VIDEO: Response to Bill 16 (Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, 2017)

Recognizing the dramatic housing affordability crisis and a lack of stability for renters in the current marketplace, this Bill provides renters more security. It is important that we strike a fine balance between landlord and renter rights to ensure renters are protected and landlords are encouraged to keep their properties in the long-term rental supply.

[Transcript]

I rise today to speak to the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act. It’s no secret that we’re in the midst of an affordability crisis that is having profound and wide-ranging impacts on people and families in our province. Renters are particularly vulnerable in this market. It is in this context that I support this bill.

Young British Columbians are the hardest hit in this crisis, as young people are disproportionately renters and they are being priced out of the housing market as homeowners. Appropriate and affordable rental units have become extremely difficult to find, especially for families. As a result, our friends, neighbours and family members are forced to live in unsafe, unstable, unsuitable and unaffordable accommodations.

Social stability begins and ends in the home. The stability of a person’s housing situation determines their quality of life — mental health, productivity at work, and with the family. If we truly want a strong, productive, flexible, diverse and agile 21st-century economy, then establishing a strong foundation in the home should be our priority.

This is why I was so particularly motivated to get elected into this House, to be involved in addressing the situation and finding solutions to the dramatic housing affordability crisis that the previous government let grow out of control in order to prop up their strong economy rhetoric. This crisis has not just affected homebuyers but also owners and landlords, and one result is that renters lack security and have become vulnerable to abuse by some landlords who are taking advantage of the situation.

In the last few years, we’ve seen an egregious practice emerge. Some landlords are forcing renters to sign a fixed-term tenancy agreement with a vacate clause, which forces tenants to either move out at the end of the tenancy or agree to an entirely new lease that comes with rent increases that go well beyond the allowable rental increases under the law of 2 percent plus inflation.

In a market with a vacancy rate near zero percent and skyrocketing rents, renters have very few options. They often feel forced to agree to massive rental increases to stay in the same unit. I’ve heard stories of rents going up 10, 20 percent or even more from one year to the next.

It’s obviously unacceptable that renters have to deal with this kind of housing insecurity and that some landlords are skirting the law by using this loophole to increase rents. So I support the intention of this bill to protect renters from this practice by banning the use of a vacate clause in fixed-term contracts except in special circumstances.

But I would like to emphasize a few things here. First, only a small minority of landlords engage in this practice. Most landlords are responsible and fair. We need to strike a fine balance between the rights of tenants and landlords and do more to protect both. In our current market, the scale has been tipped too far towards landlords, but we also need to have a conversation about how to protect people who rent out their homes and how to encourage people to provide secure, long-term rental accommodation at affordable prices.

We need to protect good landlords, and we need to ensure that we are not discouraging people from providing long-term rental accommodation. It would be a travesty if people instead turned to short-term rentals because it’s perceived to be easier.

To this end, my colleagues and I will be raising more specific questions about this bill at committee stage. I want to discuss further the circumstances that will be provided for in regulations when a vacate clause will still be allowed. And I want to discuss some of the risks to ensure that we have fully thought through the consequences of this legislation.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that this issue, the fact that some landlords are abusing the vacate clause to increase rents, is a symptom of an out-of-control housing market. This bill takes steps to protect some of the people who have been the most vulnerable in this crisis.

In evaluating any legislation to do with housing, we need to stay focused on the crux of the issue. The ongoing housing affordability crisis is hurting British Columbians in many ways. It’s piling on massive financial burdens on individuals and families, and it’s damaging people’s health and well-being. People are struggling and being driven out by rampant speculation, huge amounts of international capital, as well as domestic speculation, amidst many other pressures.

The crisis is, in turn, damaging our communities. It’s turning our cities into the exclusive purview of the very wealthy as neighbourhoods empty and businesses struggle.

I read an article this week by journalist Jessica Barrett in the Tyee on her decision to leave Vancouver. I assume some members of this House have read it. If you have not, I encourage you to do so. I want to quote it here because I think it captures some of what we lose when we allow this housing crisis to continue. On the neighbourhood where she lived in Vancouver, she says the following:

“The neighbourhood itself was like living on an abandoned film set. Aside from our landlord, we only ever saw construction workers, landscapers and, on occasion, the squatters who lived in the empty mansion across the street — just a line on someone’s investment sheet somewhere.

“All the places that felt like home — the coffee shops where I loved to write, the grocery stores where I had shopped all those years earlier — almost all of them were gone, either slated to become condos or simply languishing as vacant storefronts. Contrary to Vancouver’s reputation, I’d never felt isolated as long as I’d lived there until my last year, when the loneliness became unbearable.”

We cannot allow this to continue. We must protect the integrity of our communities, and homes are at the heart. Homes are the fabric of our communities. We must protect what makes our cities special. They must be livable and accessible to people from all demographics and walks of life — students, creative professionals, entrepreneurs and young families. Our cities must provide a space for small and independent businesses to thrive. Businesses must be able to retain workers and afford to pay their leases.

To do this, to keep our communities vibrant and protect the well-being of the people who live here, we must take a bold action and address the root of the issue, not just make tweaks at the margin. We must curb the over-commodification of our homes. Housing should exist to provide homes first, and a means of investment only second.
British Columbians expect this government to follow through on their commitment to fix the housing affordability crisis. I’m eagerly waiting to hear more from this government on the concrete actions to reverse current trends and make our cities livable and affordable, to make them places where British Columbians from all walks of life and all demographics can live and flourish. HÍSW̱ḴE