My question is to the Premier. Nikki has lived in a rental home for two years. She pays $1,995 for a 600-square-foot basement apartment. Earlier this month, her landlord slapped her with a $200 rent increase, and now Nikki can no longer afford to pay the rent. This unaffordable rent increase is allowed because this government scrapped rent control on new units.

As more and more people in Ontario are struggling to pay the rent, what is this government’s plan to make rent affordable now?

I’m pleased to support the motion that the Leader of the Opposition has brought forward today. It’s not just about economics. That’s a really important part of it, but there is an imbalance now that exists between landlords and tenants on a whole bunch of housing that has just been built. Take, for instance, Vista Local, which is in my riding of Ottawa South. There are hundreds and hundreds of residents there who saw between a 6% and 20% increase. How in any way is that fair?

Rent control was to establish a level playing field of balance of power between a landlord and a tenant so that—not that it was equal, but tenants knew they could remain in the place that they were and that the increases would be reasonable. It’s the only fair thing to do.

Right now, with the shortage, landlords have all the power.

But here’s the thing—this is another piece that’s really disturbing about rent control here in Ontario, and that’s the Landlord and Tenant Board. If you want to talk about power imbalances—this government has failed to put the resources necessary in that board to serve the people who need to be served. If you’re a gigantic landlord, it’s not a problem for you at all, because you’ve got lawyers on retainer. You don’t have to worry. Most people might just give up at a certain point. But if you’re a tenant and you have to wait months and months and months, that’s pretty tough.

If you’re a small landlord—they’re really hurting. Small landlords who buy a property to make an investment—good people who don’t take advantage of their tenants. But if they get a tenant who takes advantage of them, they’re stuck. Why is that in any way okay? Why in any way is that acceptable?

Why does this government not put the resources in to the board that adjudicates disputes between tenants and landlords? Was it not important? Did you not want to do it? Was there a reason for doing that? Was it because you wanted it all backed up and for people to give up?

The only benefit that I can see that’s derived from what’s happening with landlord-tenant relations and that board is—it’s okay for big landlords. It’s really good for them. It doesn’t hurt them at all.

Small landlords? Mom-and-pop shops? People who bought a property for their retirement? People who are depending on that income? They can’t get justice. Tenants can’t get justice.

I wholeheartedly support this motion.

But even more importantly, would the government just get its act together and make sure that board works for tenants and small landlords—because right now, to say it’s not working would be kind.

Listening to the debate this afternoon, I am astounded by the arrogance and the hubris of some of these speeches, because it demonstrates such a stark and painful disconnect that this government has with the people of this province.

In Q1 of 2023, rents are now at $3,002 for a one-bedroom apartment in the city of Toronto. The only rent that hasn’t really gone past $2,000 are micro-units, which is 350 square feet. Most of our offices are bigger than micro-units at $2,000 month.

Just a few headlines: “A ‘Landlord Market’ Is Keeping Rents High in Waterloo Region, Says Realtor.” One person came forward, and her rent has gone from $1,750 to $2,750. An increase of $1,000 per month is this government’s legacy.

Another headline: “Landlord Doubles Rent for Syrian Refugees Using Exemption that Allows for Unlimited Increases.” This is an example—and I hope the minister is listening. The lack of rent control in the province of Ontario is hitting our most vulnerable people. This family are refugees from Syria. Imagine going through hell and then coming to Canada, and then to the province of Ontario, to be renovicted from your townhome. This landlord is increasing the rent from $2,000 a month to $4,000 a month. The family, whose income is only $4,000—so their entire income now must go to rent.

Another headline: “Tenants at Kitchener Complex Told to Move by End of April, But They’re Fighting to Stay.” The renoviction loophole is real, and this government has known it for five years. These are 14 tenants who are paying market value for their units. But of course, greed rules in the province of Ontario. They make a point—and this is a direct quote from the article: “If it’s up to tenants to enforce these punishments, then the landlords will keep getting away with it because tenants are already exhausted, especially if they’re going through renoviction. And to file” cases “with the Landlord and Tenant Board is an exhausting and stressful process.” Also, it’s a two-year wait to get justice at the Landlord and Tenant Board.

Finally, the Waterloo region is seeing a lack of rent control on vacant units, which creates a financial incentive for landlords to evict long-term tenants, many of whom pay below market rates. These are predominantly, in Waterloo region, senior women.

I do want to say: The government has talked about affordability, has ruled out real rent control in Ontario, and they keep raising the carbon tax. Well, the reason we have the carbon tax in the province of Ontario is because this Premier cancelled cap-and-trade. He repealed cap-and-trade in 2018. Because this province has no plan around pricing pollution, we ended up with a carbon tax, so on this side of the House we just think of it as the Ford carbon tax.

I want to start by thanking the leader of the official opposition for bringing this motion forward, because housing affordability has been an increasingly pressing issue in my own riding of Ottawa, like it is in the rest of the province, frankly. The government has been bringing forward various housing bills, but none with solutions to address unjustified and abusive rent increases. In my riding, more and more people are contacting my office, either because they are struggling to find affordable rental housing or because they are victims of abusive landlords.

Colin Nielson told me, “I am a single man and I work a decent job. I try my best to save and I live an extremely frugal lifestyle. I just received notice from my landlord, a multi-million dollar company, that my rent in June was increasing by a full 7%.

“I am seriously concerned about my ability to support myself going forward due to these increases. This time it was only 7%, next time what will it be?”

David-Michel Sarrazin told me, “Realstar corporation ... has started to charge an extra fee over and above the 2.5% allowable rent increase by the provincial government. Some are seeing an extra increase of up to 5% on their newly increased rents for 2023. Realstar is calling” it “an update and maintenance fee.

“Is this some new law giving landlords the legal rights to raise rent by 7.5%?”

Madeleine Brownrigg said, “I am a concerned citizen with a family member who cannot find affordable housing in this region. This crisis started with the abolishment of rent control for buildings that were built after 2018, among other things. It would be nice if this law was reversed so that people don’t need to go to the food bank to eat, or live where it does not suit their requirements, or are left having to work two jobs....”

These stories demonstrate just how unaffordable rental prices are becoming for people in Ottawa–Vanier, and I am sure many members on both sides of this House have heard similar stories from their own ridings. Ontarians are finding it increasingly difficult to find a rental unit that they can afford even when making a decent income.

Rent control is one measure that the government has as its disposal to help relieve some of the pressure on renters and give them some certainty for the coming years.

This government has focused a lot on the supply side of the equation, but because housing is a necessity, Ontarians are forced to make difficult choices when the rent market becomes too expensive. They may make other choices on budget items, like giving up on children’s recreational activities or food. We’ve seen this play out in recent years, with the demand for food banks skyrocketing and a greater proportion of families cutting down on their grocery bills in order to pay their rent.

The fact that housing is a necessity, coupled with the lack of rental housing supply, puts landlords in the driver’s seat. It allows them to raise rents without losing their renters, because tenants don’t have any other option. This, of course, is an unacceptable situation.

Renters need support, and rent control can be part of the solution, particularly in the short term.

I’m pleased to rise today to speak to this motion put forward by the leader of His Majesty’s loyal opposition calling for real rent control in the province of Ontario. This reflects a real need and concern that I hear about all the time in Ottawa West–Nepean.

The truth is, life just keeps getting more and more unaffordable in Ontario, and housing is a very big part of it. This government, instead of doing anything about that, keeps coming out with new sweetheart deals for developers.

What people in Ottawa West–Nepean and across Ontario need is real action and real solutions. They need action that brings down the cost of rent and protects them against unscrupulous landlords.

When you’re only hanging out in the backrooms, like this government is, it’s very easy to forget that we are talking about deeply stressful, challenging and heartbreaking situations.

Michele is an Ottawa resident who reached out to me after getting no response from her Conservative MPP. Michele lived with her son and granddaughter, but they were evicted because her son’s addiction issues led to him falling behind on rent. Now Michele and her granddaughter are homeless, and this is despite the fact that Michele gets OAS, CPP, and works a part-time job. Her granddaughter, who is in high school, has two part-time jobs. But they still can’t find a place that they can afford. They are on the wait-list for affordable housing in Ottawa, but that wait-list is over five years long. Michele wrote to me: “I have just rented a storage unit to store my life in and we are able to sleep in my friend’s basement for the next month but I am very concerned about what we will do after that.” It is devastating that after a lifetime of contributing to our community, a senior is in the position of putting her life in a storage unit and sleeping in a friend’s basement. But the truly maddening thing is that Michele is far from alone.

There are so many people in Ottawa and across Ontario who are being put in this position. Rents in Ottawa are 15% higher this April than they were last April, according to rentals.ca, and the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa is now $1,925. That’s more than double what someone on Ontario Works gets, it’s way above what someone on ODSP receives, and it is 80% of the monthly earnings of someone working full-time, earning minimum wage.

It doesn’t need to be this way. We can actually make life more affordable here in Ontario, implement real rent control and make sure new tenants pay what the last tenant paid so that your landlord isn’t trying to squeeze you out.

I urge the government to vote in favour of this motion and provide real relief and support to people like Michele.

I’m pleased to have the opportunity today to discuss real rent control and the motion that our party has brought forward today.

As you will know, Speaker, rent in Hamilton is completely unaffordable. For a measly one-bedroom apartment, we’re over $1,800; for a two-bedroom unit, we’re over $2,200, and the cost of living continues to rise. Minimum wage has not been able to keep up with that, nor could a person on minimum wage afford to be able to rent a very small unit.

Like many we’ve heard from already, I have constituents who have reached out to me with issues of not being able to get back into units where their landlord has told them that there are going to be renovations.

I have a couple who has been in a hotel room for almost a year, continuing to pay the bills in the previous unit—paying the hydro, paying all of the bills, the utilities, to keep it up—in the thoughts that they’re going back to that unit. And yet the renovations have not even started, and the landlord has told them that they don’t believe that it’s going to be able to happen and that they’re going to be able to return to their unit. This puts that couple in a position where they will have to take it to the Landlord and Tenant Board to be able to fight this decision of the landlord, but it’s very costly and time-consuming to be able to do that, and there’s certainly no help in our community to help tenants be able to fight at the Landlord and Tenant Board. This government has cut the funding to the community legal clinics, which does not allow those community legal clinics to be able to represent people in the Landlord and Tenant Board any longer, which is a huge barrier for so many folks.

We’ve heard the minister talk about the doubling of people at the Landlord and Tenant Board to be able to hear those hearings, but yet many of those are virtual, when there’s a major barrier for so many folks to be able to have access to the computers to be able to attend virtually, and then not having the representation to be able to help them is very overwhelming for so many folks. I’ve heard from those people who just feel that they do not have access to justice when it comes to the Landlord and Tenant Board.

So we need to be able to get these rents under control, give people the ability to live in a suitable environment, and currently, that environment just is out of reach for so many people across this province.

I hope that the government members will take heed to this, hear our plea today to be able to control the rents, and vote in favour of this motion.

It’s an honour for me to rise today in support of our opposition day motion to re-establish rent control within the province of Ontario. Hearing debate today, it’s clearer than ever how out of touch Conservatives have become.

The NDP is the party of housing. We built the most affordable and supportive housing of any government before. It’s clear that the Conservative-Liberal consortium can’t build themselves. They’re content to incentivize eviction, renoviction, demoviction, and they disrespect renters as well as seniors.

London was hit by the biggest average annual increase in Canada of rental costs: 33% in one year. Last year, it was a 27% increase.

Huntington Towers is a 10-storey building where tenants were asked to pay a rental increase to cover the cost of a new parking garage.

Tenants at One Richmond Row were hit with a 7% rent hike because they were not informed that they were inhabiting a building that this government had removed rent control from.

You see, Conservatives carved a loophole in tenants’ rights with no rental protections for buildings that were first occupied after November 2018. People were already having a tough time paying the bills, yet this government saw fit to remove rights from them. They drilled a hole in their already sinking ship.

Conservative cognitive dissonance is at an all-time high with this government. We’ve heard members across pat themselves on the back for the creation of all these new rental buildings, but they don’t realize that they have enabled a system of exploitation because they’ve removed protections from people who can least afford it.

Tenants call my office regularly about legal and illegal rental hikes. But when they’ve fought back against their landlord, then their unit will stop receiving basic maintenance. It’s time for this Ontario government to actually lead from the front, stand up and make sure that they’re taking a strong public role in the building, the funding, the delivery and the acquisition and protection of rental housing.

You can start today. You can start supporting renters by supporting our opposition day motion.