Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate, Bill 7.

[1:35 p.m.]

[R. Leonard in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 7 — TENANCY STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

(continued)

B. Stewart: It’s a pleasure to be here again, being able to speak about an important objective in terms of helping make British Columbia more affordable for people that are renting and some that would like to buy at some future point.

I think one of the things that I just want to recap before we go on to other speakers is…. I want to talk a little bit about the issues that I think the government…. It’s talking about renters and rules around protecting them in terms of their landlord-tenant agreements and the RTB.

I think, at the end of the day, there needs to be a case made that the province has to invest in communities. Some of that cost — I mentioned it earlier when I was talking about transportation links — is working around the agricultural land reserve so that services such as water or sewer can get to the right places. Frankly, if we continue to put that burden just onto local residents, either their taxes increase or they can’t do the projects. They can’t create access to where more units of housing could be constructed. I think that that’s a bigger issue.

We see communities continuing to look at community contribution agreements and DCCs. Frankly, there’s that side of it that is a burden, not only on the development community. They first have to pay for these beforehand, or at least have letters of credit in place before they can actually start to invest. They have to buy the land, get it through the process of getting it accepted by local government, and then they have these contribution agreements. By the time that goes on, if the period of time that it takes stretches out so that it’s a couple of years or more, what we end up with is added costs, which get built into the cost of the actual projects.

We also have the other things that we haven’t really talked about. We have this protection for renters against their landlords. Well, what about people that are trying to develop and bring on rental accommodation? What about the property purchase tax? What about some relief in those areas, to help make it so that there’s an incentive to help bring on capacity in those communities? I really do think that if you look at some of the buildout in our transportation networks — whether it’s SkyTrain, bridges, roads and things like the Kicking Horse, etc. — this type of infrastructure that I am referring to is something that we’ve got to take a longer-term view to.

If you are reaching out into communities that are out in the Fraser Valley, or even outlying of the central Okanagan, where I live, the reality is that that infrastructure is something that the province needs to look at so that it can address the capacity issues and help communities be able to address the high costs. In some cases, it’s completely unattainable. I do think that there needs to be more collaboration and collaborative links between local government and the province and regional districts in terms of being able to bring this on.

We also need to make certain that we have their OCPs plugged in so that there are regular updates. I think the once-every-ten-years updates are a thing of the past. I think, considering the pace that some communities are growing at, they really do need the ability to have those OCPs in front of government, where there can be collaboration with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and working towards a solution of building more capacity. We haven’t addressed that in this bill.

I do understand that this particular bill is really there to bring more security for renters and landlords in terms of the things that have been identified in the Rental Housing Task Force. I do think that there is certainly a case to be made that we’re trying to make certain that there are affordable rents. I know that there are some other contributing factors that have been brought in — the speculation and vacancy tax. I know that that was cited yesterday in remarks in the morning — that it’s doing its job. But frankly, if you look at the numbers, it’s far below the forecast of the Minister of Finance of the day in 2018 when she brought it in. The reality is that it’s taxing a lot of stock that, frankly, isn’t creating more capacity. It’s not actually adding to the capacity that we keep talking about.

[1:40 p.m.]

We look at the foreign buyers tax. I know I had a situation in my riding where somebody got caught after entering in the contracts in 2017 but was unable to complete before the deadline. So I think that some of these things have to be looked at as to whether the rules are the right rules to incentivize the capacity, to get the rental stock that we need.

Bill 7 is really about bringing some equity for renters in dealing with landlords and the RTB. It puts a lot of power into the hands of the director of the RTB. I hope that there are checks and balances in that as well. I look forward to asking questions of the minister as to how those people are going to be selected to be in that position of power and authority. What are the checks and balances to make certain that they’re not abused?

Madame Speaker, I want to thank you. I look forward to continued debate on second reading and committee stage on this bill in the near future.

S. Chandra Herbert: I want to thank, obviously, the minister for bringing this legislation forward. I want to thank the former minister, now Finance Minister, for her work to bring this forward as well. Mostly, I want to thank the renters and rental housing providers who gave the rental task force this advice, who urged us to take these kinds of steps to make housing more secure, to make it more affordable, but to also find ways to make the system more efficient, more accessible and also fairer.

We know, and members will know, that I have been working on these issues my whole political life, I guess, and prior to that, as a community advocate, standing outside of buildings, working with renters, trying to encourage the, at times, sometimes large corporate landlords to do the right thing — not just focus on the profit that they can make out of the unit, but focus on it as a home, and that they do have obligations under the law.

I’ve also worked with landlords and helped them work through challenging situations with tenants. I understand that it’s not all one side or the other, as it sometimes looks in the media and as it sometimes looks in this House. I think the speaker who spoke before me, the member for Kelowna West, did join the Rental Housing Task Force when we came through Kelowna, and certainly, I believe at the time, supported the legislation that came out of that process. I hope he will, with his colleagues, support the legislation that’s before the House today.

It’s balanced legislation. I know there are some on one side who believe that there should be no rent controls at all. Raise rents as high as you can whenever you want. In fact, I think the former Housing critic, the former member for Vancouver–False Creek, used to make that point. There are those on the other side who think that rent should never be allowed to increase and that we should just automatically somehow make it all free. Of course, that’s not where we’re at today.

We are trying to find a way to keep people in their housing secure, which is why we’re freezing rents through till the end of the year, as we promised. It’s why we’re keeping rents to the cost of inflation, rather than 2 percent plus inflation, which is what it used to be. I think the highest increase constituents faced under that formula was 4.3 percent. That was really hard, because wages haven’t been going up to keep pace with that kind of increase. It’s cumulative each year on top of each other, which can lead to really, really large increases compared to where people’s wage levels are at.

We’re trying to find that balance. I understand that the smaller landlords have raised issues and said: “Well, look at our costs.” I know that the minister is looking at ways to try and address that and find that balance here. I just really want to say thank you to those who have had the patience, who have had the will to push for change for so long. It wouldn’t happen without tenants organizing. It wouldn’t happen without good landlords trying to understand and hear that point of view and find ways that would work for them as well and serve as examples.

Another piece of this legislation, which I think is important, is the question of renovictions. What is a renoviction? It’s a term that was created in my community of the West End, a word that didn’t exist until then. I guess because so many of them were going on, we had to come up with a term for what was happening. Evictions for renovations that are not substantial, renovations that are a coat of paint, renovations that are some tile work, renovations that could go on with a person still living in their home.

[1:45 p.m.]

A few companies decided, management companies and others, that they would target the longer-term tenants. That was often seniors — has been, sometimes, seniors who’ve been in a unit for a while. They were paying their rent. They paid every yearly rent increase. They were more than covering the costs for the building. But maybe the building sold and the new owner wanted even more money because they paid too much for it when they bought it, so they then hired a company to go and slap up eviction notices on doors and try and force people out for renovations that didn’t require them to be out.

Most landlords don’t do it, I’ve got to say. There are a number that I’ve been speaking with recently, and they’ll show me their buildings where they’ve renovated the entire building, top to bottom, massive reno, and the people never had to leave. They didn’t lose their homes. They didn’t lose their tenancies. The landlord kept them in place because he wanted good, dependable tenants. That’s created a community there.

That’s the kind of thing that I think we see, we know happens, but we don’t hear about it in the press. Of course, when people are challenged, we want to hear it so we can step up and help. So those are the stories that get reported.

This is the kind of thing that should be happening all the time, not just when a landlord is doing the right thing. We need the system in place to make sure that this is what happens. Ontario does this, makes sure that eviction for renovation…. It has to be so substantial that there’s no way that you can live there in any safe way while it goes on.

I think of some of the buildings that I’ve tried to help across B.C. that were failing, buildings where maintenance was allowed to completely go sideways. Tenants applied again and again to try and get some action for help. The system wasn’t set up in such a way that real action ever occurred. The buildings would run down so far that the people would lose their homes.

We need to get in before that and support that kind of proactive maintenance, in cooperation between landlords and tenants. I think this legislation will help us move more in that direction, as opposed to the kind of fly-by-night situation of eviction or dilapidation that we sometimes have seen in the past.

How do you do this and ensure it actually happens? One of the things I’m proudest of is the compliance and enforcement unit. It’s something I called for, for years when I was in opposition, to say: “Listen, we have a law, the Residential Tenancy Act. That law needs to be enforced.” It can’t just be applied…. “Oh, look. That person broke the law,” and then the residential tenancy branch says: “Well jeez, you shouldn’t have done that. You should give back the money that you took.” “Oh, okay. Well, I guess I won’t do that again.”

Well, in too many cases what happened is either the people were never caught or, if they were caught, they saw that the cost of doing business, a small refund to a tenant or to the landlord, was outweighed. They got greater benefit by breaking the rules. Obviously, that should never have been on.

The rules should always be the ones that we incentivize people to follow. But in this case, because of the large amount of money you could make through phony renovations, through bullying people, people continued to break the rules — in some cases, tenants as well, learning that they could game the system in such a way to get away without paying rent.

We’ve brought in changes through the compliance and enforcement unit so that people who break those rules do get repercussions, so that there is actual penalty and there’s actually some teeth in the law. It should have been that way a long time ago. I’m glad it’s there now. The changes in this legislation to increase the ability for the compliance and enforcement unit to do its job, to do the investigations, to levy penalties are well needed.

If you’re going to make up something, if you’re going to lie and create a fraudulent claim about what you may or may not have done as a renter or as a tenant, there’ve got to be penalties for that. You can’t get away with pretending and lying and creating division and creating false circumstances. You should never have been allowed to get away with that. Yet you could.

This legislation will stop that. Sometimes you hear these things and you go: “Wait. How could that ever have been so?” But it was, and I thank the minister for catching that and the compliance and enforcement team for creating that whole structure so that we can actually get repercussions when people break rules — and to change the culture. Frankly, too many people on too many sides for too long thought they could get away with bending the rules of the residential tenancy branch.

I think there are some changes in here, as well, to speed up the process for landlords, speed up the process for tenants so that legitimate hearings, legitimate issues can actually get the time they deserve.

[1:50 p.m.]

Investing in the residential tenancy branch, as was done a couple of years ago — a couple, I think $4 million or $5 million yearly increase in investment in the branch — has made an incredible difference. I hear from landlords across B.C. I hear from renters across B.C. who call. They get the help they need fast. They get the information they need fast so that they can work something through. Most issues get solved through collaboration between the landlord and tenant.

The residential tenancy branch hearings are often that last call. That’s why we also need to be taking action — to make sure that that last call is as fair as it can be. I’m encouraged that there are some more provisions for administrative fairness, something that was lacking for too long.

Under the law as it existed, it couldn’t be solved. Even if the director saw that something was unfair, the law didn’t let them step in to fix it unless one of the folks that had been wronged tried to appeal the decision. It was on them to try and fix what could have been a residential tenancy branch error. Maybe somebody was on a hearing. They were presenting their evidence, and they got bumped off the call, and they could no longer present that evidence. Well, the hearing might be decided in favour of the person who didn’t get bumped off the call. Well, that’s not fair, because the person who was bumped off the call…. It wasn’t their fault that they got bumped off the call or that the evidence that they presented got lost somewhere in the residential tenancy branch system or that the evidence that was attached for one case got switched with the evidence for another case or something like that. Now, that should have been solved a long time ago. It is being solved today.

From big, from small — these are good changes. As always, I’m keen to hear from renters, from landlords, from rental housing providers on other ways that we can improve the situation. This doesn’t solve everything, and I think there’s a tendency sometimes to want one piece of legislation to solve all the problems in the world, but it never happens, because you’ve got to actually put in the work and put in the time to make sure you find the right balance and that the law will work.

I think there was a discussion earlier around the supply of rental housing. Maybe it’s because of the West End, where I am. In my community, I see rental housing projects going up all around me all the time. People complain to us about too much construction. “Can you slow it down? There’s too much building and too much going on.” Some higher-end condos that were commissioned a couple of years ago, many of them rental housing and some of them middle- to lower-income affordable housing are being built under the government’s affordable housing strategy. It’s happening all across B.C.

I looked at the latest statistics, and I know statistics are dangerous, because you move the year by one, by two, by three years. You average one, and you average another. People can make statistics look like they want to make a case. Because one month happened to be down, thus that must be a catastrophe, when, overall, the trend has been up. I think there are still more affordable housing starts that are rental building starts until this year, in 2021, than over the last ten-year average. That’s good. Is it as good as it could be? Obviously, COVID has had a big impact. People are holding on to their money a bit more. They’re not investing in the same way that they were, but also, construction has been hampered and things have slowed down.

Municipalities being able to approve projects and get them going has been slowed down. The public participation process — and onwards. There definitely is work to be done on that side. The supply of housing, no question, is vitally important. I’m encouraged that we have more under construction and going now than the previous 16 years, on average, and that’s with the rental changes that we’ve made.

Is there more to do? No question. I’ll keep pushing, and I know many others will. I’m glad that the member for Kelowna West, the Housing critic of the opposition, is making that a focus as well. I think the focus of helping people is where we all need to be, and I think we all need to, again, be looking at renters and the rental housing providers to make sure that those homes are there for people, that people are secure in their homes, can afford their homes, and that those who are providing those homes get the support they need, too, to make sure that those homes are top quality and that they are doing their jobs to provide that housing.

In Canada we talk about housing as a human right, and that’s something that we should remember. One of the challenges we’ve got around homelessness has been…. I’ve seen it in my own community. I think of 2009, going into Stanley Park and meeting a woman in a tent with her big dog. She’d moved in there, she said, one day before we found her out in the bush.

[1:55 p.m.]

She’d been happily housed in a rental apartment on Robson Street. I think it’s called the Kenilworth. Anyways, that building had been mass evicted. She didn’t know her rights. She didn’t have the ability to stand up for herself, and she hadn’t connected to anybody. The building largely just left, moved out, because they didn’t know what to do. She was homeless because of losing that apartment. There are real circumstances when we look the other way or when the law is not there to support people.

I’m happy that these changes are coming in. I’ll continue to push for change, each and every day, as I always have, and keen to learn, as always. Learning from renters and learning from those who rent out their buildings and their homes has been one of the true privileges of being able to be the chair of the Rental Housing Task Force, but also just being an MLA, long before I was asked by the Premier to take on that role, long before the Housing Minister asked me to take on that role.

I just think of the people. One of the people that impacted me most was a woman who passed away earlier this year. Her name was Anne Gregory. She was an immigrant from Austria. No, she was an immigrant from Poland. She just loved Austria.

Anyways, long story short, she grew up during the Second World War. She remembers seeing Hitler promising everybody a car in their driveway, and she would remember and tell me stories about how important affordable housing was for her, postwar, about how rental housing needed to be there so that she and other immigrants who came to Canada had that safe place to call home, so that they could set down roots and join a community.

She was always there pushing me, pushing, pushing. “Don’t just listen to the speculators,” she would say. I can hear her voice now and the accent coming through strongly, loud and clear. “Think of the people. Think of the people that built this province. Think of the seniors,” she would say. “Think of those that should be heard and are too often ignored. Think of those who have more than paid off the unit that they’ve rented in, because they’ve lived there so long and they’ve paid so much rent over the life of that building, and think of how you can help them,” she would say.

She was an incredible woman who did incredible things. She helped create pocket parks west of Denman for people to enjoy. When we’re all tightly packed into rental apartments, you need some outdoor space. She helped create that pocket park space in our community, as a renter, as a lifelong renter.

I know there is sometimes a tendency for some to think of renting as just a way station on your way between leaving your parents’ home and moving off into your new house that you bought, or new condo, I guess, as it has become more and more these days. But for many people renting is what they will do for their entire lives. The wages that they get aren’t enough. They’re not able to save enough.

Of course, the powers of capital have created so much demand, and we live in such a beautiful place, that the cost of housing has gone up so much. So for some, in order to keep their home and keep their community, renting is the only option. We need to value that and accept that and honour what they are doing as equal citizens.

Folks might not know, but of course, when we started this colony, when this province of B.C. came into being, if you were a renter, you weren’t allowed to vote. Only property owners — male, with a certain amount of money, white — were allowed to vote. So class was part of this as well. Renters were often not seen or not heard, because they were seen as temporary.

Well, renters are here to stay. They have a loud voice, a strong voice and are very, very much integrated in our communities. We need to include that point of view more often when we’re thinking about housing and how we’re working. The voice of the homeowner, the voice of that concern, is heard very loudly. The voice of the renter, not so much.

I want to thank the Minister of Housing for hearing the voice of renters. I want to thank the minister for hearing the voice of rental housing providers and trying to find that way to balance it so we can make sure that there’s enough investment in the housing to keep it whole, to keep it good, to keep it a great place to live, to build more housing so there are more places for people who want to join us but also to make sure it’s fair, so that those who live in those homes can live there in security, can live there with peace, can become great neighbours, can become fully invested in their community without always fearing that a knock will come on the door or an eviction notice might be posted there.

[2:00 p.m.]

Thank you to the minister, thank you to everybody for working to bring this legislation forward. I look forward to hearing further discussion and further work to improve housing for all British Columbians.

Thank you so much, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity.

C. Oakes: It is truly my honour to be able to speak today to the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act. I wanted to bring forward a voice that I feel has been lost in this debate today. That is the voices of students across this province.

I rise in the House today to respond to Bill 7, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, as it is my hope that, as we review and debate the legislation before this House, meaningful policy changes that have been requested by post-secondary students have been included. It is my hope that this bill is more than just political rhetoric and that it has listened to the real concerns that students and advocate groups have brought forward to this government around the affordability challenge that students are living with.

This venture of creating a world-class higher education system requires the provincial government to adapt to the financial needs of students and their families. In the months that the government has had to develop this legislation — and comments made of comprehensive consultation — what I hope becomes evident in the debate before the House is that post-secondary students’ voices have been heard and will, in fact, be reflected in this legislation. And if it has not been so, it is my hope that the government will introduce the necessary amendments to address the policy changes that the tenancy act brings to student housing.

The pandemic has certainly given us insight into the many flaws in our higher education system. As this legislative session proceeds, we, as legislators in the government, should be addressing supports to students and their families for generations to come. I recognize the defensiveness governments may feel when flaws are identified. In our partisan posturing, often solutions are overlooked in an attempt to be right. It is my hope that the government resists this approach.

Let us instead fix the bill to reflect what we’ve heard from post-secondary students. It will be a great disappointment, in fact, a grave lack of government sincerity…. If, in fact, it becomes apparent through this debate of the bill that the very real challenges that the post-secondary students living in student housing are doing their best to identify to government, and how they are going to financially manage continuing on their post-secondary education journey, becomes addressed through this process….

At the start of this pandemic last May, we heard that over 76 percent of students cited some type of financial concern, and approximately 50 percent of students cited financial hardships in regards to accommodation. Housing expenses serve as one of the largest expenses for students, and they continue to take a large portion of savings, student loan payments, part-time employment income and, in many cases, grocery allowances.

At UBC, over 65 percent of graduate students and 47 percent of undergraduate students experience severe financial hardship due to the cost of housing. Taking into account that this data was collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this data will be amplified even more due to the impending economic impacts of the continued pandemic.

We review statistics one year later, and we find that young adults have been one of the most deeply impacted demographics by the pandemic. Youths aged 15 to 24 are down 23,000 jobs relative to February 2020. Youth unemployment is 16.8 percent compared to 9.4 percent prior to the pandemic.

[2:05 p.m.]

This does not include the significant impacts on the loss of co-op programs and other programs that indeed support our post-secondary students.

Right now post-secondary students are making the decision of what they will do in the fall. For many, due to the uncertainty of the pandemic, loss of a job, they’ve taken a year off their studies. For others, they’ve survived the year on loans and credit, and while they were hopeful to see the return of programs and summer job opportunities, it continues to be uncertain, unclear and very concerning.

Our young people are our future. Our social and economic vibrancies following the pandemic will require that we have done everything that we possibly can to be supporting all of our citizens. Up to now, there has not been equitable support for our young people, post-secondary students, who’ve been deeply impacted. Their voices that they have been raising — I know that they have met with government, and I know that they’ve shared their concerns — need to be listened to by this government.

During our post-secondary advocacy days in this Legislature, and for all members of this House, it provided an opportunity to review the challenges that students are facing, but also they identified solutions. I wish to bring forward some of the comments and solutions brought forward, for example, by the Alma Mater Society and the Graduate Student Society of the University of British Columbia, which represents over 58,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

I can also say, from having the opportunity to have listened to and engaged with other student organizations, such as the Alliance of B.C. Students and the B.C. Federation of Students, that the concerns around affordability as it relates to this piece of legislation being debated before the House and the concerns on policies around student housing — and the clear solution — are something that government can and should address in this bill. If it re­quires the government to make a necessary amendment to the bill, now is the time to do such.

I would like to make some of the comments that I’ve heard from organizations, and this comes from one of the organizations that we talked to. Throughout the 2020 provincial election, a large part of the NDP platform was dedicated to making housing more affordable and available. The important points discussed in this section of the platform allow students and their families to retain their hope for an affordable and equitable future when it came to the costs associated with housing and tenancy rights altogether. A key point in this section of the platform was the establishment of a rent freeze to the end of 2021, along with capping rent increase to only inflation, as opposed to the previous formula. On November 9, the provincial government established the rent freeze, and of course this is part of the legislation that we are reviewing today to extend it to the end of the year.

These commitments, while supportive of the general B.C. population, forgot that student housing once again. All provincial housing support programs, such as the tenancy rental support program since the beginning of the pandemic, left out student housing. This bill, this policy, this rent freeze, continues to leave out student housing, a key choice of residence for many students due to the close proximity to campus.

This exclusion, as recognized by the provincial government since the rent with rights campaign in 2015, results in student housing providers being able to work outside the legal framework of the Residential Tenancy Act. While the act is responsible for establishing the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords, the statute is also used as the eligibility criteria item for support programs like TRS. Effectively, this eligibility item leaves students out of programs and policies, such as the 2020 rent freeze and now the extension of the rent freeze which this legislation brings forward. Another important platform point that was due to the unaffordable nature of housing in British Columbia and the establishment of a renter’s rebate program….

[2:10 p.m.]

While I recognize that this is outside the purview of this discussion today, it’s important to note that our post-secondary students require our support. Let us get this piece of legislation right.

Let us include the voices of our post-secondary students and our future generations. Let us ensure that this bill provides that students living in student housing are in fact eligible for all programs that the province puts forward and, in particular, as we discuss this piece of legislation, the rent freeze. Let us not leave our students out in the cold. Let us make sure their voices are included in the legislation that we put forward in this House, and let us make sure that there are changes made so that students’ concerns are addressed.

Hon. B. Ma: It is my honour and my privilege to rise today — or rather, I guess, join virtually today — to speak in favour of Bill 7, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act. I come to you as both, of course, the Minister of State for Infrastructure but also the member representing the community of North Vancouver–Lonsdale.

I know that in my community, nearly half of the people who live in the area that I represent are renters. Life has been difficult for many of them. I remember meeting with many constituents early on in my time as an MLA and hearing about their struggles. Having been a renter for most of my adult life myself, it certainly brought back a lot of memories.

I remember needing to struggle and worry about being able to pay rent on time. I remember the feeling of instability that comes with being a renter, never knowing how long you have to live in a place — whether or not the landlord is going to want to sell the unit or renovate it or whether the landlord has different ideas about what kinds of tenants that they want in the future. It’s feeling like you have a lack of power over your own life situation. This is something that thousands — tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands — of people in British Columbia continue to struggle with.

Certainly, I need to acknowledge the incredible work of the member for Vancouver–West End, who also represents Coal Harbour — which I’ve learned recently to also mention, given that West End doesn’t always describe the full scope of the area that he represents. I remember when I was starting out as an MLA how many renters would come into my office with concerns about their living situation and how often I would turn to the member for Vancouver–West End to get advice from him, because I knew about his advocacy over many years. I am so, so grateful for the advice that he was able to provide me, which then allowed me, in turn, to provide it to constituents, and for the work that he has done over the last 3½ years to improve the situation for renters.

When I was first elected, I remember that the frequency and volume of rent-related casework that would come through my doors was enormous. Requests for help from renters dominated the work that we did on a day-to-day basis. There were renters whose landlords were using a loophole at the time, known as the fixed-term-lease loophole, to force renters who had already lived in a unit for a year or more to sign new agreements, with rent increases that were far above and beyond the legal maximum, by using the argument that they could otherwise be evicted.

[2:15 p.m.]

They would say: “Here is a lease for one year. At the end of this lease, you have to sign a new lease, or else we’ll find another tenant.” What they would offer was that the new lease wasn’t tied to the old lease at all. Therefore, the rent increases that they were allowed to put into the new lease were not subject to the legal rent increase maximums that were set by government. That was known as the fixed-lease loophole.

There were also renters who struggled to figure out how to get basic services out of their landlords, like maintenance and repairs that should have been happening as a matter of course, only to be ignored or handled very dismissively. There were also landlords who came to my office because they wanted to do the right thing, but they couldn’t get advice or direction from the residential tenancy branch in a reasonable amount of time because the wait times on the phone and for arbitration were just unacceptably long.

I remember, in particular, two renters named Emily and Jolee, two women who bravely stood up for their rights as renters against a landlord who was threatening to increase their rent by 43.7 percent through the use of what was known at the time as the geographic rent increase clause. It was introduced by the former B.C. Liberal government in 2012. I believe that it was likely introduced in good faith, but sadly, there were many landlords that used the geographic rent increase clause in the Residential Tenancy Act in order to bully or pressure renters into willingly accepting higher-than-legal rent increases.

This was a really stressful time for Emily and Jolee, but with a lot of work, some stress, for sure — a lot of stress — and the help from me and my staff, we were able to support them in taking their case to the residential tenancy branch, and an arbitrator of the residential tenancy branch ruled in their favour.

Shortly after that fight was won, our NDP government announced that the entire clause that put them through this battle in the first place would be eliminated from the Residential Tenancy Act. This meant that no other renters would have to go through what Emily and Jolee did.

In fact, our government made a lot of changes to the Residential Tenancy Act that removed clauses that were used by some landlords as either loopholes or ways to intimidate tenants into agreeing to rent increases that they didn’t need to agree to. There were changes that closed the fixed-term lease loophole that I mentioned. There were changes that removed the threat of an enormous rent increase based on the geographic rent increase clause that I mentioned. There were changes that reduced the allowable rent increases from as high as 4 to 5 percent per year down to inflation and then what it is today during this state of emergency, which is zero percent.

Now, these changes have brought increased stability for renters throughout the province. Certainly, in my office, what we noticed is that after these changes were brought in, the number of constituents we heard from who needed help with a serious rental-related issue has substantially dropped off, partly because these changes that help in­crease stability for renters were working but also because the residential tenancy branch now has the resources to be able to handle the volume of inquiries that they were receiving from people, and people — renters and landlords alike — are now able to get help through the system as they should be able to.

Part of the capacity investments enabled the creation of the compliance and enforcement unit, which I was able to work with in 2019 to strongly encourage a building property manager with multiple buildings from using clauses in their own lease agreements that were designed specifically to try to get around the legal rent increase limitations. This was something that we were able to do with the compliance and enforcement unit without requiring that renters put themselves into a situation to take the landlord to the residential tenancy branch and take them through an arbitration process one at a time.

I’m incredibly proud and grateful for the work that we’ve been able to do for renters already, but we also know very clearly that our work is not done yet, and that’s why I’m very pleased to be able to support the bill before us, Bill 7. This is a bill that will confirm the rent freeze through to the end of 2021 and provide further protection for renters against renovictions by requiring landlords to apply for the ability to evict a renter for renovations.

[2:20 p.m.]

This builds on protections that we’ve already added with respect to rent and evictions that require things like increased notice for an eviction due to renovations and changes that added penalties of up to 12 months’ rent payable to the wronged tenant if it is discovered that the landlord lied or was otherwise dishonest about the reason for evicting that tenant.

These changes now…. What it adds to all of that work that we’ve already done is it takes the onus off of a tenant to be an expert in construction and renovations. Right now the way that renovictions happen, or the way that a tenant is able to challenge a renoviction, is that they need to establish that a renovation isn’t significant enough to warrant an eviction, that it’s a renovation that could be done with them still living there, and then they need to take that eviction notice and challenge it through the residential tenancy branch.

This is, I think, something that usually causes — or rather, this barrier to being able to…. How do I say this? A renter isn’t necessarily going to be in the best position to understand the details or complexities of a piece of renovation. Putting the onus on the renter to prove that an eviction is not necessary I think is a bit backwards.

What this change does, what we’re introducing through Bill 7, is that, instead, it will be up to the landlord to prove to the residential tenancy branch that the eviction is necessary for the work that they’re doing to be completed; or, they will otherwise be able to receive advice about how to work with their tenant to enable the renovations without an eviction.

I mean, let’s be clear. Renovations are very important work. It is, to an extent, an obligation of a good landlord to be able to keep up the quality of the unit that they are renting out. Renovations are really important. We don’t want to prevent renovations from happening. However, we do want to prevent minor renovations from being used as an excuse to evict a tenant.

I believe that the vast majority of landlords want to do the right thing. They want to do the right thing by their property. They want to do the right thing by their tenants. They want to be good landlords. Sadly, there are some landlords who have stretched the rules to raise rents, to evict tenants or to otherwise neglect their obligations as landlords.

I believe that these changes that we’re bringing on today, and the changes that we’ve been bringing on over the past many years, provide renters with more protections. They also level the playing field for the many, many good landlords out there, who would no longer have to watch as some landlords make bank from bending the rules or acting in dishonest ways.

I’m very supportive of Bill 7. I’ve very grateful that it’s been brought forward to us today. I’m grateful for the work of the Minister of Housing; the Minister of Finance, who previously served as the Minister Responsible for Housing; and, of course, my colleague the member for Vancouver–West End.

L. Doerkson: Today I rise and represent the people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin. I’m proud to be here representing those hard-working folks.

I have a great many concerns about the outcome of what this bill will be, moving forward. For certain, I’m confused about what its intention actually is. If it is to lower the cost of rent or to create capacity for thousands of people, I don’t believe this bill will accomplish that.

I want to thank the member for Cariboo North for advocating on behalf of students. They have of course been caught on this issue. They have been forgotten with this bill, and I would echo her comments with respect to including them, going forward, if the bill is to pass today.

[2:25 p.m.]

A member speaking earlier had referred to larger companies that are being affected by this. I’m sure that the legislation is having an effect on those companies, but it’s the small entrepreneur that we’re really deterring from this business. That, I believe, is having a massive negative effect on the number of rental units we actually have in this province.

The bill itself will continue a freeze on rent increases through 2021. It creates more paperwork and red tape around renovations and repairs for thousands of landlords that are truly trying to do the right thing. They, I might add, are dealing with their own issues with respect to COVID, as we all are.

I appreciate what Bill 7 will try to accomplish. How­ever, for those people that operate these rentals, and for those people who are using these rentals for a source of retirement income, these groups of people are ultimately going to pay the price for this bill. Of course, most people in those groups are unable to qualify for any of the hundreds of millions of dollars available through the business recovery benefits.

I would note that the cost for most of these existing rentals has not stayed stagnant. Rather, their cost is going up year over year. Of course, some of these individuals have a mix of residential and commercial rentals, which creates another level of complexity and also creates a double hit, if you will, for those landlords that have both types of tenants. The commercial side of this business is experiencing some very tough challenges with the impact that the pandemic is having on retail business, of course, in our province.

We really must stop, rethink this bill and — at least if the bill is to go forward — perhaps consider some potential support for landlords that are struggling through this extremely tough economic time. I can understand why we have done this for a period, and I understand that we really must take a look and pause for a moment to reassess whether it is accomplishing what the government actually hopes it to do.

What is the motivation for this bill? Is it to create more capacity for the rental market? If so, as I said before, I don’t think it will. Again, I want to point out that I thought we have done, in the past, a temporary pause to understand what is happening in our rental market because of COVID. I don’t believe it has created more capacity. I believe it’s quite the opposite. I believe it has taken small operators out of the market and is slowly driving up the cost of rent for very many of us.

This is a complex decision. It requires extra thought, and again, we must be clear on what the motive is for the bill. If it is to create capacity, then we really must create an opportunity for our residents to show an interest in this type of business that will create capacity by way of creating more investment and more interest in that rental business.

Again, I must question what the motive is. We’re seeing increased costs in our small communities. This is, in large part, due to lack of capacity. Deferrals of increases, like this, are a deterrent to the small investors. It is these investors that are losing interest in this investment opportunity, and ultimately, it is the renters and tenants of this province that will pay a high price.

In the end, if this bill and rent freezes were working — or did work over the last year — we would not see an average rental increase of $2,500 per year in Metro Vancouver. This has not created, over the past year, more housing starts. In fact, we’ve seen a reduction, by 18.3 percent, in this category as well. It seems to me that this bill, and the rental increase deferrals, are hurting the renters of this province far more than it is helping them.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

What is most interesting about the bill, and the continuing deferral of rent increases, is that we know that it hasn’t worked over the last year. It has created capacity issues and less building starts. I sincerely hope that we are not standing here in this place a year from now, trying to explain to the residents of Metro Vancouver how a bill like this has, over the past two years, increased the rent by more than $400 per month.

[2:30 p.m.]

Finally, I believe this bill will not only hurt the people it serves to help but also all of those people that have risked so much to get into this business. I’m also very concerned for the individuals who rely on this rent as a source of income. Not only is that income not going up, but because of their own rising costs, it’s actually going down.

Bill 7, to me, shows no positive signs at all, only negative, and I believe it will be a lose-lose situation for the residents of this province.

A. Mercier: I’d just like to make a few comments, before speaking to Bill 7, about what we’ve heard so far in this debate. I’ll go back to a comment by the member for Cariboo North who said that up until now there has not been equitable support for our young people from the government. I’d agree with that comment in part, which is that up until the NDP were elected in 2017, that definitely was the case. I mean, the opposition has talked a lot in this debate about the harm being done or the harm they perceive being done. Crying that Rome is burning would be more credible if you weren’t carrying matches and holding a cannister of gas.

The fact is that the issues in residential student housing come from the fact that, under the B.C. Liberals for 16 years, only 130 beds were added in student housing — 130 in 16 years. We’ve built or are in the process of building, since 2018, 5,106 new beds for student housing. It’s the biggest increase in student housing in B.C. history. So I think we need to have a bit of a sense of perspective when we speak about this stuff.

We heard the member for Kelowna West call this window dressing, saying a rent freeze is window dressing. It’s not if you rent. If you rent, it goes to the core of your household expenses, and I know that because I’m a renter. I’m a renter that’s benefited as well from the vacancy tax, because the unit that I’m renting currently for my family is being rented out as a consequence of that tax. I know that because I’ve talked to the property manager about it. So these policies are really working in a real way, and Bill 7 is going to add so much relief.

I just want to take a moment to thank the member for Vancouver–West End, because I know how tirelessly he has worked throughout this process and how tirelessly he has worked in his entire civic and political life to advocate the rights of renters. It’s paid off, and it’s made huge, demonstrable differences for people’s lives and for the lives of families, at the end of the day.

This is a good bill. This is a good bill that is going to help a whole ton of people. In my community, in Langley, 38 percent of folks that live in the city of Langley are renters. Now there are new rentals because of city council. There are new rentals being added every day. We just tore down the West Country Hotel. There’s going to be a whole slough of new rentals that go up in place of that, right in the city of Langley.

Right now the city’s actually going over their new official community plan, specifically to help set the planning for SkyTrain so that we can live in a community that people can afford to live in and so that we manage the supply of rentals. There’s a lot of good work going on here.

This bill has broad support. LandlordBC has expressed support for these changes. There is no added cost or added bureaucracy that’s built out as a consequence of this bill. I really think we just need to look at the changes and look at their operation and how they’re going to be operationalized to really understand that.

You hear a lot from the opposition about needing to provide market certainty. That’s what this does. This provides certainty for all the players in the market. It’s very balanced. But we need to remember that tenants are important stakeholders when it comes to this, as well, and landlords evidently are. But the bill is balanced, and it addresses that.

So what does this do? Well, this extends the rent freeze to the end of 2021, and it caps it at inflation.

[2:35 p.m.]

We’re not saying that the rent freeze is extended in perpetuity. We’re saying that it’s capped at inflation. Most folks don’t get a wage increase that is equal to inflation at the end of the day. There’s not an upward inflationary pressure on wages for most folks who are renting right now. So what this does is this helps preserve the household budget so that you’re not living hand to mouth.

The reality of it is that most young families…. I’m a renter in a three-bedroom townhouse. For most young families, purchasing is a long way off. It’s not the fault of the Residential Tenancy Act or changes to the Residential Tenancy Act that that’s the case. There are broader problems that have largely been created by 16 years of complete mismanagement of the housing file.

This goes back to the great work that the member for Vancouver–West End has done on renovictions. The chan­ges to renovictions here are process changes that are going to stop real harm. Renoviction is about exploiting a loophole. It’s about throwing up a coat of paint and throwing people out of their homes.

We have heard the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin talk about all the red tape and all the bureaucracy this will add. Well, you know what? If you’re about to kick someone out of their home to do necessary or substantial renovations, there ought to be a process to make that determination. It ought not to be decided on a whim. What this bill does is locate the determination of that process with a neutral arbitrator that sits through residential tenancy disputes as a matter of their profession so they can assess credibility. They can assess it on a case-by-case basis, which is really what we want.

There are some renovations that are necessary. We want to be able to make that determination, and the most balanced way to do that is the approach that we’ve taken. Hey, guess what. This is very similar to the approach in Ontario, and it hasn’t stopped anyone from doing business in Ontario. To say that this creates red tape and that it’s going to prevent people from renting out units is just not a credible statement. It’s not a credible statement at all.

Coming from Langley…. In my previous life as a lawyer, a member of the bar, I did some pro bono work for the Lower Mainland Manufactured Home Owners Association, dealing with evictions and the tenancy board. Often, in terms of discussion, the manufactured home owners are completely left out. They’re an afterthought, and they shouldn’t be. You’re not a second-class citizen if you live in a manufactured home. It is a great form of independent living that is reasonable and allows people to preserve their independence well into retirement. It’s good to see some things that maybe have been smaller kinds of process issues get cleaned up there in terms of manufactured home parks.

One that’s great is the rent freeze applying to manufactured home parks. Like most of the rentals in Langley, in the city of Langley…. The home parks tend to be in the township, which is also in my riding. In the city of Langley, the people renting tend to be either young families or senior citizens on fixed incomes, people that are hurting. Likewise, in manufactured home parks, you tend to get a lot of folks who are seniors who have moved in there. They sold their homes and moved in there to preserve their independence and continue living in a community. Making sure that the rent freeze applies to that, that it applies to the proportional amount covering utilities and taxes, is so important.

It goes to another issue that flies under the radar. It clarifies and addresses conflict between park rules and tenancy agreements. Currently, new park rules can be added with no limit and can override tenancy agreements. What this act will do, what Bill 7 will do, is create regulatory authority so that future changes can be limited by frequency. It can change the rules around that. This will allow the minister to engage in a full consultation with park owners and homeowner stakeholder groups to try to find that balance within there to make sure that the regulations are crafted appropriately. This is so necessary for anyone who has dealt with manufactured home parks.

[2:40 p.m.]

The result of a change in park rules can be the contracting out of a tenancy agreement. To the extent that that may or may not be allowed, it definitely needs to be controlled and have a fair degree of certainty brought to it.

I think this is just great for all renters and, frankly, market participants. It’s very hard to argue against this bill. I think the only way to do that is to engage in kind of straw-man arguments.

This is about process. Listening to the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale describe the bill, the idea that you could give false or misleading information, just blatantly false information, during an investigation or a dispute resolution proceeding with the residential tenancy branch and there’s no penalty for that, no disincentive for that, is absolutely wild. So this will fix that problem as well, by ensuring that administrative penalties against persons giving false or misleading information during a dispute resolution process or investigation can be brought forward. Likewise with folks that refuse to comply with demands for records issued by the RTB, either by a tenant or by a landlord.

This is about a clear, good, expeditious and balanced process. To suggest otherwise is just simply incorrect, and it’s not credible.

We’ve heard many members make statements today that this doesn’t fix the general issue of housing supply. Well, look. The fact of the matter is that fixing the tenancy act fixes tenancy issues. Right now, separate from this, we’re making the biggest investment in housing supply in the history of British Columbia. It wasn’t just student housing that the last government neglected. We’re investing $7 billion over ten years to build housing, and we’re making good progress on new construction. That’s going to create a whole slew of good-paying jobs for tradespeople.

I support this act. I think this is a good act. This is good for my constituents, and this is good for the people of British Columbia. I frankly don’t understand the opposition to it, and I hope that the members opposite, once they read the act and once they speak to their constituents, speak to renters in their ridings, will see the light and vote for it.

Hon. N. Cullen: As I rise for my first speech in this Legislature, I wish to acknowledge a number of things. One, of course, being that representing the incredible and beautiful constituency of Stikine is an immense honour for me.

I am speaking to you today not from the Legislature but from my home in Smithers, in Wet’suwet’en territory and Gitdumden territory specifically. I am honoured by those friends and those friendships that I have built over many years with the Wet’suwet’en, that they allow me to raise my family here and conduct my business as the representative for Stikine.

I wonder if this is true for other members of the assembly and other legislatures around the province and around the country. I feel a bit like Matt Damon in The Martian, talking into a screen day after day. On occasions like this, talking about renters and renters’ rights, we want to connect with people, want to be able to demonstrate for working people in this province that the government is on their side, that we understand the realities of life today, as strange as it is, and are doing something about all of those many challenges that we face.

It feels like today is appreciation day for the member for Vancouver–West End, and that is long overdue and well deserved. Our colleague from Vancouver was obviously instrumental in making this legislation happen, in listening to renters and property owners from around British Columbia, both in the city and the rural environment where I live, and not just listening but coming up with solutions.

[2:45 p.m.]

Now, this pandemic — maybe we are, hopefully, beginning to see the end of the race — has exposed much in our world, in our province, in our country and certainly in our communities. It has exposed the vulnerabilities that we have. It has made some things that were terrible much worse, like the opioid crisis and the many hundreds and hundreds of British Columbians that we’ve lost to that tragedy.

It has exposed the vulnerability of many British Columbians who live from paycheque to paycheque, live with precarious work, live and work in such a way that, through no fault of their own, they have a great deal of insecurity and uncertainty in their lives. This pandemic has made that much worse.

It has also exposed that there are great divides within our communities still, between the haves and the have-nots. We’ve seen certain members of what they have self-described as the elite who feel like renting a private jet and flying up to the Yukon to get vaccines from First Nations communities means that different rules apply for different people. We as a government think that’s wrong.

When it comes to the issue of security of home, of place, there’s a fundamental and cultural belief that we have as a government that a home, whether owned or rented, is not just an investment decision. It is not just an opportunity for someone to make more and more money. It is also a home, and it should be underlined as such.

Now, we have also seen an enormous amount of resiliency in our communities over this difficult time. Over these many, many long months, we have seen people pull together, come together, help one another out, reach out to those that are left too often alone — much more conversation and help towards mental health. We’ve seen from our minister from Nanaimo and others that the response to this pandemic has also brought forward some of the very best of who we are.

Mr. Speaker, I can’t see you, but I’m going to assume that the same Speaker is there as when I started. I myself grew up in rental homes, often, as the son of a single mom, a working mom, going from rent to rent, wondering how we were going to pay the phone bill and the electricity and the heat and the rent at the same time.

I can remember the fundamental power imbalance that existed between my mom and whoever owned the apartment that we lived in at the time. In those days, with a whim, we could be evicted for the smallest and slimmest of pretenses. We didn’t even have the term “renoviction.” They just evicted for whatever reasons.

That sense of lack of security, basic security of where your home is going to be, was certainly felt by my mom and, I think, was also felt by me. So when I saw this piece of legislation being proposed by the minister — the Attorney General, the Housing Minister and the Finance Minister all deserve a ton of credit for this — it really spoke to me about some fundamental values of our government. Who is it that we’re fighting for? Who is it that we’re concerned with, and what kind of world is it that we’re trying to create?

I watched the previous government pretend, I think, to care about renters and what was happening with rental prices across the province as another housing boom was sweeping through the Lower Mainland, which of course is like dropping a huge rock in the pond. The ripple effects out to…. Communities further up the Lower Mainland, all the way out to places where I live, were affected by this, prices generally escalating.

If you want to watch what the sources of some of those escalating prices were, tune in to the Cullen inquiry — nothing to do with me. It’s a very good and devastating inquiry into what government negligence really looks like and how it impacts real people.

Now, if I look around the northwest, where I represent here in Stikine, and I start to think of the profile of who it is that is renting, who it is that we’re talking about, I think of young families, young people getting into rental units. I think of seniors on fixed income. I think of some marginalized people and people who are just struggling, sometimes referred to as the working poor, who are just trying to get by.

[2:50 p.m.]

Those are the people that we’re talking about today. Those are the people that we’re talking about protecting today with the measures under this bill, under Bill 7, that will freeze rental prices right now through the end of the year, and then forevermore afterwards not allow landlords to hike up rents, sometimes with the flimsiest of excuses, way beyond the cost of inflation — 4, 5, 6 percent.

We hear of renovictions that took place where the rent would double instantly. For a senior on a fixed income, for a young family just trying to make ends meet, this is devastating. You now have to look for another place because you simply can’t afford to stay in it. You just don’t have the money. Because that rental unit is more than just an investment opportunity. It’s a home for someone.

So this bill, in its prescriptions to put some limits and some accommodations and understanding that never should rental increases go beyond what inflation is doing, I think is important. It is going to make and has already made a huge difference. That you don’t read every day on Facebook or in the newspaper another story of someone having to lose their home, unable to pay the rent or mortgage. That this government has come in with…. One of the only governments in the country, I think the only government in the country, who brought in rental supports.

The evidence has been incredibly profound. Outside of, I believe, Newfoundland, we have had the best performance as a province in people being able to meet the rent, being able to stay in their homes even in the midst of a global pandemic, which was no one’s fault in particular, but everybody’s responsibility, and this government has stepped up.

Now, tying the rental increases to inflation is really important. The other piece was noted by my colleague for Vancouver–West End, where I understand the term was invented — this notion of “renovictions,” where someone is living in a rental property and the landlord comes forward and says: “Well, I’m doing some renovations, and you need to move out. You were paying $1,500 a month and when you want to move back in, it’s going to be $2,000, $3,000.” Or even more.

We saw this. We saw this up close. I served for a number years as the Member of Parliament for Skeena, which represented places like Terrace and Kitimat. Anytime there was an economic boom going on — when they were refurbishing the smelter at Alcan, or when other economic opportunities were coming up and suddenly rental properties were becoming more scarce — we saw waves of these renovictions taking place in which landlords, owners of these properties, would change the countertop in the kitchen and the rent would double. They would change the carpet in the hallway, evict the person because they had to do this renovation, and suddenly the rent went up 30, 40, 50 percent.

Again, who we’re talking about are working people, people who are just trying to make those ends meet and are doing the jobs that we need every day. The people cleaning our hospitals, the people serving us food at the restaurant, the people who are taking care of our kids — those are the people who would take the hit.

I’m surprised. I don’t know if I’ve heard from my colleague from Skeena yet. That is a living-proof example, of those two communities in particular, Terrace and Kitimat, that saw many years of renovictions. The previous government just simply didn’t care. Maybe they didn’t understand, but I find that hard to believe. They were in there for more than a decade and a half. You’d think they would have figured out that there’s some sort of connection.

The great irony was that many times the owners of these properties not only did not live in the community in which they were jacking up rents on people; they didn’t even live in the province or country. They were numbered companies that owned a whole suite of apartments across the community. So do you think they cared at all about what their nefarious practices were doing to people and their families? Well, of course not.

Those that are on the extreme right, like some of my colleagues across the way are would say: “Well that’s just the market. This is a market-based decision.” Tell that to family who’s scrambling to look for a place for them and their kids to sleep at night — that suddenly it’s just the market that their rent went up 50, 60 percent because someone put in a piece of carpet in the living room.

What frustrated me was that that’s not a healthy economy. That’s no longer an economy performing well for people, which is the point of an economy. These numbered companies, these offshore landlords, were able to make these decisions. They had a compliant and complicit government in Victoria at the time under the Liberals that simply didn’t understand or didn’t care. Unfortunately, I think it was the latter.

We’ve already saved working people hundreds and hundreds of dollars, never mind the rent support but in other ways on their rents. This, for practical terms, is, I believe, one of the most noble forms of government, where we can look, especially in a moment of crisis, where our true colours come forward.

[2:55 p.m.]

This is true in our daily lives. If some great crisis comes upon us or upon friends of ours…. How we act, how they act really truly describes who they are and who we are.

This is also true for government. When this crisis came upon this government, one of its primary interests was looking out for people, not just in terms of health, but in what kind of advice and prescriptions we would need to listen to and getting it from the good doctor, Bonnie Henry — not from a political spokesperson but from the head of the CDC — and then following that advice to try to keep people safe, to make sure that we’re making investments across the board. That showed what a progressive government actually does. It looks to the best evidence available and tries to administer that in a caring and sympathetic way to the people we seek to represent.

Coming out of the last election, we see the pandemic continuing, and we’ve seen the effect of a lot of those pol­icies, whether it was the direct support to individuals or supports to small businesses, to try to keep them going and keep the lights on. We have seen that 98.5 percent of the jobs that existed before the pandemic have returned. Of course, those haven’t happened evenly. Some sectors, especially the tourism industry, have taken a disproportionate hit. We’ve brought in measures to help them as well.

But across the board, we’ve seen work return. We’ve seen life change. We’ve seen our ability to communicate this way rather than in person. We’ve seen travel change as well. There’s much more to do. That is also true for what’s happening within the rental markets of this province.

We know that there is still a shortage in the communities that I represent, in places like Hazelton, Smithers and Telkwa; further up the line in Stewart; and in some of our more remote communities like Dease Lake, Iskut and Telegraph Creek. On reserve, off reserve — all can see a desperate need.

I was speaking with the good people in Atlin just a couple of days ago. Now, for those who don’t know their B.C. geography very well, Atlin is the northwesternmost community that we have. It tucks into that little part of British Columbia nestled up against the Yukon border. In Atlin — small, beautiful little Atlin — being able to get rental properties or properties for seniors to be able to stay at home in their retirement years is incredibly difficult, because the cost of building housing has gone up as well.

We have some reforms to look at that way. We’ve seen the major licensees making quite a bit of money. But I also know from going down to my local lumberyard, here in Smithers, B.C., the price of putting up a shed in my backyard has more than doubled in a few years. We need to know that that has an impact on our ability to have housing stock on the market. What is happening with prices in our province, and how do we make sure that we have a province that’s viable for everybody?

Now, there are other things to talk about that this government has done that I think are incredibly impressive and important, with respect to the cost of living, the ability for people to make it from week to week, month to month.

Now the vaccines are showing up in our community. I saw a notice out today for Witset. It’s going to be having…. That is the Wet’suwet’en village just down the road from where I am right now. I know in some of the Gitxsan communities, as well, and I know in Fort St. James, just to the east of me, that there have been vaccination clinics and that those are coming, more and more.

It was fantastic to see the announcement with the Minister of Health, the Premier and Dr. Bonnie Henry recently, talking about what the rollout is going to look like for our most elderly, people above 90, and then 85 and then those north of 80, so that our most vulnerable are being taken care of.

We also need to make sure that they have a roof over their head, and what I think this bill does is ensure for not just now but for years to come that the nature of rental properties and the relationship, that power relationship I talked about earlier between those that own the properties — whether they’re an individual or a numbered holding company, here or overseas — and the people renting the properties, is a little more balanced.

The new compliance and enforcement unit, which avoids people having to take their landlords, individuals, one by one, through other remedies, is a great solution. It allows us to make sure that what’s actually happening in the property is true and that no one is taking advantage of loopholes in the rules, as has been done in the past, essentially to evict people and jack up the rents way beyond what the law allows.

[3:00 p.m.]

This, to me, is flipping the onus a bit, where before, renters had to go before various boards and prove that the renovations were either unnecessary or being exaggerated, as opposed to the landlord having to make the case that those people are being evicted for reasonable reasons because they’re tearing entire rooms out and making the rental property go through significant, significant changes, in which somebody just simply couldn’t live in the unit. Now what ends up happening at the other end, in terms of the actual rent, is also somewhat justifiable and in accordance with decent human values.

I think, in some conclusion, it’s interesting for me that this is the first speech that I was going to make in the Legislature — interesting for me, on a personal note, because it’s being done from some hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away from the Legislature. I’ve been able to get to the Legislature once, but not while it was open, and I look at that room that you’re all in right now as a sacred democratic space. I look forward to the time when we can all return, because I enjoy being with colleagues and hearing from different parts of our province as to what is going on and what the different realities are.

I think it’s also interesting for me, personally, that this is the topic that I first get to speak to — a topic that affects people’s lives every day. And that is the philosophy and the culture of our government in action. What is it when you vote NDP? Well, it looks like this. We’re going to help out renters. We’re going to make sure that working people have a fair shake in this world. There are enough challenges as it is, being evicted for some sort of false, fake half-renovation and watching your rent skyrocket while your paycheque doesn’t match and doesn’t follow suit.

I think that shows what this government’s about. It’s why I decided to run. It’s why I wanted to be a part of this government: to see what a truly progressive government could do in action when it comes to mental health, when it comes to poverty reduction, and when it comes to systemic racism and uprooting it from the very foundations of what this province is, as we come up on our sesquicentennial. It seems to me that much has been exposed through these number of months. It seems to me that our government has been attempting to be nimble, to look at the research and the evidence that’s before us, to understand what we can do about poverty eradication — not in speeches like this, but in real-time action, like this bill that we’re talking about.

That will make a real difference in people’s lives, each and every day, so that when they open up the hydro bill, when they open up the heat bill, it’s not with so much pain, because they know their rent is not going to suddenly go through the roof. They know that they’re not going to be renovicted and suddenly pushed out of their home and struggling and looking for a place for them and their kids to call home. That’s what we’re talking about today.

It’s an honour to be able to address the House this way to talk about this. I look forward to the support from all sides of the House. If they talk to their constituents who are renters, they will understand how much this means to them. Is there more to do? Of course there is. There always is. There are always new challenges. That’s what the joy and the thrill of this kind of work is — that there’s always something new. But is this a good bill? Yes, it is. Does it help out people today and tomorrow? Yes, it does. Does it deserve our support? I very much think so.

N. Sharma: I’d like to start by acknowledging that I’m coming to you from Zoom on the traditional territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam people. It’s just a real honour, and I’d like to acknowledge that.

It’s my pleasure today to speak on behalf of Bill 7 in this second reading.

These are challenging times for many people. In my riding, housing is one of the biggest challenges. In Vancouver-Hastings, over 40 percent of the people are renters, and in these challenging times, renting can be insecure and unaffordable. I’ve heard from many people, especially young people, who have had a tough time affording rent or have been evicted from their homes far too many times for illegal reasons.

The issues in the rental market lead to housing insecurity for many and even homelessness for some. I’ve certainly seen that in my riding. These issues, as we all know, have been made worse during the pandemic. If all you can afford is a share of a unit with many other people, it may be difficult for you to lower your risk of exposure to COVID-19. That’s something that our office has heard of far too often.

[3:05 p.m.]

These are real challenges for many people, and this legislation is part of the answer. I think we can all agree, no matter where we come from in B.C., that we need to continue to improve the situation for renters and landlords across this province to make housing more secure. I’m so glad that this government is investing in housing across the spectrum under the housing for B.C. 30-point plan and that there’s a special focus on renters.

I would like to acknowledge the member for Vancouver–West End, who’s been a strong advocate for his whole political career, even locally, when it comes to protecting renters. It’s such an important issue in Vancouver and I know across the province.

The member chaired the rental tenancy task force to take a look at how we make life better for renters. A great way, in my opinion, to solve complex problems is to bring people together, to allow them to share their perspectives and concerns about how to improve the situation for the real lives of people. I know that renters and landlords across this province have asked for these changes. This legislation responds to some of their main concerns. I know that this will make life better for the renters if it passes in this House.

What do these changes do? First and foremost — and this is the thing I hear about the most in my riding — is affordability. Communities across B.C. are suffering from an affordability crisis when it comes to rental units and housing. This problem was only exacerbated by the pandemic, as people have insecure employment and have really felt the impacts of the public health orders on their employment.

First up with the rent freeze. I want to acknowledge that the province already introduced a rent freeze during COVID-19. I heard from so many people that these changes provided much-needed relief about the concerns of rising expenses and the sense of stability in at least one very significant expense for many people — that’s their rent.

It is going to be way more impactful if this rent freeze through this legislation would increase to last until 2021. It’ll take us some time to recover from the pandemic, and we’re all just figuring out the hope that’s on the way and the vaccine rollout plan. I know that many people are looking forward to that. But it will take some time for those especially highly impacted communities and industries to recover from this. This rent freeze extension to 2021 I know will help a lot of families and seniors out there who are looking for a break on their expenses.

Under this legislation, there could be no rent increase in 2021, even if you’ve already received a notice of a rent increase. Those people who are wondering how they’re going to pay or respond to that notice can get that sense of relief knowing that the government is on their side and thinking about how to help them through this pandemic.

More importantly when it comes to affordability, it’s not just about recovering from the pandemic. It’s about the long-term affordability that renters are feeling, especially in Metro Vancouver and in my riding. That means that this legislation will cap rental increases. Starting in 2022 and beyond, rental increases will be capped at the rate of inflation. This is fulfilling a commitment by this government.

I know that this will save renters hundreds of dollars a year. I’ve heard far too often, and I’m sure people across this province have heard, about the staggering rises in rent over the years when we had a government that turned away and looked away — looked at renting as just being a fun and wacky time in somebody’s life and something that they, at some point, would get over; whereas rent is something that families, seniors and people across B.C. face every month and will continue to face because it’s too unaffordable to purchase housing in this province. I know this rent freeze will be welcome to many people across the province.

Another issue that I’ve heard of very often in my riding is the issue of renovictions. Again, I want to start by acknowledging the member for Vancouver–West End for his work. As he mentioned, somebody in his riding coined the term when it came to renovictions. It was certainly something that we were feeling and hearing in Vancouver-Hastings when landlords were misusing the rules and saying that they were doing renovations to the unit to kick out the renter and increase the rents.

This has had a serious impact on renters in my community and has led to homelessness for many and some of the impacts that we see in and around our streets in Vancouver-Hastings. I know that illegal renovictions can be devasting to people. Some have told me stories of people who have been in their houses for decades, only to be renovicted. Imagine the stress in looking for a place after a renoviction and trying to compare what you were paying in the past to what you are now forced to pay with the current market rents.

[3:10 p.m.]

I know that these protections in this legislation for tenants against these renovictions will be very welcome for people in my riding.

The process, I think, is also something I wanted to point out, which is very important. It shifts the onus away from renters in proving illegal activity of their landlord in having a renoviction that isn’t actually needed. What this legislation will do is further protect tenants as the landlords will be required to apply to the residential tenancy branch before they can evict tenants for renovations.

In addition, landlords will not be able to end tenancies for renovations that are not substantial and do not require the rental unit to be vacant. This is huge for people and I know will help to cool some of the increases in the rental costs for people across my riding and across the province.

I also wanted to comment on how I believe this legislation takes a very balanced approach. As I mentioned earlier, the residential tenancy task force really had a voice from people on all sides of this issue. Landlords and renters and a whole bunch across the province weighed in on how they thought we could make things better. These improvements are real improvements that are balanced. They will also make sure that we can continue to improve our housing and our rental units.

If landlords need to make improvements to their properties, which is very important, they can apply to the residential tenancy act to make those investments, even if this requires an increase to the cap. If they can prove it and it’s going to be benefiting their rental unit, then it would be allowed under this legislation.

I also wanted to comment on the other improvements that this legislation will bring forward to all landlords and tenants in this province. That has to do with making it easier on them when they come to the residential tenancy branch.

I think all those, including myself, who have rented, who have encountered issues under the Residential Tenancy Act and had to go towards the branch, have really appreciated the investments that we’ve made in that process. But I know that this legislation will go further, that it will make it easier to enforce when there are breaches in some of the rules that, at this stage, don’t have proper enforcement. It will expand the scope of administrative penalties that the compliance and enforcement unit can level, including, if anybody gives false or misleading information against the act, there are fines and there are ways to enforce it in a better way.

I know that that will help a lot of people who oftentimes are unrepresented by lawyers, who are going through this process trying to make sure that their rights are respected.

I know it will also improve fairness in the residential tenancy dispute resolution process by expanding grounds and providing a new review process for the decisions that are made.

I also wanted to comment on the much-needed im­provements under the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act to address the conflicts between park rules and tenancy agreements.

I know that this is part of a much-needed plan for renters that is bigger than just this legislation, even though this legislation is a key part of it. Our government has made important improvements to rental housing policies in B.C. We’ve saved renters money, and we’ve better protected them. We’ve also improved services that renters and landlords can count on.

Part of these protections are putting more units on the market. In 2020, we’d already registered more rental units for construction by July than the old government ever did in an entire year. Eighteen thousand more condos are being rented out in Metro Vancouver instead of sitting empty, thanks to the speculation and vacancy tax. We’ve got over 26,000 homes complete and underway in 90 communities, including 6,800 complete and 19,200 in active construction.

We’ve improved the fixed-term-lease loophole, making it harder — once again protecting renters from landlords’ misuse of some of the rules.

We’ve known for many years that this has been a problem and a growing problem. We’ve actually stepped up to the challenge to address it. I’m so proud to be part of a government that’s on the side of making lives better for people, investing in their lives, making the rules fairer and making it better for renters who are struggling with the unaffordable housing in their communities.

I know that there’s more work to be done, as there always is, but I do know that our government has a strong commitment to continuing to do that work. This legislation shows the progress that we’re already making in meeting our commitments, listening to landlords and tenants that came before us, under the task force, to make these changes and agree with them.

[3:15 p.m.]

I would just like to end by saying I would hope that this legislation would have the support across the aisle, as we know, and we all must hear, that this is much-needed relief for renters across the province.

B. Banman: It’s a pleasure for me to speak to this particular bill on the floor of the House today, albeit virtually. The first thing I’d like to bring into it is that I was the mayor of Abbotsford, and I also sat on council. I’d like to talk to you about the issues and the challenges that this city faces.

For decades now, it has been…. Because of the migration east and the growth of population, we suffered with a low vacancy rate. One of the things that Abbotsford did to look at things in a different aspect is that we started aggressively legalizing secondary suites. What that did was allow for affordable housing. It had a mortgage helper for those that wanted to purchase their first home or purchase a home and move from a condominium or townhouse to a single-family home.

It also, in the pooling of the school districts, allowed for a large diversity of students that were now able to do that. For instance, in some of the more affluent neighbourhoods, there were suites where there was a balancing within that school system, and it worked. So I’m familiar with the challenges, and I am familiar with some of the solutions. I will say that we were one of the leaders in doing this, and it provided thousands of legalized suites — safe suites that were inspected and had to meet certain criteria.

I’ve heard some mentions…. I applaud the intent of this bill, and I applaud the task force, which was established in 2018. It was designed to provide fairness and security to both renters and landlords. Much of the discussion, unfortunately, that I’ve heard, has put landlords in a very, very unfavourable light. I think that that is blatantly unfair, because the majority of landlords, as are renters, are good people. Their intention as well….

I know, based on my experience…. I rented, and I remember moving from one place to another when I was renting. I always held my breath when it was time for the checkout — whether I was going to get my security deposit back and whether any damage had been done. Luckily, I was never assessed a penalty, because I was one of those tenants that looked after the place, as the vast majority do.

I have also personally experienced, and I have heard stories, absolute horror stories, where, within a very short period of time, the rental unit is virtually destroyed, and the minor, minor damage deposit doesn’t come anywhere close to fixing the damages that have been incurred. That’s a very minor group of renters that do that, but they exist.

What I don’t want to do…. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to paint a brush of fairness, and we need to go back to why that task force was put in place. It was put in place to apply fairness and security for both renters and landlords.

[3:20 p.m.]

It’s also worth mentioning that that task force was put together in April of 2018, and by December of 2018 that task force did the job that was asked of them. They had 23 recommendations. If this government was serious…. I’m sorry. Some of it just falls a little hollow to me that it’s now 2021, and nothing was done. It’s been three years — three years of inaction.

I’m glad we’re getting to something, but this government could have helped those that they say they want to help a long time ago. In the process of that, the rents have gone up on average of $2,500 a year, and this government…. Also, there’s no sign of the $400 that was promised to renters.

In addition to that, I think it’s worth mentioning that no piece of legislation is perfect, and part of the opposition’s job is to point out: “Wait a minute. We think you missed a spot here.” One of the glaring omissions that was pointed out was the students. They have been totally left out. This legislation should be changed to include them for that very reason alone.

Those students are some of the most vulnerable. I remember being a student, surviving on $400 a month, sharing a place with my colleagues. I remember what it was like, where there just wasn’t a lot of money left over. To leave students out, I think, is a glaring omission in this particular bill, and I would encourage this government to rectify that.

I know what they want to do is the right thing. But it’s worth mentioning that 114,000 units have been promised by this government, yet only 3,000, approximately, have been built. At that rate, it’s going to take 100 years to get this job done. I think there’s room for improvement. I think we can all agree that there is room for improvement.

What I see is a history here of…. A task force was put in. The task force came within a short period of time. The promise was denied. We’re now, three years later, getting at this. And $400 was promised. There’s no sight seen of that. Hundreds of thousands of units were promised — 114,000 — and we’ve got less than 3,000 that actually have hit the ground.

But the biggest erring omission to this that I see is…. I have talked to landlords where their tenants just refuse to pay, and they were left not being able to evict them. Then when they went to try and see what was wrong, they were told: “Oh, you can’t come because I have COVID.” No proof of that was ever given. No doctor’s note of that was ever given. That excuse was used many, many times. This landlord, finally, was able to look at the house, and it was a mess.

This is just a guy that works a simple job, decided to invest in a property and rent it out with the hopes of being able to make a little — you know, just trying to get ahead. It wasn’t some multimillion-dollar person. It was just a guy that works a normal job. He and his wife put everything they had together to do an investment, and it has not panned out well. He’ll be able to survive, but it has cost him tens of thousands of dollars.

The problem that Abbotsford had was supply. We’re quickly running out of available buildable land, and partly why we went with suites was to encourage density, because everybody believes, and I agree, that we want to improve density in our cities. In order for that to happen, investors have to be willing to have a return on their investment. Now, how much that return should be, well, we can have a discussion about that.

[3:25 p.m.]

But if you make the rules so onerous and treat landlords as if they’re the enemy, which is kind of what I’m hearing — it’s painting them in that bad light — people will stop investing in real estate, and they’ll find other ways to take their moneys to build that retirement nest egg, as the gentleman that I was talking about did. They’ll stop investing in this, and we will actually have a worse problem on our hands than we have now.

There has to be balance, fairness and security for both landlords and the tenants. What I see here is legislation that is well-intentioned but that has missed the fundamental core, which is that you need to have people willing to want to invest in rental incomes, to want to invest in rental properties. I’ve heard stories about these numbered companies and multinationals that don’t even live here, and others painting the brush that’s pretty wide. While well-intentioned, it’s just inaccurate.

Many people either have a small basement suite, as in my neck of the woods, or they also have a willingness to want to assemble properties and to get into the rental business itself. If you make your rules so full of red tape and bureaucracy that it becomes so difficult, people will end up just investing in other areas, and this will end up being worse.

I would caution this government to make sure that you go back to the original things of fairness and security for both parties. Landlords are not the enemy. Yes, there are some bad ones out there, and they need to be dealt to be dealt with. We need to have rules put in place to deal with the bad apples on both sides. This legislation, in my opinion, is weighted unfairly towards one side, and it paints those that are providing a service in a bad light. I don’t believe that that was the original intention of what was wanting to be done here.

I would say to you: take a look at this. Listen to what some of the folks on this side of the House are saying to you. Let’s tweak this legislation so that it meets the goals it was originally done for, where it has fairness and security for renters and the landlords. Do not make the rules so tight that you scare people away.

I know the gentleman I talked to said: “I’m out. I’m going to sell. I’m going to go do something else.” He said: “I’ll survive. Luckily, my wife and I were both working, and we had help from family. But if it had not been for that, I would have lost everything I owned.” That’s the unforeseen consequence of painting the brush and that pendulum swinging too far to one side.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I believe that there needs to be some fairness for renters. There needs to be some security. I go back to when…. I remember what it was like. I remember wondering whether my rents were going to go up. That’s another thing. You have now guaranteed that every single year, rents are going to go up, every year, because it’s going to be tied to inflation. If we don’t increase the rent, we’ll miss out. The unforeseen consequence.

For some renters, rents have never gone up for years. I know of people like that. I know landlords who say: “You know what? I’ve got the best tenant in the world. To me, I know that ever time I go there, the place is spick and span. They’re great. They look after it. They’re just fantastic. I want to reward them by keeping the rent low.” With this new inflationary thing, that will cease to happen. You will end up, actually, in some cases, hurting some people that never would have had a rent increase. So be careful of those….

[3:30 p.m.]

One of my city managers used to say that you need to be wary of the unforeseen consequences of the decision. Quite often, we try to fix one problem, and we create three or four more. I believe, long term, that this legislation has pushed the envelope to the point that we are going to chase investment away. It will make the rental vacancies worse, not better.

Those that have a place they’re renting…. Maybe they’ll do okay. But if the goal is to provide more housing, not less, I think this needs some revamping. I think it’s been a little too punitive in some areas.

I agree with the intent. I applaud the intent to protect renters from unscrupulous landlords. I don’t think you’ll find anyone on this side of the house that disagrees with that, but I think that this falls short, and it will actually create a worse housing crisis. But it may take a few years for that to come, because people will start changing where they invest.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for the time.

I hope that my experience, having been sitting around the mayors’ table where we’re quite often putting our hands up to approve or disapprove of a certain project that comes before a city…. I’m talking about dealing with problems in Abbotsford that we lived. I’m not just making stuff up because it sounds good. I’ve sat around that table. I have watched developments come before council and those decisions that are made.

To paint cities, saying that they’re part of the problem…. That’s somewhat fair, but it’s also incredibly unfair at the same time. There are some provincial bureaucracies and rules that cities have to follow that also make it incredibly challenging for us. The thing I’ve learned is that you don’t know what you don’t know. There are times when the pendulum swings a bit too far, and I think that is exactly what has happened in this particular legislation. There have been some errors. There have been some omissions. There’s still time to fix that.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for the time. I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the floor will ponder over what I’ve said, will reflect upon what I’ve said and come up where we can actually have good legislation that provides that fairness and security for both landlord and renters.

R. Leonard: It is a great privilege for me to stand here to speak to Bill 7 today. I was a member of the residential tenancy housing task force. Too many words in that name. I really appreciated the leadership that the MLA for Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour, provided. His many years of experience have given us, across the board, a lot of opportunities to advocate for more fair processes for everyone.

I wanted to just share a little bit about the experiences that I had, going from place to place across the province. You would think that tenants and landlords have the same kinds of experience in every community. But that was not the case. Not even close. The experience with landlords in Terrace was so very different from the experiences of landlords in Burnaby. Tenants in the Interior experienced a whole different set of circumstances from Vancouver or Victoria. We got hundreds of submissions. We heard hundreds of organizations and individuals coming forward with a vast array of experiences. Landlords had tenants who were…. I can’t use the word in this House for what they were described as. We had tenants who had landlords who were considered monsters.

[3:35 p.m.]

The people we didn’t get were the people — the vast majority of people — who are just living their lives, going about their business, making sure that they can pay the rent, taking care of their homes. Landlords who were taking care of their investment and building relationships. That’s one of the big things that we found — that when conflict arises, it’s because there’s a broken relationship. That’s kind of the key, which makes the issue of the marketplace, with housing, so different from any other entrepreneurial enterprise, whether you own a big apartment building or whether you own a house with a suite in it.

That’s the key — that there’s a human element to the enterprise, so it demands a very different lens. We certainly got to hear about what would be the right way to go about things. The issues of fairness and creating balance…. It was so important that we have an open ear and listen to all parties. So I think that we came to a good balance from all those hundreds of submissions and just as many recommendations, to pare it down to something that was realizable.

I have to say that the folks who organized all of the meetings did just a fabulous job. It’s kind of like corralling cats to be able to have those conversations in a few hours in different communities and come up with something that’s substantial. They shared it very articulately to help guide us in what was the best way forward.

I think that one of the comments that I’ve heard from speakers from the other side is that we haven’t done anything. Well, we got to business right away. I think that that’s a tribute to our public service as much as it is to the commitment of our government to find ways to close the fixed-term leases, the loophole that was causing rent increases. We gave more time around renovictions. We increased compensation. Those are the sorts of things that made a difference immediately, without requiring quite the degree of legislative research that’s required to make sure that you get it right.

We also saw an increase in education. We saw the resources to the residential tenancy branch increase so that the time in which disputes could be resolved and people got the answers to their questions reduced significantly, after years and years and years of frustration, and really trying this sector in our society, which is so vital for everybody — to have a roof over their heads.

I was really impressed with the immediate impact with the compliance and enforcement unit. When they were introduced, there was opportunity for redress. It made the ability to be a landlord and it made the ability to be a tenant that much more secure, because there was a place to go. There was somebody who was going to listen. We also ended up with a liaison officer to help with resolving issues before they get out of hand.

I just want to talk about the rent freeze first. This is within the legislation that’s before us today. It takes us to the end of 2021. We have been dealing with COVID over the space of a year. Actually, it was on March 13. I was going to have a workshop in my community with TRAC, the tenant rights advocacy centre. They were going to come over from the Lower Mainland. The night before, Friday the 13th, I had to cancel it because we knew that the province was going to be shut down.

[3:40 p.m.]

People’s lives were changed. One of the first things that we started to hear about was how people were worried about how they were going to pay the rent. By freezing rents and by stopping evictions, it gave people some security while they got their lives in order during this pandemic.

As we’ve progressed through the pandemic and peo­ple have gotten back to work, it has been an opportunity for people to stand up proud and pay their rent and, if they were in arrears, to find ways to move forward and get those debts paid back, in a reasonable way, when they’re dealing with such constraints. We have the lowest rental arrears in the country, outside of Newfoundland, which is pretty impressive. We’re doing all right in British Columbia. Some of us are struggling harder than others, for sure, but we have set a path forward to make life more affordable.

That rent freeze. While it is a constraint on landlords that they can’t raise the rent, we have a program called the recovery benefit. It helps people throughout British Columbia who are in a variety of circumstances to make it through where there’ve been some losses.

I just want to recall that prior to 2017, the rent increases were up to a 4.3 percent increase, far above inflation. If rents were allowed to increase today — inflation is down — there would be no additional allowances. It was 1.4. But even that can make the difference for somebody being able to buy that loaf of bread to make sandwiches for their kids to take to school. Those are the sorts of decisions that you make during the tough times.

I am very glad that we are freezing it until the end of the year. People who have gotten notice, even now, don’t have to pay a rent increase; they may not know that. Come September, there’s a possibility that people will see their notices, and they’ll take effect in 2022, but not before that.

Oh, I want to talk about the rent increases because we also heard another member talking about student housing. It is true that student housing doesn’t pertain to this particular piece of legislation. However, the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has a program to bring in up to 8,000 housing units for students, of which there are now 5,000 that have been created since 2018. They have been priced and supported below market value.

I got some of the numbers just before I came in here. BCIT in Burnaby. Their rent for those student housing units is 10 percent below market value. At Coast Mountain College in Terrace, it’s 15 percent below market value. In the College of the Rockies in Cranbrook, it’s 30 to 40 percent less than the market value. That’s pretty significant, and it’s a recognition that students are living in a vastly different world than the rest of us. The constraints that they have around being able to earn money while they’re getting an education are very tough.

Oh, yeah. We also stopped interest on the B.C. student loans, and that has an impact on affordability in terms of housing. It’s not just the students. Once you’ve graduated and you still have a debt load and you don’t see debt rising because you don’t have interest, that gives you opportunity in the future. That gives you, when you’re out of the student housing, space to be able to pay rent within the marketplace.

[3:45 p.m.]

One of the other amendments is around stopping illegal renovictions. Come July 1, there’ll be a whole dispute resolution process that is a replication of something similar that’s happening already in Ontario. It’s not about trying to stop landlords from maintaining their properties. It’s about landlords who would take an opportunity beyond the scope and try and evict people for things that are not substantial and for which people do not have to leave the home.

That’s important, because it is about that security of tenancy. It doesn’t stop renovations, and it doesn’t stop people from being able to maintain their properties. In fact, it’s continuing to be encouraged. Something we’re looking forward to in the future is around a process to allow landlords to find ways to recoup their costs when they do more substantial renovations while still maintaining that same tenant.

I wanted to quote David Hutniak from LandlordBC. On this legislation, he’s saying that it mitigates “what has, at times, been an unnecessarily confrontational process.” I go back to what I said earlier. This is about relationships. When you set up a system that doesn’t work unless there’s confrontation, you’re not helping the situation. This is paving a much more positive path forward so that we can have a more robust rental housing marketplace, both for tenants and for landlords.

I want to talk about the question around procedural fairness. We heard a lot from people who wanted to not have to jump into the courts for judicial review on matters that were not trivial but not so substantive that they needed to go…. They were barred from getting justice because they couldn’t afford the lawyer to take it up for judicial review. Taking that forward, to expand the grounds for procedural fairness, is something that people really wanted to hear about. They wanted to hear of us taking action, and we have. That’s what’s coming forward with this amendment.

I think I’ve mentioned already about the compliance and enforcement unit. Just to reiterate what they are getting more of — taking a good thing and making it better: they’re being given more authority for investigation, to compel records. They will get more authority around levying administrative penalties and being able to apply penalties for false or misleading information. This is paving the way for a much more positive road for people when they’re considering becoming a landlord.

When considering making an investment in something as difficult — I raise my hands to people who become landlords, because it’s not easy — it’s not like buying something that just appreciates in value. You have relationships there. You’re not going to get the best bang for your bucks in your investment unless you work on that human element. It’s so important that we make sure that we create a system that helps landlords to make good on those kinds of investments that they’re making.

I wanted to point out, as well, that this legislation brings in a way forward to avoid the layers of hearings that landlords would need to get orders for outstanding rent that might be owed. Instead of having to go back for a second hearing, they get to have it dealt with at the time. This is that balance of finding ways forward that are about fairness.

[3:50 p.m.]

I wanted to talk about the one piece that I haven’t heard a lot about. I think I heard the previous speakers mention it — the manufactured home parks. That is something near and dear to my heart. I grew up all over Canada and sometimes living on military bases. Always there was a section of the PMQs, permanent married quarters, that was manufactured homes. We didn’t call them manufactured homes at that time, but that’s what they were. It becomes a lifestyle. People take their homes with them from place to place. Not all manufactured home parks are like that now. They are a lot more permanent, but they are affordable. This is affordable housing for so many people.

One of the challenges, though, is that they have that pride of ownership of owning their home, but they don’t have the security of the space where they park it. One of the challenges that we heard while we were on the road was the challenge of not having that security.

When the mobile home park owner, the manufactured park owner, changes the rules and makes the circumstances so that you can’t stay there, there’s no security in that. There’s no sense of fairness. This legislation is going to do something about that. We’re going to see the opportunity for those homeowners and the manufactured home park owners to consult on a regulation to see how often park rules can change.

One of the more substantial pieces that’s within the legislation itself is the fact that there will be…. It clarifies that manufactured home parks’ rules cannot be changed to override your tenancy agreement. That’s something that people who rent…. That’s sort of a basic tenet of being a tenant is to know that you can’t have rules that…. It’s a tenet of life that you can’t have rules that override legislation. It’s the same thing. You have an agreement in place. You can’t override it by just unilaterally changing the rules.

So these are all just…. They’re substantial pieces to making life more secure, they’re making life more affordable and making good on our promises that are not quite finished yet. We know that there’s still more work coming, but it’s getting there. We know that we’re working hard to continue to make life better.

I almost interrupted myself earlier. I wanted to talk about the trips that we had to different communities and hearing people’s experiences. I just wanted to share this, because Prince George is an amazing place. I never got to visit Prince George before I was an MLA. I got to go to one of these events, and it was very well attended. I was walking back to my hotel and a thunderstorm started. My hotel is in downtown Prince George. You could see it coming. I sat in my window of my hotel room, and for half an hour I filmed with my little phone because it was like a strobe light show.

Knowing that there are people living out rough and having to endure that…. While it was amazing for me to be safe inside, to look out and watch and to know that there were some people that were having to experience that — it was pretty tough.

[3:55 p.m.]

But I also got to see, on my walk back to the hotel room, a new Foundry that had opened up, one of our mental health and substance use wraparound services for youth. It was very uplifting to know that we’re making a difference every day and in different ways to make life better for all British Columbians.

Just on a final note, I got stuck in the Prince George Airport for eight hours on that trip. Because of that storm and because of wildfires, the people of British Columbia have shown just how resilient they are. They endure weather like no other that I’ve ever experienced. They have endured floods. They have endured incredible wildfires, and sometimes they endure a lot of hardship because life has not always been affordable. I am just so proud, since 2017, that we have taken steps every single day to make life more affordable, to bring the services that people need and to be able to build a more sustainable future not just in the downtown core of Vancouver but throughout all of British Columbia.

I appreciate the committee work that I get to be a part of, where I can go and have some comradeship with people from the different parties that sit in this House and find some common ground — and also to find ways forward together.

As we go forward with COVID and the vaccination program, I know that landlords, tenants and people throughout British Columbia will work together to make sure that we all get the protection that we want, that we need and that we can move forward.

I thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to this amendment, and I look forward to seeing the passage of Bill 7.

E. Ross: Thank you to Skeena for sending me back to the Legislature to represent them here in Victoria, as well as my sympathies and condolences to those who are suffering throughout B.C., whether it be medically or mentally. We’re in the same boat as you, wherever you are in B.C., whether it be in urban areas or the rural areas or in our First Nations communities.

This is an interesting topic, and I’ve already heard somebody mention my constituency and wondering whether or not I was going to get up to speak or not. I’ve got a lot to say on this, because I’ve actually seen both sides of this equation over my lifetime, as an adult. I’ve been a renter for over 20 years, and when I got elected to council in 2003, I was surprised to learn I was a landlord, but in a different context.

Over those years as a renter, I rented in Prince George, Kitimat. I rented in Abbotsford, and never once did I feel that I was treated unfairly. In fact, I was treated more than fairly on more than one occasion when I couldn’t make my rent.

I’ve heard some of the conversation here, and I commend both sides of the House for those that talk about a balanced approach to this problem. That’s the right way to have this conversation.

For those MLAs that have spoken already and are trying to pinpoint the landlords as the bad guy here, where there’s something wrong with the landlord system, whether it be a private owner or whether it be a block apartment owner, shame on you, because this is a complicated issue. There are a lot of factors that go into whether or not there are enough rental units or what affects the price, and it’s in different parts of B.C. where this exists. To kind of find the bad guy and try to divide British Columbians in this context and actually refer to this government as a noble government? Come on. I mean, we’re legislators here. We should be talking about real issues, real solutions.

[4:00 p.m.]

For the most part, I do understand what the government is trying to achieve in this bill. I don’t know if they achieve it or not. We’re going to find out within the next year.

I do understand how hard it is to find a balance, based on my experience. In 2003, as a chief and council…. Our landlord experience is quite different from those living off reserve. As a landlord for social housing and for rental units, if we don’t get that rent payment from the members living in those houses, we don’t have enough money to pay off that bill for the housing construction in the first place. We don’t have money to pay for maintenance.

Guess what. There are consequences. Ottawa takes the amount of money that’s owed for these houses out of your program-delivery dollars, which is unfair, because those program-delivery dollars could actually pay for something else, especially in today’s day and age when we’re looking at more programs for youth and elders. Now, you come outside of this, and you don’t have those punitive mechanisms for governments outside of a reserve, because the Indian Act is a totally different world.

This is what band councils have to live with. This is why you see so many band councils now trying to raise money outside of the Indian Act. This is why you saw bands like mine that pushed so hard to engage the LNG industry even though there was so much opposition — even from those colleagues sitting across the floor right here who signed anti-LNG declarations, who showed up to protests, who didn’t even come to ask a band like mine why we were doing it. The proceeds of this actually go into what we’re talking about here today.

In fact, one of the first things I thought about in terms of the housing crunch was: why don’t we take our band members off this crunch using LNG dollars? We can do it now. We can buy an apartment block. We can build an apartment block on reserve. We don’t have to ask anybody. We can just do it, because we have the money.

Nobody on that side of the floor ever came to us and asked: what do you think about engaging with LNG in the context of some of the issues that you’re facing? Now, we couldn’t have enlightened you because…. Right now, I’m proud to say that my band actually purchased an apartment block in Kitimat for $11 million, more so to provide housing for our people but also to relieve the rental crunch in terms of the rising cost of rent and the cost of living.

Guess what. My band is not interested in making dollars off this. They’re not interested in making profits. They’re interested in breaking even. They’re interested in actually making society even better now that we’re part of the equation. They did the same thing with those LNG dollars when they donated $300,000 to a local hospital to help with COVID.

So all this opposition to all the economic development projects, to a band like what my band was trying to achieve…. You didn’t see the bigger picture. Now, for some of those MLAs sitting there and talking about how evil landlords are with renovictions or whatever it may be…. It’s unfair to stereotype an entire industry. It’s not fair. I know that exists, but there are also bad tenants, as well.

On both sides of the equation, I think that is where the value of this conversation is going in terms of the value of what we’re talking about when we’re talking about balance. I’d love that conversation. You know what? Where is the balance? I think a big part of that balance is going to be met over the upcoming five or ten years. Right?

We still haven’t talked about the main problem, which is supply. I mean, even a band council like mine…. We didn’t even get engaged in this kind of conversation, but we understood supply. You create more supply, and rents go down. You create more supply, and housing prices go down.

This is not the golden rule for everywhere across B.C. It was mentioned already that the boom in Kitimat under the RTA modernization for the smelter made prices rise. Okay. I can agree with that in terms of LNG Canada. That doesn’t explain the housing prices in Vancouver. It doesn’t explain the housing prices in Victoria. They didn’t have major projects, so how is the argument supposed to kind of fix what we’re doing here?

[4:05 p.m.]

As elected leaders, we had to deal with this. In terms of balance that this government is trying to achieve, we had to deal with the same conversation. I heard many, many possible solutions, right from writing off the entire expense, which actually affected other programs or the ability to deliver new programs or existing programs…. I also heard the extreme of just evicting every single band member, which was done under previous councils, and I refused to do that.

There are issues that people are facing that we have to take into consideration, things that we’re not even seeing firsthand, especially in terms of First Nations historically in Canada, even today, living under 68 percent unemployment. There’s an issue there that says they might not be able to make their house payment or their rental payment.

On the other side of that, I understood the council, with the deficit financing they were doing with the Canadian government…. Where’s the balance? Where’s the middle ground? I don’t think, in this conversation, there’s a bad guy, not to what some of the government MLAs are inferring. There’s no bad guy here. We, as legislators, should be able to take the high road and actually get away from that kind of talk and stop dividing British Columbians and actually find solutions. I’ve heard many solutions in my last three years.

I’ve also heard colleagues on both sides of this House talking about the issues that each party represents: the renter, in terms of unfair landlord practices; the landlord that doesn’t have a very suitable tenant. There could be financial considerations, especially during COVID, when we see so many people out of work and not bringing home an income.

I understand that, but a landlord, especially a private landlord, has got a lot on the table too. They might have taken out a loan to buy this property. It might have been their retirement plan. I heard an insensitive remark about this when it was mentioned that this person didn’t have a retirement plan, so they invested in a house. That might have been their retirement plan, and the comment back was: “Well, you should have had a job that had a retirement plan.” That is so insensitive. You have no idea what some of these people are going through or what they had to live through in the last 30, 40 years, becoming a homeowner and then trying to map out the rest of their future.

This is the political road, the stereotypical road of being a politician, trying to find that bad guy. There are bad landlords. There are bad tenants. That middle ground, through the tenancy branch, when we were trying to find it….

In my riding, I’ve already had a number of people come into my office and say they’re getting out of the landlord business because they had no redress. They can’t get the costs for damages done. They can’t go and clean up the apartment. There’s just nothing for them. So what they’ll do is just let the lease expire, and they’ll sell the house. Well, that just takes more supply off the market. I think this is the balance that I hope the government is talking about, making sure that landlords don’t get so angry that they just walk away, and then our problem of vacancy rates actually gets even worse, especially in a riding like mine.

With the solutions that everybody was talking about…. This is part of the solution, I’m hoping — part. It’s only part. We’ve got many more to talk about, especially when we talk about the supply, and many more partnerships that pop up — partnerships with the private sector, partnerships with municipalities, partnerships with First Nations, especially those First Nations that want to bring their own revenues to the table and maybe look at a social enterprise or even an investment enterprise.

[4:10 p.m.]

There are more conversations to be had, because there’s a younger generation moving up that just doesn’t feel like anything that’s been done in the last few years is actually addressing what they want to do, and that’s just simply buy a house, put down some roots someplace where they can actually start to build their lives. There’s more to this conversation than what we’re just talking about here. It doesn’t help when we’re trying to paint the tenants as bad people or the landlords as bad people. It doesn’t help.

The last thing I’ll close with is I heard a colleague talk in referring to his own government as noble — a noble government. Wow. I couldn’t believe that one. This government, in terms of the housing crunch we’re talking about, in terms of rental supply we’re talking about, promised 114,000 houses being built. They haven’t even come close to that number. How is that noble? The renter’s rebate that was promised — 400 bucks. Didn’t deliver. How is that noble? To take this one amendment to a bill and then blast it across the whole record of this government and actually define your government as noble? I don’t know. I think there are a lot of people that will actually argue that point.

For the most part, I’m interested in seeing where this government actually takes the real issue of supply in terms of home ownership as well as affordability in terms of rent without raising more taxes. Because ’21-22 taxes increase for new taxes? That doesn’t help. That actually raises the cost of affordability when it comes to British Columbians.

Thank you very much, hon. Chair.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you very much, Member.

Now going over to the Third Party House Leader, the member for Saanich North and the Islands.

A. Olsen: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s wonderful to see you in the chair again.

I rise today — or I sit today — to speak to Bill 7, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, from my office here in the Legislature.

I’d like to start today by acknowledging Mr. Beads. Mr. Beads is an individual in the town of Sidney that many people who live on the Saanich Peninsula would know. He passed away recently. He spent a lot of time on Beacon Avenue in Sidney beading beautiful pieces of art and selling them there. Mr. Beads is going to be missed in Sidney. He was a homeless gentleman who had his fair share of struggles — more than his fair share of struggles. But every day he sat on the street and shared his kindness with people who passed by, sometimes not even looking up but just acknowledging every set of feet that passed by him with a “Have a nice day” or “Have a great day” or “Have a wonderful day.” Mr. Beads is going to be missed in the town of Sidney.

I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill. I’d like to acknowledge the Attorney General for his effective work in the past as a minister. I’m thankful that he is now holding the housing portfolio and responsible now for developing programs and policy to help what is a very challenging housing market.

The housing market, as many British Columbians know, is red-hot. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver says that the market is heating up so fast that “home sales in the region doubled between January and February and have climbed by more than 70 percent since last year.” The board revealed that February sales in B.C. totalled 3,727, a 73 percent increase from the 2,150 sales recorded the year before and a 56 percent spike from the 2,300 homes sold the month before.

In a rare move, the Victoria Real Estate Board said that more work is required to make sure housing prices were brought back down after it says the provincial government had failed to improve the market conditions. “Demand-suppression measures have not worked and their failure to moderate housing prices in our community has only exacerbated the pressure on the supply that was constrained ten years ago but is now at historically low levels” — speaking to the desire to have more supply being brought into the market, as the member was speaking before me.

[4:15 p.m.]

It’s not just the real estate market that’s hot. The rental market has also seen some changes over the last few years. We’ve seen vacancy rates increased in Metro Vancouver and in Victoria, while in other markets like Vernon and Nanaimo, the rental market is much, much tighter.

We’ve seen, over the last number of years, policies that have been focused on supply and also policies that have been focused on demand. We saw the speculation and vacancy tax that was to address the superheated real estate market. We’ve learned that, actually, addressing this market and these challenges is going to take more than just tinkering around the edges.

Ensuring that housing is more than just units tabulated by accountants and a measure of success or failure counted by politicians and bureaucrats, we have to focus on what I think the member for Stikine was talking about, meaning homes for people who live in our communities. I think that this does. To get us out of a supply-and-demand kind of conversation about housing requires a systemic shift in our approach.

I like the type of language around talking about “homes for people.” As a participant in the Rental Housing Task Force, we worked very hard to find the balance that the member for Skeena was talking about between the rights of landlords and tenants — the reality that every landlord needs a tenant and every tenant needs a landlord. This is an incredibly important relationship that the Rental Housing Task Force that I sat on with the member for Vancouver–West End and the member for Courtenay-Comox…. We did that work together, and I participated in that work because I believed that the greatest value a house offers individuals in communities is exactly what the member for Stikine was talking about, and that’s as a “home.”

People say: “Well, this is obvious. You know, no doubt that this is about homes.” But unfortunately, we refer so often, when we’re talking about housing…. We talk about units — 114,000 units, 10,000 units, five units. We’re not talking…. The language around housing in the political sphere here, in the political landscape, is not about finding homes for people or creating homes for people. See, homes are about the stability of individuals in communities. It’s about the safety of individuals in communities. It’s about creating a safe and stable base for individuals to then be able to fully participate in their communities.

I heard a CBC story recently on local CBC Victoria about homeless residents here in Victoria who started a podcast. What really struck me in that story were the comments from the host of the podcast on how exhausting it is to be homeless. The lack of stability, the lack of safety, the lack of security, always having to keep one eye on your belongings because there’s no safe place to store them, always trying to protect your space, must be absolutely exhausting — so exhausting that it becomes the entire day’s work. The entire day’s effort is to just protect your space and just to protect your belongings. That speaks to the security and safety that a home creates.

Yes, we can create units as government. But I think that once we shift our focus away from the conversation being about a housing unit, or 114,000 housing units, and we start talking about what it means to help create a home for somebody, now we’re moving in the right direction.

The Rental Housing Task Force is one of the more positive experiences that I’ve had as an MLA, not because it was easy work, but it was rewarding work. It was a joy to work with the members from the West End and Courtenay-Comox to navigate these challenging issues and to put forward for government a series of recommendations that the government has put their mind to, to putting into legislation and starting to work on. Part of the reward, of course, of that work is to see when government trusts the quality of that work and begins to start to legislate it.

[4:20 p.m.]

I think that that is one the most positive aspects of the job that I’ve had here as an MLA, and it’s a tribute to our now Minister of Finance for her foresight to be inclusive and her trust in me to add value to this work. I raise my hands to the Minister of Finance for welcoming me into the Rental Housing Task Force.

Unfortunately, I think, as the member previously stated, this debate has featured too much blame. There’s no doubt that policies from the past have impacted the housing market and that this bill that we’re looking at today is a good bill. However, I encourage the Minister Responsible for Housing and the Attorney General to go further, to reach into his history as a housing advocate, past his experience as a B.C. NDP politician, to make the systemic changes that are needed.

While this bill is making important changes to protect renters from illegal renovictions, to provide some stability for residents of mobile home parks, capping rent increase to provide more stability for renters and to increase the capacity of the enforcements and penalties, these changes are important to protect homefulness for our residents — in the COVID-19 times but also in general, once we’ve passed COVID-19.

We all benefit from the greater stability that homes provide our family, our friends and our neighbours. However, while these changes have an impact for many British Columbians, the government needs to go further, with comprehensive changes that are needed to ensure that British Columbians can benefit from the stability of a home.

I strongly encourage the minister and the cabinet to get the housing hub project financing program back on track. This is an important program that supports the missing middle. Our housing programs need to be a full suite, from housing solutions housing the homeless, to low-to-moderate income, to moderate- and middle-income homes. It needs to be a full and comprehensive program, not just falling into the trap of focusing on a singular demographic within the full range. We need to be developing programs that are covering the full range. That’s why that financing program to finance the capital builds of projects for the missing middle is so important and why it must not be abandoned at this point.

I’m thankful that this is the first bill that we’re debating today and that we’re debating in this part of the session. It’s a tribute to the collaborative work accomplished in the 42nd parliament that’s being fulfilled now. It’s a tribute to the member from the West End, our Deputy Speaker, who has always been a strong advocate for renters, and I look forward to supporting this legislation.

With that, I’ll just stay in my seat and thank the Speaker for the opportunity to speak on Bill 7.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM. Thank you.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you very much, Member.

I’ll recognize the member for Richmond South Centre.

H. Yao: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this lovely opportunity to speak on Bill 7 at second reading.

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge that I am speaking to everybody from the traditional and unceded territory of the Musqueam and Coast Salish people. I thank them for allowing us to live, work and play in their territory.

I fully support Bill 7, and I do want to emphasize one important point: as so many members and my colleagues have emphasized, the reality of this bill is one of many, many future steps as we continuously fight for housing affordability.

Why do I support Bill 7? I think one thing we’ve often missed is that we’ve kept on talking about market or supply and demand without acknowledging that we are in a COVID pandemic. The benefit of this bill, which I love the most and first about it, is that we’re putting in a rent freeze by extending it till the end of this year. We shouldn’t blame the renters, and we shouldn’t try to blame the landlords. At this time, we as a community, as a society, as a different aspect of this world in British Columbia, we have to endure this pandemic together. Why do we have this rent freeze only till the end of this year? It’s to ensure that we don’t end up having people running into homelessness issues.

[4:25 p.m.]

We’re continuing to make life more affordable for everybody. Yes, it is a difficult thing to agree upon; it’s a difficult thing we’re introducing. But this will allow renters and tenants a chance to really be able to continue to survive and strive through this pandemic — along with landlords, along with the rest of society — as we continuously try to overcome our challenges presented by the pandemic.

The pandemic has exposed our vulnerable population, and unfortunately, it exponentially demonstrates impact on the most vulnerable. I’m so proud of this government. We’re stepping together and continually saying: “We’re here to bring fairness. We’re here to provide protection and support for the vulnerable population and the rest of society.”

I do want to emphasize one important aspect of this Bill 7, which is dear to my heart: the fact that a landlord has to actually go to the residential tenancy branch to introduce the request for renovation. First of all, I want to thank the member for Vancouver–West End for introducing the term renoviction to help us understand the challenge of this.

In Richmond South Centre, I haven’t heard anybody talking about renoviction, but I hope people understand that is actually a concern. Richmond South Centre is one of the densest in British Columbia, and one of the smallest. It has a high ethnic Chinese-Canadian population. The ethnic Chinese-Canadian population is part of a community as well, itself. One thing we have learned is we have many, many of our members who don’t understand their rights, don’t understand their privilege, don’t understand what kind of protection they have when they’re facing a challenge.

In the past, if a renoviction goes through, many of the renters do not know who to turn to. Richmond South Centre is also one of the transient communities in British Columbia. Many young families, many immigrant families and many seniors live here. I often encounter constituents coming to my office, asking for help, because they don’t know where to turn. If we mention RTB, obviously an acronym, many of them have no idea what I’m talking about. The residential tenancy branch does great work, but a lot of society, especially the vulnerable population, often don’t know what they have to access to protect their rights.

Now, Bill 7 is introduced at second reading. It requires a landlord to bring a renovation request to the residential tenancy branch if it requires a renter to be evicted in order for them to do a renovation. It gives both the tenant and the landlord a meaningful and legitimate manner to exercise their right.

I’m a bit disappointed. Many of my colleagues in this House have been saying that we are inappropriately pointing fingers at various populations, various sectors of society. Bill 7, to me, in my humble opinion, is a very fair bill. It’s designed to balance out the vulnerability of different populations and to allow us to work together through this challenging time.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

I also want to emphasize that an important issue is that they also addressed false claims, false assumptions. The residential tenancy branch is dealing with different cases. One of the challenges we often have to understand is that if there are consequences associated with making false claims, they will be the ones who are better aware of their legal rights, who are better aware of how the system works, able to utilize it for their full advantage.

Now we’re returning everything back to dollars again, to allow people to have respect through the process, to respect fairness and to be able to work with good faith and good will. When we work together to build up stronger housing affordability, then every population and every sector wins, and every sector is encouraged to interact and work at this challenge with honesty.

Like I said, I cannot emphasize how much I appreciate this bill being introduced by our government. We have a rent freeze till 2021 and continued capping of rent according to the inflation rate. Obviously, we want a landlord to have a healthy prospect opportunity through their investment. But I think the previous member who spoke before me…. I also want to echo his comment. This is also their homes. This is about having a place to live, having a place to be able to say: “I can be here, and I can afford to set out my roots in this area.”

[4:30 p.m.]

When this appropriate regulation, which unfortunately some members called bureaucracy…. It’s a reality of creating protection, to allow renters, to allow tenants, to be able to say: “I can continue maintaining my affordability so my kids can grow up in the same neighbourhood, so I can get to know my neighbours, so I can continue to build strong connections with a school, with a community centre and with local non-profits and with the local businesses.”

We are trying to build a win-win situation, and yes, I will call that a noble cause. Whether some of our members disagree on that, I call it a noble cause. Bill 7 is a piece of a multiple puzzle, part of our housing affordability. I’m glad our government has continued putting that forward.

I also appreciate the fact that we are placing greater emphasis on a compliance enforcement unit. I think the more we learn to live in a society where there’s greater stability, greater security, the more likely we are able to build a society on trust and faith.

I do also emphasize another thing, which is part of Bill 7 that was being addressed. It’s that the residential tenancy branch also has a right to go back and deal with a potential error that’s clearly stated and re-evaluate it, instead of waiting for a party to come back, whether a landlord or a tenant.

I do want to talk about that, because again, we go back to Richmond South Centre and go back to the riding that I represent. I thank them for allowing me to represent them. We do have a lot of new families who are young professionals. We have a lot of immigrant families, and sometimes even some seniors who might not be as well-connected as we would like on current policies. If my family member is one of those individuals who lost a case with the residential tenancy branch, and one of the residential tenancy branch arbitrators identified an error and fixed it, I would be deeply grateful.

I can almost guarantee that in a similar scenario, my family probably wouldn’t even know their rights were violated. This speaks to the NDP. This is our current government. We are fighting for the vulnerable population, and we’re putting dollars and fairness into the system. This is not about middle ground. As I think anyone with statistics will know, median doesn’t represent average. It doesn’t represent mode. We have to understand that when the situation is skewed, government needs to come on with strong actions to balance out the situation so that everyone in our society can either survive the pandemic or thrive and prosper together.

The housing crisis has been building up in our society for many, many years up to this point. I can emphasize that. I also recently transitioned from a condo to a townhouse. The challenge…. The fact that I had to look at my bill to buy the mortgage was shocking. It has been there for a while. But I’m so glad our government continues looking at a problem, continues to dissect its complexity in depth to understand how we can work together with different community groups and put together a task force, which many members represent, to bring a different perspective, to hear stakeholders’ views and to come out with a comprehensive strategy.

We do not just go around pointing fingers at supply and say that supply is the only solution to this. That’s disappointing. It tells me the lack of depth and understanding of the complexity of the problem.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge that our government is working hard across the partisan line, working hard with all the stakeholders, because we need to have a full understanding in order for us to protect the vulnerable, to protect the average British Columbians and to allow all communities to grow and thrive together.

I just want to take a moment to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to speak, and I’ll rest my case at this point.

A. Walker: It’s a pleasure to join this House virtually from the traditional territory of the Pentlatch people, today known as the Qualicum First Nation.

I will be speaking in great support of the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act. I support the changes that Bill 7 will make to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act and the Residential Tenancy Act. This bill is incredibly important for the people of Parksville-Qualicum.

I want to start with sharing a few stories of some of the affected residents and people here that are going to be affected by the changes to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act. I heard early on after the election from a woman named Cathy. Her rent went up during the pandemic, even though it wasn’t supposed to.

[4:35 p.m.]

She’s currently renting a pad in a manufactured home park. She purchased it a couple of years ago, took all of her equity and put it into this home. Once the pandemic hit, her operator and her landlord realized that all of these people moving from the rest of the country to our community were willing to pay substantially higher rents. So not only did the landlord pressure Cathy by threatening incredibly high rent increases, but she was faced with nearly daily changes to the park rules. These were acts of bullying and unnecessary pressure to try to get Cathy to vacate and to voluntarily leave her pad.

For the people who are purchasing and renting pads in mobile home park communities, these are their homes. They are living there for a sense of community and comradeship with their neighbours, and they are there for the long term. They are expecting stability, and they are expecting to be able to live out their lives in these homes. Some of them are financially more well off than others, but many of these people are struggling on disability or on fixed pensions and are really, truly very close to homelessness.

We worked with Cathy, and we were able to hear her concerns. It thrills me to see, in Bill 7, that protections will be in place to ensure that the pressure that her landlord was placing on her and the pressure that’s placed on these individuals through these changed park rules will no longer be taking place. This is incredibly beneficial for the people of my community and the people of this province.

Another powerful story I heard was from a woman here in Parksville. She was phoning on behalf of her sister, in the same circumstance, with threats of dramatically increased rent. Her sister was on disability. She delivered papers where she could. She was 64 years old, and she had no equity in the mobile home that she was in. So if she is evicted, she is on our streets, and she is no longer able to stay safe in a space that is her own.

So I am incredibly impressed with these changes, and I think that they will benefit the people of Parksville-Qualicum as well as many other people all throughout our province.

It’s important, as we discuss these people in these mobile home parks, that we recognize that they are seeking stability and that they are not second-class renters. These are people who, for whatever circumstance that they’re in…. Many desire to be in these facilities for the amenities that they have. They expect to have the same rules and the same protections that other tenants in our province have access to.

These changes in Bill 7 will help normalize and make not only the tenants but also the landlords more aware of the expectations that tenants in our province have and should have moving forward.

It’s always an adjustment going from local government to provincial government, and I very much enjoyed my time on council here in the town of Qualicum Beach, and I hear the other side as they speak specifically to the need to increase supply.

I do agree that we do need to dramatically increase supply, and I’m proud of the accomplishments our government has made in regards to supply. It’s really a collaborative approach we need to take with landlords, with tenants, with local governments, with the provincial and the federal governments as we work together with the strategy to increase our housing supply but also protect the rights of those who are already homed, to make sure they have the same consistent expectations, whether they have what have been described by my colleague here from Abbotsford South as landlords of unfavourable light — whether that is the circumstance they have — or whether they have exemplary landlords who, as that same member described, would not increase the rent because of good tenants.

What we are seeking to do through these changes is no different than any other legislative changes that we have.

When we describe these unfavourable landlords, as the member for Abbotsford South described, we are taking examples that we hear from the people in our community — the stories and the hardships that they’ve had — and we’re fixing the circumstances that they’re in.

[4:40 p.m.]

These rules are no different than establishing speed limits. If we were to describe a new speed limit or a new building code…. We are not using unfavourable light to describe drivers or unfavourable light to describe the builders and craftsmen in our community.

We are, as a collective and as a province, defining what we determine to be the minimum standard that is to be expected by the people of our province. We put that in legislation, and we enforce it. I’m hoping to hear, through the rest of this debate, that other members from the other side will see that these changes will create not only predictability for tenants but also for the landlords. This has been a very balanced approach, as we look through the changes that are taking place here.

The residential tenancy branch, when an error has been made, will be able to address these internally, as opposed to the former process of a judicial review. This is incredibly beneficial for tenants but also for landlords. When challenges and conflicts come up, to be able to address these in a timely and consistent way is of incredible benefit to the landlords as well as to the tenants. The balanced approach that we have here is going to ensure that there is predictability for those who are renting, whether they’re renting homes or whether they’re renting pads in manufactured home parks.

It’s fascinating listening to all of the different impacts that COVID-19 has had and all of the different functions that have taken place to try to address these circumstances. I see this not only as a response to the challenges that we’ve seen with COVID-19 but, specifically, tackling some of the difficulties that we’ve seen for many, many years in our province.

I’m proud to see the changes that we have taking place here. I think they will create a much more consistent framework that will be much more easily enforced, and it will increase the predictability for the tenants as well as the landlords. This is a valuable thing as we look to increase the housing supply.

I hear from the other side the challenges, that new rules and red tape will interfere with the housing market. I disagree wholeheartedly with that. To have consistent rules, it ensures that the landlords that we have been describing, apparently, to the member for Abbotsford South in unfavourable light…. These landlords are not helping the people of our province.

What we need to do is to establish a baseline that all landlords have an expectation that moving forward, they will work with us and with their tenants, their customers, to ensure that we all have, where possible, safe homes.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak for the first time in this House, and I fully support Bill 7 and the changes that are being proposed herein.

J. Rice: I’m happy to speak today to Bill 7, Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, 2021. This legislation speaks to what renters and landlords across the province have asked for. We listened, and we’re delivering on our promise to make life better for everyone in British Columbia.

We know that COVID-19 continues to touch all aspects of our lives and our economy. Even the slightest increase in rent could be extremely challenging for many renters right now. So we’ve introduced legislative changes that would give renters more security by extending the rent freeze to the end of this year, to December 31, 2021.

Currently in Prince Rupert, rents are comparable to those in Vancouver, and the quality of many of these rentals is poor, Prince Rupert having the oldest housing stock of any municipality in British Columbia.

[4:45 p.m.]

In order to further protect tenants, landlords will be required to apply to the residential tenancy branch before they can evict tenants for renovations. Additional requirements are being added to make it clear that landlords cannot end tenancies for renovations that are not extensive or that do not require the rental unit to be vacant.

For example, if you’re gutting an apartment and taking out walls, etc., evicting a tenant makes sense, to do the repairs. But way too many times, we were seeing that peo­ple were being evicted for supposed renovations, only to find out later that a mere coat of paint was added to the walls, which could have been done without evicting anyone.

Our government has made important improvements to rental housing policies in B.C. that have saved renters money and better protected them and improved services that renters and landlords count on. We know that after so many years of the old government’s bad choices, renters are still hurting. We still have a long way to go, but we’re making progress, and we have to keep going.

The opposition has opposed nearly every major action we’ve taken to support renters. They would take us backward and make renters pay more. Our rent freeze and capping rent increases to inflation are saving renters hundreds of dollars a year. Now we’re freezing rents for all of 2021 and making our cap to inflation permanent for all rent increases from 2022 and beyond.

Why are we extending the rent freeze now? Well, the pandemic has placed extraordinary pressures on people, and we want to make life more affordable for British Columbians during this challenging time. Our government made a commitment to extend the rent freeze, and we’re fulfilling that promise. We will continue to monitor the impacts from COVID-19 and do what it takes to support people as we get through this together.

What should renters do if they’ve already received a notice of rent increase for 2021? Under this legislation, there can be no rent increases in 2021, even if you’d already received a notice. If renters have received a notice that was set to come into effect before the end of the year, they should disregard the notice and continue paying their current amount.

For example, if a renter received notice that rent was to increase on August 1, 2021, they should continue to pay their current rent amount. However, landlords can issue notices of rent increases on September 1, 2021, for increases that only take effect starting in 2022. The rent increase in this case must not exceed the rate of inflation.

What happens if a renter has a rent increase worked into their lease? Well, the rent freeze applies to all rent increases, even if it’s worked into a lease. Renters can continue to pay their current amount for 2021. The Residential Tenancy Act states that landlords can only increase rent by the consumer price index rate once every 12 months and must give their renter three months’ notice.

In 2018, the province closed the fixed-term-lease loophole that allowed landlords to increase rent when a new lease agreement was signed, which is often when rent increases were written into lease agreements. We encourage any renter with questions around the rent increases or their lease agreement to contact the residential tenancy branch.

What about the option to apply for additional rent increases when there needs to be large capital improvements? Now, I can appreciate that this may be difficult for landlords that were counting on rent increases to pay for capital improvements. It’s in everyone’s interest for rental housing to stay in good repair and remain in the rental market for renters. We’re also fulfilling this commitment. This legislation expands our regulation-making authority needed to implement this promise. More information on this will be available in coming months.

These are still very hard times for people, but we’re seeing signs that our supports have helped. We were the only major province to provide a temporary rent supplement to help renters pay rent during COVID-19. While I know there are people still struggling, and there are many here in my hometown of Prince Rupert, new data shows that B.C. has the lowest rate of rent arrears in the country other than Newfoundland. We’re going to keep working to support people, including through the B.C. recovery benefit.

[4:50 p.m.]

Another question that has come to my office quite frequently is: do people living in subsidized housing, like B.C. Housing, qualify for the rent freeze? Now, rental fees for subsidized housing units are based on the tenant’s income. Under the Residential Tenancy Regulation, units where rent is based on a tenant’s income are exempt from rent increase regulations as they are reassessed every year and fluctuate based on a tenant’s income. The rent freeze doesn’t apply to people living in subsidized housing, as any changes in the rent are based on changes on the renter’s income and assets.

Does the rent freeze apply to the amount for utilities and taxes that are passed through to homeowners in a manufactured home park? Yes, it does. Manufactured home park landlords can normally increase the rent by the annual allowable amount plus an additional amount to cover local government levies and regulated utility fees. The proportional amount, also known as an enhanced rent in­crease, is the change in local government levies plus the change in regulated utility fees divided by the number of manufactured home sites in the park. This means that each tenant of the park pays for part of the year’s increase in taxes and fees. The rent freeze, now extended to the end of 2021, also applies to this proportional amount.

Many people want to know when these changes for renovictions will come into effect. Well, they will come into effect July 1, 2021. We are currently setting up new processes and policies to be able to handle applications. In the meantime, the earlier changes our government made as initial steps to strengthen protection around reno- and demovictions remain in place, which was to provide tenants more notice and increase compensation.

How exactly will these changes prevent renovictions? Well, the changes establish a new process to prevent landlords from evicting tenants for minor repairs. Landlords will be required to apply to the residential tenancy branch before issuing a notice to evict their tenants so that they can renovate. Landlords who are trying to end tenancies with multiple tenants in the same building will have to apply under one application. Arbitrators will decide if the application meets the criteria outlined in the Residential Tenancy Act to determine if the tenancy needs to end.

Will renters have any say in the process? Yes, renters will. Renters will have an opportunity to present evidence which could include information that they are willing to accommodate the renovation without ending the tenancy. The arbitrator will weigh that evidence and decide whether or not to allow the landlord to end a tenancy so they can renovate. If the application is approved, the tenant will be given four months notice before they move out.

Now, LandlordBC has expressed support for these changes. We are not picking on landlords. We all know there has to be a process for renovations so rental housing can stay in good repair and remain in the rental market for renters. It’s in everyone’s interest for that to be done in good faith. This will allow legitimate renovations while helping prevent illegal renovictions where some landlords would use the excuse of slapping on a coat of paint to get rid of a tenant.

LandlordBC has expressed support, and we are working with them to spread the word to their members. The residential tenancy branch will have information available online, educate stakeholders and have a public outreach plan on the new requirements in an effort to ensure landlords comply to the changes for serving eviction notices and so that renters know their rights when being served eviction notices.

A notice that is issued without going through the application process at the residential tenancy branch is not valid and contrary to the act. If a landlord is continuously issuing notices without applying to the residential tenancy branch under the new requirements, the compliance and enforcement unit could investigate.

Around administrative penalties. What will changes to administrative penalties mean for landlords and tenants? These amendments will allow the residential tenancy branch to levy an administrative penalty against someone who gave false or misleading information in a dispute resolution proceeding or investigation.

[4:55 p.m.]

Currently the residential tenancy branch may ask for documents from a person who is under investigation by the compliance and enforcement unit. This amendment will expand the type of material the director can compel and will allow the RTB, the residential tenancy branch, to compel records from someone who may hold important information related to the investigation, like a contractor, but who is not under investigation.

Hon. Speaker, I want to thank you for the time today to speak to these changes that we’re proposing. These changes will help make life better for renters. That is something that we promised in our 2020 election platform, and we’re continuing to do so.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, hon. Member.

The Chair recognizes the member for Maple Ridge–​Mission.

B. D’Eith: Thank you very much, hon. Speaker.

I’ll take the applause. Thank you. One person.

I rise today in support of Bill 7.

Interjection.

B. D’Eith: There we go, the peanut gallery. Thanks, guys.

I did want to say thank you to the Speaker, before I start, and to the Clerks for allowing me to be able to rise today in the House. This is, actually, the first time I’ve been able to stand in the House since last summer. In fact, before that, the last time was in 2019.

To everyone in the House and to everyone who has participated on Zoom…. Normally, I’m there, and I’m very happy to be here. I know many members will be very grateful for the opportunity to be able to come back into the House and see people in person, whether that’s their friends in their caucus or the other side. This is an important institution, and it’s important for all of us to be together and work together in making British Columbia a better place.

I also wanted to apologize for the inconvenience it may cause you to see me on this side of the House. I appreciate the fact that the election has gotten some of us on this side. I apologize for the inconvenience to the opposition for that, but it can’t be helped.

At any rate, today I wanted to rise in support of Bill 7. I wanted to also express a few things in regards to some comments that were made in regards to the housing plan and actions that the government has taken over the last few years.

When I was first elected into this House…. Our government inherited some real problems with housing. In fact, immediately the former Minister of Housing launched a comprehensive 30-point plan to address the housing crisis that we had in this province and still continue to experience. We’re taking many, many steps to address those.

In particular, the opposition seems to be stating a few things that aren’t actually accurate in regards to rental housing stock. In fact, there have been incredibly strong numbers in terms of purpose-built rental units being built in this province. Just this year alone….

We’d actually built more rental units by July — that’s half a year — than the previous government did for their best year. In other words, this year we’ve already built more than they did in their best year. According to their own numbers, it would probably take them 1,000 years to build the stock that they’re talking about.

We’ve also added 18,000 more condos to the rental stock with the speculation and vacancy tax. In fact, less than 1 percent of the population of B.C. pays this tax, yet it’s had a profound impact on the rental stock in this province.

That’s one of 30 points that the ministry continues…. Now we have the new ministry of Attorney General and Housing, which is working on this file and continues to deal with issues. Of course, during COVID, these issues have been compounded.

I also wanted to address another statistic that the members had brought up. In fact, we’ve got, under construction or completed, 26,000 homes in 90 communities that are being built or underway. That includes….

[5:00 p.m.]

In Maple Ridge, for example, we have low-income housing in partnership with community services. Every day I drive by, and I see it getting closer and closer to completion. That’s going to have an amazing impact in Maple Ridge.

The same in Mission, working with MASH, the seniors society there in Mission. We are very close to completion on 70 units of new affordable seniors housing in Mission. That was started during my last term, and I’m very proud of that. In fact, the community is extremely pleased with that.

We’ve also worked very closely with B.C. Housing. One great example is a partnership in Mission with Lookout which is completely full. It has been widely successful. It’s another example of the work that’s being done by this government to tackle the housing crisis.

Of course, Bill 7 continues that work that was started in the last term. In fact, the member for Vancouver–West End…. The reason that you’re all having to put up with me here is because of the member for Vancouver–West End, who actually talked me into running in the first place, so you can blame him. But you can also credit him for the incredible advocacy on the rental housing issue in Vancouver. It really is a profound issue.

Half a million people in British Columbia rent. It’s not just a wacky time, like the previous leader said last term. It’s not just a wacky time for people. It’s actually an important time in people’s lives. People rely on rentals for their entire lives, many times, so it’s so, so important to ensure that we not only have rental stock but that the rental that is there is available, consistent and affordable.

The Rental Housing Task Force had a number of recommendations, some of which have already been addressed by the government. This is continuing that work. Bill 7 continues the work.

One of the things that Bill 7 is doing is extending the rent freeze to December 31, 2021. Now, if you remember, at the beginning of the pandemic, there were some real issues around…. If people got evicted during the pandemic, there was a public-health-risk aspect to that. We’re not talking about reinstating that, but part of it, too, were actual rental increases and pushing people out. If people had to move out and became homeless, that actually became a public health issue.

That is actually continuing. Given the fact that, really, we’re still in the middle of this pandemic, that we still need to ensure that rentals are affordable and that people stay at home, where they’re supposed to be, to keep safe in this very challenging time, we are extending that rent freeze to December 31, 2021. Then after that, with this legislation, there will be a cap on further rent increases to inflation.

Why that’s important is…. The previous government allowed 2 percent plus inflation which, at a certain point, got up to 4.3 percent, which was higher than inflation. That type of percentage actually created quite a bit of grief for tenants. Basically capping further increases after the rent freeze will allow landlords to have that important increase in rent that is reasonable to cover inflation and also make sure that tenants can afford rent.

Another part of this bill is in regards to renovictions. To protect tenants, landlords will be required to apply to the residential tenancy branch before they can terminate a tenancy for the purpose of renovating.

[5:05 p.m.]

Let’s talk about that for a minute. As an MLA, one of the key things that I’ve had to deal with in my riding is renovictions. It is absolutely heartbreaking, especially for seniors and people who are on low incomes, to be out on the street because a landlord used a loophole to get them out of their space by basically saying: “We’re going to renovate. You need to move out.”

Now, what that did, of course, is put a huge amount of pressure on the residential tenancy branch, because this was happening so often that tenants were having to apply and apply and apply. It was causing a great amount of grief. Tenants were ending up out on the street.

I had one woman who was actually a senior, who was forced out, because of a renoviction, with her three cats. It’s very, very difficult for people to find housing with animals — very difficult to find housing with animals. She was actually contacting us from her phone in her car. She was living in her car with her three cats, and did so for some time, because a landlord renovicted her. She was a senior. She was living on a fixed income. This is just one example, of so many, when this happens.

Of course, it’s about balance. This is something that the opposition has brought up, about balance. This is not about tenants versus landlords. In fact, both tenants and landlords support this.

I have a couple of quotes. One is Andrew Sakamoto. He’s executive director of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre.

“Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre supports the decision to have landlords apply…before issuing an eviction notice for renovations or repairs. It’s common for landlords to illegally renovict tenants without the necessary permits required by law or for minor or cosmetic improvements that do not require vacant possession of a rental unit. Rather than forcing tenants to dispute these types of meritless eviction notices, we’re pleased that landlords will now have to go through an application process before issuing such notices in the first place.”

Now, this is important. It’s a process.

David Hutniak, who’s the chief executive officer of LandlordBC, is also quoted.

“The Rental Housing Task Force recommendations are a road map for positive change. LandlordBC believes that encouraging continued investment to prolong or sustain the useful life of a rental unit or building is essential. We further believe that making the landlord proceed in this proposed manner, whereby legitimate cases where vacant possession is necessary and appropriate are adjudicated up front, will ensure work is undertaken in good faith, thereby mitigating what has at times been an unnecessarily confrontational process.”

Here, Members, is the balance. The balance is that the landlords are able to have a clear process to have their renovations that are needed. No one is saying that we don’t want to see repairs. Obviously, we don’t want to see residences becoming dilapidated and being unsafe for tenants. But there has to be a reasonable way to do that, and this process will allow landlords, who have legitimate reasons for renovating, to do so in a clear manner.

What it’ll actually do is it will free up the residential tenancy branch, because they won’t be dealing with all of the problems of tenants talking about renovictions and coming to the residential tenancy branch about that.

Balance. Members talk about balance. That is a good example of balance right there.

Let’s talk about a few of the other issues that are in this bill. We talked about the rent freeze. We’ve talked about a number of issues around the rent freeze. This is very important in terms of, as I said, around the pandemic.

One of the issues around the rent freeze is, let’s say, large capital improvements. You know, it’s really in everyone’s interests for rental housing to stay in good repair and remain in the rental market. What happens here is that we’re expanding the regulatory-making authority for making those improvements when they need to be made. That’s very, very important.

[5:10 p.m.]

As far as other issues, it’s important to note, because of the details, of course, that the changes around renovictions will come into effect in July — July 1, 2021. That’s to allow time for new processes and policies to be put into place to ensure that there is adequate administration of the program. The changes preventing renovictions will actually create a more stable environment for landlords to work in.

The other part of this is in regards to manufactured home park tenancies. There are a number of clarifications here, which is important, because under the present rules…. There needed to be clarifying language with the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act to ensure that park rules, which can be changed easily by the park owner, don’t override existing tenancy agreements. This is really important, because what we’ve found is that by just changing park rules, sometimes the park management are able to change the actual agreements for the tenants. It’s about fairness.

The other issue is that there are no current limits on how often park rules can be changed, which can lead to frequent changes that actually unfairly target tenants. So the new regulatory authority will allow future changes to limit the frequency park owners may change park rules. These changes will come into regulation after consultation with park and homeowner stakeholder groups over the coming months.

I believe that this is the right direction. It’s part of an ongoing effort on behalf of our government to make life more affordable for our residents, to make sure that tenants can stay in their homes, especially during a pandemic, and that landlords, in fact, have a more clear way to make sure that they are able to get those renovations that they need.

Fair enough. There are good tenants. There are bad tenants. There are good landlords. There are bad landlords. We all know that. Most tenants are great, and most landlords are great. And of course, on both sides, there are issues. But what this does is create clarity. It creates balance. It’s good law, and I support it.

Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Langley East.

M. Dykeman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me and for providing me with this opportunity to speak in support of Bill 7, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act.

Our government is committed to continuing to monitor the impact of COVID-19 and to do what it takes to support people as we get through this together. I’m so very proud to be part of a government that supports changes like this that help people like the people in my riding, the calls that we get from constituents that are concerned about having a place to live.

Within the riding of Langley East, we have, unfortunately, been in contact with families that have their children sleeping in cars with them, elderly people who our police have had to work with to liaison to provide housing, who are living in their cars. I had the opportunity to tour the Travelodge that is in my riding and which has had to provide emergency housing during some of the coldest times for families that have struggled from not only the high rent increases but from the coupling of what COVID has created with instability. When you take that and the high rents, it’s created a significant problem for people in my riding and throughout the province.

This pandemic has placed extraordinary pressures on people, and Bill 7 will make life more affordable for British Columbians during this challenging time. Even the slightest increase in rent could be extremely challenging for many renters right now.

[5:15 p.m.]

Our government made a commitment to extend the rent freeze, and we are fulfilling that promise through Bill 7, which gives renters more security by extending the rent freeze to December 31, 2021. To further protect tenants, landlords will be required to apply to the residential tenancy branch before they can evict tenants for renovations. This is something that creates fairness and stability for everyday people.

Additional requirements are being added to make it clear that landlords cannot end tenancies for renovations that are not substantial or that do not require the rental unit to be vacant. Those renovations can still take place. There isn’t a prohibition lens here. To further protect tenants, landlords will be required to apply to the tenancy branch before they can evict these tenants for renovations.

Our government has made important improvements to rental housing policies in B.C. that have saved renters money and better protected them and improved services that renters and landlords can count on. This is protecting both parties in the transaction. We know that after so many years of the old government’s bad choices, renters are still hurting. We still have a long way to go, but we’re making progress, and we just have to keep going. It’s the right thing to do.

Our rent freeze and capping rent increases to inflation are saving renters hundreds of dollars a year, and we’re freezing rents for all of 2021 and making our cap to inflation permanent for all rent increases from 2022 and beyond.

The opposition, which once again has opposed all our major actions to support renters and our capping rent increases to inflation, now says — and it’s news to me — that we have called landlords evil. I like to think that we don’t play games like that in Canada, but some days I’m disappointed, especially listening to the diatribe.

I can tell you that the last thing that the parents of the over 600 children in Langley who struggled and benefited from the meals programs that the Langley school district provided during COVID…. The last thing they need is unrestrained rent increases, which are being offered by the opposition. In this province, no one should face a daily choice between keeping a roof over their head and feeding their children, yet that’s the legacy right now, if the opposition were in government.

Although employment rates currently stand at 98.5 percent of pre-pandemic levels and income supports are in place, there are still people who are struggling and need the further support provided by this legislation, together with the recovery benefit and the federal income supports. Landlords affected by the provisions freezing rents until December 31, 2021, may also be able to apply for the B.C. recovery benefit to help offset some of these costs.

As has been said many times since early 2020, we are all, indeed, in this together. That includes those who are well off and those who aren’t. It also includes landlords and their tenants, single moms struggling hard to feed their children and all of those who, due to a wide variety of circumstances, find themselves homeless.

I myself, as a single mother, could be homeless if I wasn’t as fortunate as I am to have the work and stability that I’ve been able to create. I know several single mothers in my riding who are grateful for these measures being put in place. As a mother of two children, I look around at the rent as it is right now and think that if I had to move, it would be very challenging.

We are not all that fortunate. We are all in this together. Our government is and has been committed to looking at the needs of everyone and not just the select few, as would be the result if members opposite occupied the government side of the House. We’re trying to fix years of damage caused by a housing market which was allowed to essentially become a casino.

One of the things that often perplexed me is why, whenever there is a housing market issue, we are faced from the opposition with this resort to false dichotomies and straw-man arguments, such as: “If you bring these measures in, no one will rent their houses anymore.” Choosing to do nothing when faced with a pandemic and while in an economic housing bubble that is not sustainable would create an untenable situation for our most vulnerable. It’s not good enough. The people of British Columbia quite rightly expect more.

[5:20 p.m.]

In my riding, which is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the province, I hear stories from families that are just devastating. We have, as I mentioned earlier, elderly people living in cars. We have children in our schools that live in cars and are expected to go the next morning and learn.

The opposition has said that housing starts in B.C. “slowed dramatically” in 2020 as supply diminishes. Housing prices have increased across the province. That just is not true. Those January housing starts remain 5 percent above the ten-year average, 31,811 from 2010 to 2019, 22 percent above the old government’s 2001 to 2016 average.

Unlike the old government, our policies are helping build the kinds of homes British Columbians need. In 2020, we’d already registered more rental units for construction by July than the old government ever did in an entire year. So 18,000 more condos are now being rented out in Metro Vancouver instead of simply sitting empty thanks to the speculation and vacancy tax. We got over 26,000 homes complete and underway in 90 communities, including 6,800 complete and 9,200 in active construction.

Our plan has B.C. on track for 42 percent more housing starts than the old government’s plan. That’s 58,000 more homes for people than the members opposite would’ve delivered. Bill 7 is a step in our plan to address the inequalities of the most vulnerable in our community, having to choose between a meal or a secure place to sleep at night.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to speak. I will sit now.

Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Vancouver-Kensington.

M. Elmore: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to join you and speak in favour of Bill 7, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act.

Certainly, I know British Columbians have been waiting for this act to address concerns in the rental housing market. It comes out of a process of consultation, quite an extensive consultation by the Rental Housing Task Force that got input from stakeholders right across the province in terms of their experiences with rentals, from folks who were renting and also folks who were owners as well — right across the board.

I’m very pleased that Bill 7 addresses these concerns and enacts a good number of the recommendations from the Rental Housing Task Force. Fundamentally, it addresses the grave concerns around preventing renovictions. We heard countless heartbreaking stories of seniors, individuals and families really being displaced from their homes. Bill 7 addresses that.

As well, in terms of the context of COVID and the difficulties that families and individuals are under in these trying times, we’re extending the rent freeze to benefit tenants. These changes coming in through Bill 7 will build on our work to give British Columbians more security and, in addition, will cap future rent increases to inflation and take steps to stop illegal renovictions and make the dispute resolution process better for tenants and landlords.

I think that this bill, Bill 7, really strikes that balance between tenants and landlords and addresses a number of concerns that were heard from the Rental Housing Task Force. Certainly, to protect tenants, the process in place now, proposed under Bill 7, will require landlords to apply to the residential tenancy branch before they can terminate a tenancy agreement for the purpose of renovating.

Certainly, we recognize the importance of capital upgrades to rental properties, and that’s important not only for renters but for landlords as well. We want to ensure that there’s a fair process in place to ensure that those necessary upgrades take place but that it’s not used as a de facto excuse to displace tenants and increase the rent.

[5:25 p.m.]

Those changes are scheduled to come into effect on July 1, 2020, and these will build on earlier protections introduced in 2018. So certainly, this is a key priority with respect to protecting renters from renovictions.

In addition, another key component that is much needed, that I hear from constituents in Vancouver-Kensington, is the need…. That’s why the province has taken the initiative to extend the rent freeze during COVID-19 and to freeze rents until the end of the year. That’s a significant step as well. We know that so many people we’ve heard from in our communities are challenged by these high rents. I appreciate the efforts by the Rental Housing Task Force, led and chaired by the MLA from the West End, and moving forward on that.

We know that in 2017, the allowable rent increase was as high as 4.3 percent, well above inflation. Now it’s going to be frozen through 2021 — I think that’s a good move — and going forward, capped to the rate of inflation. Certainly, it’s reasonable to address affordability for renters.

Another key component that’s brought in that was identified as a real gap, identified by the Rental Housing Task Force, was the importance of bringing in administrative penalties. Now the scope is being expanded to enforce that. The compliance and enforcement unit is able to implement and also provide that accountability for individuals who give false or misleading information in a dispute resolution process or investigation. This is important because unless there are repercussions, there’s not really a detriment to ensure that folks abide by the regulations.

In addition, administrative measures to improve fairness in the residential tenancy dispute process, which expands the grounds for the residential tenancy branch to review arbitrator decisions. Also, clarifying language in the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act to address conflicts that arise between arbitrary park rules and tenancy agreements, to ensure that there’s a level playing field for individuals in manufactured home parks when conflicts arise. These are some key provisions and real, key improvements in these areas.

As well, we know that previous action was taken to address the chronic housing crisis that our province finds itself in, contributed to by 16 years of inaction by the previous B.C. Liberal government. Key components are building on closing the fixed-term-lease loophole, which allowed for really skyrocketing increases of rents in between tenants. As well, eliminating the geographic rent hikes, bringing in the new compliance and enforcement unit to ensure that enforcement has some teeth and introducing initial steps to strengthen protection for renters.

Those were laying that groundwork. Bill 7 is continuing to address the recommendations and really strengthen the protections for renters, certainly much needed. We know that renters, in the continuum of housing availability in British Columbia — not only in Metro Vancouver, but right across the province — are important. Additional measures that were brought in, particularly with the speculation and vacancy tax…. We saw the addition of 18,000 condo units, it’s estimated, that were previously sitting empty, now vacant and available stock for rent.

Our government, the B.C. NDP government, brought in a comprehensive 30-point housing plan to really address housing supply for the fundamental principle that homes should be for people and not solely an investment to make profit.

Looking at the continuum, with respect to the availability of rental units…. That’s a key component. Bill 7 looks at really strengthening protections, filling the gaps and ensuring that there’s balance with respect to renters’ rights and the rights for landlords.

[5:30 p.m.]

Certainly, it’s based on consultation across the province and input, really, from a broad base of stakeholders. I think that’s one mark and a real strength of the legislation. We know that these changes and recommendations in Bill 7, the measures, were brought forward from renters and landlords across the province asking for these changes and — particularly in the context of COVID — taking into consideration the need to expand the rate freeze. That’s just the unprecedented time we’re in.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The aspect, as well, that I’ve heard from…. I think all MLA offices get calls from both renters and landlords around being able to settle differences, disputes, conflicts. Certainly, the improvements in the administrative measures to be able to address these concerns is an improvement and will be appreciated right across the board. We know that improvements in our rental housing policies in B.C. will save renters money, will ensure that they are better protected.

Also, that has to go hand in hand…. As I referenced, Bill 7 is a balanced bill that improves services for renters and landlords — services that they both count on. I think that that’s an expectation, in terms of how all of us coordinate and move forward in British Columbia. These changes — much needed, as my previous colleagues have articulated — come on previous years of just bad choices by the old government, and renters are still hurting from that.

Certainly, there’s much more that needs to be done, but I think we’re making progress. We’re moving in the right direction. These are some concrete steps, and we need to continue down that path. I know I’ve listened to members of the opposition talk in opposition, and I know that they’ve been opposed to pretty much every major action that our government has taken to support renters and to ensure that homes and rent are affordable for British Columbians.

I’m very pleased with Bill 7. I’m in support of these changes. Certainly, they’re much needed, and they’re informed by broad-based consultations. There are big challenges ahead. This is not going to solve all of the problems around housing affordability and challenges for renters, but it’s a significant step. We know as well that the B.C. landlords have said that they support these initiatives, and we appreciate that. They’ve been an important part of the process, going forward, to ensure that their perspective is also heard and that services really reflect the needs of renters and landlords. It was LandlordBC that has expressed support for these changes, and we look forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders.

There’s more work to be done. We need to continue our conversation with renters. Certainly, it’s a steady stream of cases and stories that I hear in my office. There’s more work that needs to be done to address the crisis in housing affordability, to ensure that people have access to housing. Certainly in Vancouver-Kensington, I’m very pleased at initiatives and commitments to build supportive housing as well, to ensure that supports are available for folks to have them housed, to have them homed.

We have many more challenges. We need to also look at…. The government is developing plans around a complex model of support, to ensure that folks having a home…. Often that’s the first step, but they need to have adequate supports in place as well, to ensure that their needs are addressed and that they’re supported adequately. These are some key priorities of the continuing work that needs to be done. Bill 7 is a positive step in this direction.

[5:35 p.m.]

I’d also like to highlight the balanced consideration of Bill 7, in expanding the review grounds and improving procedural fairness — this is an important component — and really enabling the residential tenancy branch to play a proactive role, being able to review more decisions.

Certainly, our previous government was supporting, with additional resources, the residential tenancy branch to be able to provide adequate services. That’s an important component. They will have a key role to play moving forward. We are looking to also look at how we can continue to improve procedural fairness. These are important components.

We know that, as well, it was identified in the review that there is a need to bring in administrative penalties for both landlords and tenants in the event that agreements were violated. That’s an important deterrent to ensure that amendments allow the residential tenancy branch to levy administrative penalties against someone who gave either false or misleading information in a dispute resolution proceeding or investigation. That’s important — and also enabling the residential tenancy branch to act to request documents from a person who’s under investigation by the compliance and enforcement unit.

These are components that have really strengthened the administrative process, the investigative process and really put in place administrative penalties to send a clear message right across the board to renters and landlords that there are repercussions for making violations. That’s important.

We know, as well, that there are more recommendations. Bill 7 addresses a number of recommendations that came forward from the Rental Housing Task Force. I referenced earlier in my comments that not all of the recommendations were covered but a good number of them. That’s with a nod towards this being a positive step with Bill 7.

More needs to be done, but certainly, it’s a key step in terms of addressing and ensuring that we have affordable housing for renters and that there are fair procedures in place to settle disputes and, really, to put an end to renovictions, which have just been terribly unfair.

I want to close and just reference, as well, that the legislation is in line with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. There was consultation with Indigenous communities. That’s key. Going forward, that’s a commitment from our government to ensure that for all legislative bills that come forward, there’s adequate consultation.

Consultation was undertaken with the treaty First Nations. As well, First Nations were consulted by engaging with the First Nations Leadership Council. A number of Indigenous organizations were also invited to attend the meetings, including really important organizations — the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, Métis Nation B.C. They were all asked in terms of being engaged in the process, so that’s a key commitment, as well, going forward.

I know we’re coming close here to the end. I know that there are others following me who want to make some remarks, so I will end my remarks there. Thank you for the opportunity.

I’m pleased to speak in favour of Bill 7, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, really taking a positive step to ensure affordability for renters, to put an end to unfair renovictions and really bring in procedural fairness for both renters and landlords.

K. Paddon: I’m happy to rise today to speak in support of Bill 7, and I am honoured to do so, even so late in the day, as I can comment now on the thoughts that occurred to me as my colleagues were speaking.

[5:40 p.m.]

We know that many people who rent in our communities are struggling. This is not new. It’s not reserved for the situation in which we find ourselves with the pandemic. This existed before then, and unfortunately, this is one step but will not be a complete solution to everything that housing vulnerability brings.

Here in Chilliwack-Kent and throughout the Fraser Valley and across the entire province, we all hear stories about the difficult decisions and choices that people are forced to make. As costs increase, as the cost of living increases and now the impacts of the pandemic…. Just this morning I rose to speak about a program that provides hygiene products, because that’s a choice that some renters have to make — choosing between things that we need and materials and supplies that we need. Some of my colleagues have mentioned choosing between food and rent or a car — transportation — and rent.

These are the difficult decisions that real people are forced to make every day. The pandemic has placed extraordinary pressure on people. We are committed to making life more affordable for British Columbians during this time. We’ll continue to work towards that goal as we monitor and move through the COVID-19 situation.

One of the things that really strikes me in listening to people speak today — their thoughts on this bill — is that there was a lot of discussion of unfairness, of a lack of balance, of painting everyone with a single brush. One word kept repeating. It was about villainizing landlords. I’ve read the bill and re-read it and even checked it again today, after hearing it so many times. This story, to me, doesn’t seem to have a villain.

What, to me, is happening is that there’s surety that processes are followed in a way that improves and promotes the spirit of the relationship between renters and landlords. There’s certainty so that everyone knows what to expect. As was mentioned by somebody else, you need both parties for this to work. You need both the landlord and the renter. If a renter can’t afford to stay, then the landlord doesn’t have a tenant.

Now, I live in Chilliwack-Kent. I live in the Fraser Valley. There’s always another renter. Unfortunately, that has coloured some of the relationships. But overall, we have great landlords and we have great tenants. Where there’s certainty, both parties can rely on that. I believe that this goes a long way to ensuring that that’s a possibility.

Renters and landlords across the province asked for these changes. We’ve listened, and we’re delivering on the promise we made to British Columbians. Based on consultation and feedback from both landlords and tenants, this bill builds on the province’s work to give British Columbians more security by extending the rent freeze. The changes also cap future rent increases to inflation, stop illegal renovictions and make the dispute resolution process better for tenants and landlords.

What there is certainly not, as far as I could see, was anything that painted all landlords. This is not a situation where all landlords are being described as trying to breach the rules. There’s certainty here that everyone knows what to expect. This is not actually going to impact the good landlords. But for both tenants and landlords who would seek to exploit or breach the relationship…. There’s definitely a way forward.

Many of the comments from across the aisle have focused on the opinion of a lack of fairness or selective fairness or not any balance. A lot of this was mentioned as though we continue to exist in a pre-COVID world. This morning in the House, there were questions about fairness, about taking care of people, about clear information, about knowing what to expect as we move through this pandemic together.

[5:45 p.m.]

I would expect that all members would support his bill, as this legislation creates that certainty, creates predictability, creates fairness based on the feedback of those impacts. It has clear process and clear expectations, clear information informed by British Columbians that creates balance, stability and access.

I know that this past week I had the opportunity to tour a transition centre here in Chilliwack-Kent. One of the stories that I heard was about the fact that people can’t take another increase. There are choices being made by people in our constituencies, not only mine, between their safety and homelessness. So the choice to stay…. The options that are available have become so limited that the choice is between safety and home. This is a very, very serious situation, and there is nothing fair about it.

One of the reasons that this bill is so positive, in my mind, is that it creates certainty. It allows people to plan. I hear from seniors in our community as well. A lot of them are talking about knowing what to expect with so much uncertainty right now. The ability for us to be clear, the ability for our province to support people in planning for their future and knowing what to expect, whether it be seniors or persons with disabilities or other people who are living on fixed incomes or incomes that have been limited through the conditions of the pandemic…. This bill will not only help now but into the future. For me, it is one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about supporting this bill.

As I mentioned before, the clarity and the surety and the clear information that this bill offers in supporting the relationships between tenants and landlords is the reason that I will be supporting this bill. It will be the reason that I expect many other people should, based on their comments earlier today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak today on this bill. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next. As my friends have mentioned, this addresses many of the recommendations and some of the intersectional concerns. But this is a much bigger issue, and I am so very proud to be part of a government that will be tackling this in order to keep British Columbians safe and the people of Chilliwack-Kent with options and opportunities as we move forward on this together.

Deputy Speaker: I recognize the Minister Responsible for Housing to close debate.

Hon. D. Eby: Thank you very much, hon. Speaker.

Thank you to the member for Chilliwack-Kent for her comments this afternoon on the bill. A wonderful speech in support of the bill.

I just wanted to note before closing debate that my counterpart the critic for Housing had some questions about housing starts. B.C.’s January 2021 housing starts, in the middle of the pandemic, were 33,488. That’s 5 percent above the ten-year average, 22 percent above the old government’s 2001 to 2016 average and 21 percent above the old government’s budget predictions for 2020.

I’ll also note that in 2020, we’d already registered more rental housing units for construction by July of 2020 than the old government ever did in an entire year. It’s 5,409, July 2020, year to date. The old government record was 5,173, which they set in 2016, so I can assure him that we are on top of supply. But in addition to supply, we need to make sure that both tenants and landlords are protected, which is what these amendments are about.

With that, I move second reading.

Deputy Speaker: Division has been called. Pursuant to division orders, sessional orders, the division will be held at six o’clock. For this moment, I’d like to move a short recess. We will resume at six o’clock.

Thank you, Members.

The House recessed from 5:50 p.m. to 6 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Members. Members, please. If I could get this House back into order, only to shut it down again.

Pursuant to the sessional order regulating the hybrid proceedings of the House, we will need to recess. First, I have to ring the bells so that everybody is following tradition. They will ring three times, and then we will recess until 6:10 p.m., when we can start the voting process. It’s all to do with ensuring that everybody is counted appropriately on the screens and so that proper record-taking can take place.

The third ringing of the bells has tolled. Now we will go on recess until 6:10 p.m., when the voting will take place. We are in recess until 6:10 p.m.

Thank you, Members.

The House recessed from 6:01 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: We’ll start the process in five minutes, at 6:15.

[6:15 p.m. - 6:20 p.m.]

We will now proceed with the deferred division. The question is second reading of Bill 7, Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, 2021.

Second reading of Bill 7 approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 7, Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.