the housing supply and restoring the balance between renters and homeowners.
Bill 31, not only is it a poorly put together bill, but it is a missed opportunity to act more profoundly on the housing crisis. […] We didn’t add any protection. On the contrary, with the change in relation to the transfer of lease, we have a bill which could even worsen the crisis.
Unfortunately, despite promises that it was a bill that would resolve a large number of very problematic situations in the rental sector, PL31 will fuel the housing crisis. It will add fuel to the furnace of real estate speculation which is affecting the rental sector throughout Quebec, not just in large centers.
We will be told: “Well, we have to trust municipal elected officials”. Yes, we must trust all public administrations, but that is no reason why public administrations no longer have any rules of the game to follow. And that’s essentially what we decided to do in this case.