Hundreds of Montrealers took to the streets last Friday in protest of the proposed Bill 31. If passed, Bill 31 would allow landlords the right to refuse a tenant’s lease transfer.
Landlords already have the right to refuse a lease transfer if they aren’t given adequate notice or proof a new tenant can pay. But that would expand under the new law, such that landlords wouldn’t need a reason to refuse.
Darby MacDonald was at the protest both as a renter and a former social housing advocate. She says that affordable housing is becoming harder to find.
“We just see a general degradation in people’s access to housing, people having to make greater and greater concessions to landlords to even access it.”
For MacDonald, the proposed Bill 31 is consistent with the Coalition Avenir Quebec’s larger policy agenda, which includes getting out of the business of building and administering social housing.
“What we’re looking at is just total disengagement from the provincial government of their responsibility to provide housing to their citizens, including social housing.”
“It almost feels like a joke.”
Julianna Duholke is a lawyer specializing in tenants’ rights. She says her office gets calls every day, from more tenants than they could possibly represent.
“All the time they’re being served insane rent increases or notices of renovictions… landlords really making it hard for people to live in places that they’ve been in for sometimes multiple decades.”
“Because they have low rents, landlords will do anything to get them out.”
Even now, before the bill has passed, tenants can still face pushback or even harassment from landlords when they try to transfer their lease.
That’s the case with Carly, who asked to keep her last name private because of an ongoing conflict with her own landlords. She says when she submitted a notice of lease assignment, her landlords refused and threatened to renovict her.
Doing her own research and speaking to someone from the Tribunal administratif du logement helped her know her rights and successfully complete the lease transfer process.
But under the new bill, she wouldn’t have had the option.
The next major protest is planned for Sept. 16 at 1 p.m. outside of Prefontaine Metro.
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