June press review

We have prepared a press review that covers the entire month of June. If you haven't had time to follow all the news, here are the highlights. First, at the beginning of this month, CORPIQ publicly expressed its desire to oppose the Responsible Landlord Certification proposed by the City of Montreal. Also, let us note the withdrawal of a portion of Bill 37 following the intervention of several groups, including CORPIQ. Also, the APCHQ describes a deficit of 100,000 dwellings in the entire province.

Clause F remains intact

After having participated in the public hearings of the Commission sur l'aménagement du territoire at the National Assembly earlier this month, CORPIQ is satisfied to see that Bill 37, which had planned to modify the leases F clause, has finally been redesigned. Thus, as we can read in a press release from the Cabinet de la ministre des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation, the portions of the bill dealing with the desired changes to Clause F were dropped, leaving intact the 5-year period not subject to the new building rent fixing criteria. As described in this article from Le Devoir, the tide seems to have turned, especially after enough MPs were convinced of the importance of removing the subject of the F clause from the bill.

Responsible Landlord Certification

CORPIQ did not waste any time and intervened on the Responsible Landlord Certification project proposed by the City of Montreal. Let’s recall that this project aims at granting a certification to landlords of buildings of 8 dwellings or more over a period of 5 years in order to, according to the City, prevent unsanitary situations.  Concomitantly to the hearing of the briefs for the Certification, CORPIQ published a press release in which it asked the City to postpone the Certification project. In an article from the Journal de Montréal, CORPIQ’s General manager was quoted  notably by proposing to look at all the sources of a problem before legislating. This refers to the fact that landlords are often confronted with tenants suffering from social distress and thus causing situations of insalubrious living conditions. CORPIQ recommends that actors from the social work field contribute and bring their expertise when landlords find themselves without resources to manage these situations that are beyond their competence.

 

A lack of housing

The Association des professionnels de la construction et de l'habitation du Québec (APCHQ) has estimated that to balance the supply and demand of housing, 100,000 more units would have to be added throughout the province. Whether it's a house, a condo, a rental unit or even a low-cost unit, the director of the APCHQ's economic service asserts that it is by increasing the supply that we can reduce the overheating of the real estate market. As explained in La Presse, this means that 10,000 additional housing units will have to be added yearly to those already under construction to fill the new households annually over a 10-year period. In more precise terms, it is a question of filling the deficit "in a shortfall of 15,000 private rental units, 58,000 properties for sale as well as 37,000 social housing units," as stated in an article in Les Affaires. Montreal would thus have a deficit of 73,000 dwellings, Quebec City 8,100, and Gatineau 4,500. These three metropolitan areas account for 85% of the housing shortage in the entire province. By filling these deficits, we could hope to bring the vacancy rate to around 3%, according to a report by TVA Nouvelles on the same subject.

 

CORPIQ in the news

On another note, CORPIQ was mentioned on the sidelines of a demonstration by housing rights activists in Quebec City aimed at denouncing the illegal practices of landlords. While the demonstrators were decrying questionable practices on the part of certain landlords, one article stated from ICI Radio-Canada that CORPIQ condemns illegal evictions, but demands that landlords be able to obtain incentives from the government to support building maintenance and avoid renovations that cause rents to skyrocket.

A publication shared on social media in connection with a CORPIQ intervention at 98,5FM has also been the subject of much discussion. Should the right to ban animals in a dwelling be withdrawn? According to a CORPIQ survey, 1 out of 4 landlords accept dogs in a dwelling, and nearly 71% of landlords accept cats. A security deposit offered by a tenant to a landlord is obviously an incentive to convince a landlord to accept a pet. However, it is also a question of respect for the other tenants in a building who would prefer not to have to suffer from allergy risks or a lack of tranquility in a collective environment. It should be noted that outside of large urban centers, landlords tend to accept animals a little more, especially because of the larger spaces available and access to land. Only service dogs and guide dogs are recognized as a means of compensating for a handicap and cannot be refused in a dwelling.