Quebec opposition and seniors vow to keep fighting for tenants’ rights bill

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QUEBEC – As the Legault government and now Ontario ramp up pressure on Ottawa to step away from the housing issue, a coalition of Quebec tenant groups called for new legislation to strengthen protections for older tenants they say are They are often subject to discrimination by landlords.

With Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois leading the event, five groups representing hundreds of thousands of high-profile tenants called on the Coalition Avenir Québec to adopt QS-sponsored legislation, Bill 198, which would strengthen existing legislation designed to protect seniors from being evicted from their rental housing.

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The old bill, adopted in 2016 and often called the “Françoise David bill” after the former QS spokesperson who introduced it, makes it illegal for a landlord to evict limited-income tenants who are 70 or older and have lived in the same rental unit for at least 10 years.

House Bill 198 would lower that age to 65 and shorten the period to five years, all in the name of better protecting vulnerable seniors from being uprooted by unscrupulous landlords or landlords who flip properties for profit.

The situation is especially relevant in Montreal, where more than half of residents are renters, many of them seniors.

“Quebec seniors are experiencing a crisis,” Pierre Lynch, president of the Association québécoise de defense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées (AQDR), a seniors advocacy group, said at the news conference. “What we need are actions like what we see today (Bill 198), an exercise that must go beyond partisan lines.”

“Older tenants are among the poorest Quebecers,” added Véronique Laflamme, spokesperson for the housing rights group Front d’action d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPU), who noted that older tenants have around $14,000 less income than the average renter.

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“Being kicked out of their homes is particularly traumatizing for them.”

But even as the group made its proposal, the CAQ did not commit to the legislation, arguing it is not necessary because it believes its own housing law, Bill 31, adopted in February, sufficiently protects all Quebecers from actions like renovations.

After letting Bill 198 languish for months on the order paper (because it is an opposition bill, the CAQ is not required to act), the government on Thursday allowed it to advance beyond the first reading stage of the adoption process.

MNAs spent the afternoon debating the bill and all three opposition parties, the Liberals, QS and Parti Québécois, came out in favour.

But Housing Minister France Élaine-Duranceau managed to irritate opposition groups and parties at the same time when, in her remarks, she said that the old law now in force actually provoked a backlash against seniors.

He said he had heard that landlords, fearing the rights of the new seniors, began to discriminate against signing leases with them for fear of never being able to raise their rents.

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“It’s age discrimination,” responded Gisèle Tassé-Goodwin, president of the Réseau FADOQ, which represents 550,000 seniors in Canada, when she heard about the comment. “We have to prohibit age discrimination. We have to open the door and welcome these people, whether they are 65 or 70 years old.”

“It’s a very strange argument,” Nadeau-Dubois said. “In fact, because they are being discriminated against, we must protect them.”

At 4:30 p.m., when the legislature recessed for the day and the Easter holidays, the bill was not adopted. Coming out of the process, national MP Christine Labrie, head of Quebec Solidaire’s seniors portfolio, insisted that the battle is not over.

“If they (the CAQ) had wanted to disengage, they would have stopped talking early,” Labrie told reporters. “They do not.”

Meanwhile, disputes between Quebec and Ottawa continued Thursday over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement Wednesday that he wanted to create a national tenants’ bill of rights, housing registry and standard leases.

After accusing Trudeau on Wednesday of meddling in a provincial jurisdiction, Canadian Affairs Minister Jean-François Roberge criticized Trudeau again on Thursday at a morning news conference.

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“The federal government does not have the right attitude,” Roberge told reporters. “They try to do things from coast to coast but, somewhere between the Pacific and the Atlantic, there is Quebec, which is a different society, a different nation, which has its civil code.

“We don’t let the federal government come with its bulldozers. Quebecers don’t like Ottawa trying to centralize. Quebecers are nationalists. Quebecers want a strong government.

“If Mr. Trudeau wants to do politics in Quebec, he has to be elected in Quebec and reach the National Assembly. He cannot govern Quebec from Ottawa. It will not happen”.

Questioned by reporters at an event on Montreal’s south shore, Premier François Legault chimed in: “I understand that the federal government wants to make nice announcements for citizens, but it makes no sense for it to do so in provincial jurisdictions.”

And Legault got the support of Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

“I agree 100 per cent with Premier Legault,” Ford said in Toronto. “Focus on your responsibilities and we’ll focus on ours.”

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