Residential Tenancy Act 'a long time coming' and still falls short, says Opposition

There are still no signs that P.E.I.'s new Residential Tenancy Act, first drafted in 2019 and still in consultation, will make it to the floor of the legislature any time soon.

Green housing critic Karla Bernard said despite all the time the government has had to work on it, the bill still fails to make the fundamental changes that are required.

"This Residential Tenancy Act has been a long time coming. It's been well over two years since they initially said that they were going to bring them forward, and there was a whole bunch of time to really look at all these things, to pick them apart," said Bernard.

"The same systemic barrier, those same systemic issues, are going to be there if we don't look at what we're doing right now — what's going well and what's not going well — and trying to come up with something better for people."

CBC News asked for an interview about the act with Housing Minister Brad Trivers on March 3, but the minister was not able to find an available time in the following two weeks.

Property owners lobbying all parties

Cecil Villard, executive director of the Residential Rental Association, a group representing rental property owners, agrees with Bernard that the new act should not be rushed.

"This is a really important piece of legislation for both tenants and landlords, so I think it's really important that we take our time and we get it right," said Villard.

He noted the current legislation is 30 years old, and Islanders can expect this act could last that long as well.

He said his group has met with the Liberal and Progressive Conservative caucuses and is scheduled to meet with the Green caucus. After that they will meet with the minister. In the meantime, they are not speaking publicly about what they would like to see in the act.

"We're going through a consultation process," said Villard.

"We're not going to negotiate this in the media. That wouldn't serve anybody, landlords or tenants."

'Challenges with unlawful rental increases'

While the act needs careful deliberation, Bernard said there are some urgent issues that need to be dealt with.

Among those is rapidly rising rent. In the two years since the first draft of this legislation came out, rents are up 4.6 and 8.1 per cent, the two biggest rent increases of the last decade, despite rent controls that limited increases to 1.3 and 1.0 per cent. These are average rents, as measured by CMHC, and include new units, which are not rent controlled in the first year, and units where the owner successfully applied for a rent increase above the guideline.

In an email to CBC News on March 3, Trivers acknowledged these rent increases are a problem.

"We know there have been challenges with unlawful rental increases, which the proposed Residential Tenancy Act legislation will help to remedy, either within the legislation itself or within regulations," he said.

The latest draft of the act has a provision for an investigative branch that could investigate complaints.

The Greens are proposing two quick fixes.

One is purchasing some of the existing rental stock, buildings in need of renovation, fixing them up and offering them at affordable rents. The other is to create a provincial rent registry, which would track rents in every rental unit over time, to make it easier to catch illegal rent increases.

Bernard is concerned, however, that the government is not focused on either long-term or short-term fixes.

"I haven't heard a thing about the Residential Tenancy Act," she said.

"We were told it was coming forward this sitting but there's been no indication whether that's going to happen or not. I do think that government is afraid to bring this forward, because they understand that this is a very polarizing piece of legislation."

The most recent draft does not contain anything about a rent registry.

'If you kick somebody out you'll have an easier time'

P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing also thinks the legislation needs another look.

"There's some parts of it that are OK but for the most part I wouldn't really want it to be approved the way it is right now," said Connor Kelly, the group's tenant network co-ordinator.

Kelly's biggest concern is there are still too many avenues for landlords to increase rent above the guideline set by IRAC, including opportunities for renoviction, where tenants are evicted so units can be renovated.

The most recent draft of the bill includes a provision to put up the rent on a unit that is vacant.

"So, essentially, if you kick somebody out you'll have an easier time getting that rent up," Kelly said.

Kelly is somewhat baffled by language in the bill around allowing the landlord what is called a reasonable return on investment, which to start with he describes as an odd notion.

"All investments come with risks, so this idea that you're never going to lose out makes it very easy to just apply for something because your property value has gone up," he said.

The provision allows landlords to make more money even if they haven't been improving or keeping up their property, said Kelly, but simply because their property's value has gone up.

"[Rents] aren't really based on how much money your landlord is actually investing, how much maintenance they're doing, how much work's going into a property. It's based on housing market, which is insane," he said.

So an evaluation that says you could sell the property for a big profit could become a justification for higher rents. At the same time, if someone does buy the property, whatever they pay for it would to a certain degree be protected by the promise of a reasonable return on investment, which could in itself increase the value of the property.

CBC News asked the Department of Housing if the act could be expected to be presented to the legislature during the spring session, but did not receive a response.