In Russell, an extra $100 a month. In St. Catharines, $350. In Aurora, $650 .
In Ontario’s tight rental market, the consequences of a policy decision made soon after the Progressive Conservative government took power are coming home to roost. Around the province, tenants living in units first occupied after November 15, 2018, are finding themselves facing rent increases far above the provincial guideline that controls rent increases on other units.
This state of affairs has some — including elected officials — calling for the current government to revise its position on rent control for these units. The PCs have largely steered clear of speaking directly on the matter.
After the 2023 budget was tabled in March, members of the NDP and Liberal parties asked questions in the house about rent control. PC MPPs didn’t directly address the issue in their responses, instead bringing up topics like the carbon tax and automaker subsidies.
“This budget is not only about spending,” MPP Billy Pang (Markham–Unionville ) said in response to a question from Jill Andrew (Toronto-St. Paul). “It is a budget to also attract investment.”
Agenda segment, January 17, 2023: Should government building rental housing?
Steve Clark, minister of municipal affairs and housing (Leeds–Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes), declined to be interviewed for this story. A spokesperson told TVO Today on Thursday that Clark wasn’t available, because he was in his riding dealing with constituency issues. ‘It’s a big riding,” they said.
“Exempting new units from rent control is one way to encourage construction of more rental housing while ensuring that existing tenants are protected,” another spokesperson told TVO Today via email on Tuesday. “This year, the government provided stability and predictability to the vast majority of tenants by capping the rent increase guideline below inflation at 2.5 per cent.”
Nearly one-third of Ontario households rent, rather than own, according to the most recent available census data. The fraction of the population who rent is higher in some areas, such as Toronto, where around half of households rent.
Rent control — and rent, generally — has emerged as a key issue in the ongoing Toronto mayoral byelection.
Agenda segment, May 2, 2023: Is the Landlord and Tenant Board broken?
In late 2022, NDP MPP Bhutila Karpoche (Parkdale–High Park) tabled the Rent Control for All Tenants Act, which would repeal a section of the Residential Tenancies Act introduced by the PCs. Section 6.1 states that units first occupied after after November 15, 2018 aren’t covered by rent-control guidelines that mandate, among other things, a maximum yearly increase. The change Karpoche is proposing would remove this limitation, meaning that all tenant-landlord relationships would be governed by rent control.
The bill, currently in its first reading, is also sponsored by several of Karpoche’s NDP colleagues —Andrew, Jessica Bell (University–Rosedale), and Chris Glover (Spadina–Fort York).
It’s “very straightforward,” Karpoche says. “It says that we should have rent control for all tenants, and there shouldn’t be any date as a restriction. It shouldn’t matter if it’s newly built or it’s a building that has been rented for years. Every tenant should be protected under the rent-control laws of the province.”
This isn’t the first time that an Ontario government has conducted a long-term experiment with rent-control exemptions in the name of stimulating rental-building. In 1997, the Mike Harris government passed Bill 96, which (among other things) removed the annual rental-increase limit for units first occupied after 1991. Fewer than 4,000 units per year came onto the market between 1995 and 2016, according to numbers from the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario — far below the necessary 10,000 per year that would keep pace with population growth.
Agenda segment, May 2, 2023: Will Ontario's latest housing bill help tenants?
Rent control for all units was briefly reintroduced by Kathleen Wynne’s government, which passed Bill 124, the Rental Fairness Act, in 2017. The next year, the newly elected PC government reintroduced the rental exemption but changed the date from 1991 to November 15, 2018 —created a new risk for tenants in any building built after the 2018 deadline.
The situation for tenants occupying post-1991 buildings was the exact same as those now renting in buildings first occupied after the November 2018 deadline: they could, any year, be slapped with double- or triple-digit rent increases without reference to inflation or any other financial metric. The biggest difference now is that the market is even tighter than it was during the period of the Harris-era legislation.
In the email to TVO Today, the ministry spokesperson pointed to the surge in new rental construction after the Ford government’s 2018 move. “These new starts are proof that our policies are delivering historic results,” they wrote.
Unless the current rent-control policies are changed, those new units won’t be governed by rent control either.
Ontario Hubs are made possible by the Barry and Laurie Green Family Charitable Trust and Goldie Feldman in Memoriam.
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