Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since 2008, that was the last time we saw any significant amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act. Five years later, so many more problems come forward, and we need, once again, to take a look at this serious issue.
I’ve stood on a few occasions to talk about my concerns about affordable rent protection and even enforcement from the rentals office and implement an order that they provide. As we all know, there are no rent controls in the Northwest Territories. To be clear, I’m not in favour of supporting the idea of rent controls per se, but I have spoken at length and continue to support reasonable rent accommodations, and I’d also say tenants need protection.
There’s a necessity to go back and look at this particular problem as well as several other issues under the Residential Tenancies Act. Living somewhere is not a luxury; it is a necessity. If the everyday working family is priced out of the market, something is wrong.
I think there’s an occasion here before us to open up and have some good discussion both with landlords and tenants to find out what’s working. I’ve spoken previously about setting up a framework where we set limits of what they can continue to raise, and if they need more money – the landlord that is – then they come back and have a dialogue. It could work something like the PUB right now.
Other issues I’ve raised, and I continue to see problems here, is some landlords have bad tenants and they cannot evict them, and the process seems to stall while these tenants don’t pay rent and cause further problems. Again, that’s only one side. That’s not the whole picture, but I think reviewing the Residential Tenancies Act is a chance to get both sides into the issue, create fairness and ensure that we are listening.
The last issue I want to raise about problems under the Residential Tenancies Act that need to be looked at is the fact that, look, we had problems with the rental office. They can issue an order but it has no teeth. We saw that last year, and we have a situation, is the big guy, or the landlord, may be fully funded to be able to go fight these with lawyers, but the little guy who’s trying to defend what they perceive as an injustice, it’s almost like mounting a hopeless cause some day. Then when you do get an order issued by the rentals and tenancies office, nothing happens because the big guy can ignore it.
In short, I think the Residential Tenancies Act needs to be reviewed, and I will be asking the Minister of Justice to look at this very matter in detail later today.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.
