Toronto

Another legislation trying to fix a very broken rental ecosystem in Ontario. Problem #1 is rent control. If ON adopted AB's model they wouldn't have these issues -

What does AB do differently? We DONT have rent control, the rent is controlled by supply and demand as it should be. The only restriction is that a LL cant raise the rent more than once in a 365 day period, but there is no limit on how much it can be raised unless its obviously punitive. Eg 100 a month raise is acceptable, 1000 a month is obviously punitive and likely to be disallowed by our Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service, a quasi judicial body that unlike ON's LTB is NOT broken and is NOT inundated with so many cases that its failing under its own weight. Here, a LL can evict a tenant who refuses to pay in less than a month. None of this 6 month wait baloney and then two postponements as the tenant games the system and continues to destroy the property. In AB if there is proof of wilful vandalism the eviction period is 24 hours. We dont put up with that bs.

What does demand pricing mean? It means when demand is way up, as it has been in the last 3 years in Calgary, a LL can raise the rent to whatever the market will bear. It ALSO means that when demand cools as it has in the last few months, that rents DROP in relation to demand. Overall rents have dropped almost 10% year over year.

This takes away the problem of a LL knowing that their rental is underpriced by hundreds of dollars a month and resorting to shady renoviction tactics to try and raise it. Demand pricing works and it works well.

All rent control does is create temporary solutions for tenants that eventually frustrate landlords and cause issues. Free market supply and demand is a far superior system. And for those on the bottom end of income we still have some subsidized housing and low income housing so they're not completely priced out although admittedly there will always be more demand for low income housing than the province can supply.