Quebec wants to ban evictions until 2027
Great evils require great remedies: to fight the housing crisis, the Legault government is proposing
to impose a three-year moratorium on evictions.
Bill 65 by the Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, was tabled Wednesday in the National Assembly.
An eviction or a threat of eviction causes immense stress, and we want to prevent as many Quebecers as possible from finding themselves in such a situation, considering the few alternatives available to them at the moment, explained Ms. Duranceau at a press conference.
In a crisis context, losing one's home can have immense consequences, which can go as far as homelessness, she added.
Entitled "An Act to limit landlords' right to evict and strengthen the protection of senior tenants," the legislation would come into force as soon as it is passed by Parliament. And the government would like to proceed quickly.
As soon as the bill was tabled, the House Leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), Simon Jolin-Barrette, expressed the hope that it would be adopted by the end of the session, which should theoretically end in two weeks, on Friday, June 7.
The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP) has reserved the right to request special consultations, which would have the effect of prolonging the study of the legislative text.
Québec solidaire (QS), for its part, has shown itself open to faster adoption, provided that the content of the bill suits it. His MPs rose when Minister Duranceau tabled it, just before question period in the Blue Room.
If the bill is passed within two weeks, the moratorium proposed by the CAQ will run until June 2027.
The Rental Vacancy Rate will end earlier if the rental vacancy rate published by the SCHL for all urban centres in Quebec with a population of at least 10,000 reaches 3%, the legislation reads.
However, the current rate is a far cry from 3%, a threshold it has not exceeded since 2017. Last year, it stood at 1.3%.
In the meantime, evictions for the purpose of changing the use, subdivision and expansion of housing will be prohibited throughout the territory of Quebec, with some exceptions, the government having reserved the right to exempt any part of the territory of Quebec from the application [of the measure].
Property owners will also retain the right to repossess their homes to live in themselves or to move a relative in.
Bill 65 also proposes to expand the 2016 "Françoise David Law" by raising the minimum age for low-income tenants protected from evictions and repossessions, a long-standing demand of the QS.
That said, the protection would continue to apply only to seniors who have lived in their homes for at least 10 years, while the Solidaires wanted to reduce this threshold to 5 years.
With his Bill 198, which had been called by the government before the CAQ decides to introduce its own piece of legislation, QS also proposed that the maximum income for protected seniors be significantly increased. But the minister finally opted for a lower increase.
Currently, the Civil Code provides that only a senior whose income is equal to or less than the maximum income that allows him or her to qualify for low-rent housing is protected by law.
QS wanted to revise this provision to apply to individuals with incomes equal to or less than the amount equivalent to 150% of the maximum eligible income. The CAQ finally cut the pear in half, at 125%. For a person living alone or in a couple, the limit would therefore increase from $38,000 to $47,500.
Twitter widget begins. Skip widget?End of Twitter widget. Go back to the beginning of the widget?The two measures announced Wednesday by Minister Duranceau – the moratorium on evictions and the expansion of the "Françoise David law" – will apply to the eviction and repossession processes underway if the bill is passed. Hence the eagerness of the CAQ to have it voted on by June 7.
Strongly criticized since her appointment as minister, France-Élaine Duranceau recently admitted in an interview with Radio-Canada that she had lacked empathy since the beginning of her mandate, assuring that her involvement was sincere and that she "doesn't give a damn about the world."
In February, Ms. Duranceau passed Bill 31, which amended various housing legislation. The text, however, has met with a lot of resistance, particularly because of the changes relating to lease assignments, which landlords can now refuse without serious reason.
The opposition also took advantage of the study of the bill to call on the minister to better protect seniors from evictions, but the proposed amendments to this effect were all rejected.
In a press scrum Wednesday morning, Ms. Duranceau explained this change of course by saying that the measures of Bill 31 will take some time to take effect and better protect tenants. The government also believes that the large influx of temporary immigrants is putting pressure on the rental market.
Although tenants are better protected since Bill 31, there are no units to go to, so here, the measure, it puts a pause, a pause, while the housing is built, summarized the minister.
In an interview on the Midi info program on ICI Première, the spokesperson for the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ) Cédric Dussault was pleased to see that evictions will be prohibited unless the vacancy rate exceeds 3%.
However, he also insisted that more will have to be done to curb the epidemic of evictions that we are witnessing.
The main problem in Quebec is that the majority of evictions and repossessions of housing are done fraudulently, he explained. So we also have to tackle everything that is outside of legislative control, everything that does not necessarily go through the Administrative Housing Tribunal.
Some landlords, for example, do not hesitate to ask their tenants to leave their apartment to renovate it – a scheme also known as "renoviction" – or to ask them for a substantial rent increase once the work is completed.
But it doesn't work like that, Dussault said Wednesday, repeating that, even for major work, tenants have the right to remain in the premises.
