By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
In a surprise announcement on May 22, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government tabled a bill declaring a three-year moratorium on several common types of evictions and expanding eligibility for protections offered to some older renters.
“The bill we have tabled today places a moratorium on evictions for the enlargement, subdivision or change of vocation of a property,” Housing Minister France-Élaine Duranceau told reporters at the National Assembly. If the bill passes before the end of the current legislative session, the moratorium will be in effect retroactive to May 22. It may be selectively repealed in certain regions if the rental housing vacancy rate rises above 3 per cent.
Property owners will still be able to evict tenants who violate the terms of their lease; evictions to house close family members will also remain legal.
Additionally, measures that ban evictions for low-income seniors 70 and older who have lived in the same unit for at least 10 years will be extended to seniors aged 65 to 69, and the income threshold raised by 25 per cent. Unlike the moratorium, the expanded protections for seniors will be permanent. Additionally, renters already have the right to contest what they believe to be an abusive rent hike without breaking a lease, but the new bill would make that option clearer.
“This [moratorium] is a strong measure which is justified by the magnitude of the current housing shortage,” said Duranceau, noting that more than 560,000 new temporary residents, have moved to Quebec in the last two years. “Considering the context and the strong demand for housing, some owners may be tempted to evict tenants in order to obtain better profitability. Unfortunately, in the absence of a sufficient supply of housing, the consequences of eviction … can lead to precarious situations for citizens [which] will impact several facets of our society, including the demand for health care, homelessness resources and food banks. We’re proposing a time-out to give the market time to respond to the demand.”
She argued that subdivisions, enlargements and changes of use – the three reasons for eviction targeted in the law – “change the portrait of the rental market without doing anything constructive to expand availability.” Duranceau called the bill “complementary” to Bill 31, the controversial housing reform bill passed earlier this year.
She said the only long-term solution to the housing crisis was to “increase supply, and construction … takes two to three years.”
Duranceau thanked Québec Solidaire (QS) housing critic Andrés Fontecilla, who has called for a similar moratorium since 2019, for his collaboration on the bill. “These aren’t gains for the CAQ or for Québec Solidaire – they are gains for renters,” Fontecilla said at a separate announcement alongside QS seniors’ affairs critic Christine Labrie. Labrie said QS was “pleasantly surprised” by the bill but would have liked to see protections for older renters further expanded.
The Regroupement des Comités logement et Associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ), a provincewide federation of renters’ rights groups, called the moratorium a “pleasant surprise.” However, RCLALQ spokesperson Cédric Dussault said it should include guardrails to prevent legal bad-faith evictions. “For example, there’s no control over the repossession process [where a property owner evicts a tenant to house themselves or a close family member. There should be follow-up to make sure the [family member] is actually living in the unit.”
He also said depending on private developers to increase the housing supply for poorer renters was “magical thinking” and that greater investment in social housing had to be part of any housing plan. “We need to place better [controls] on evictions, rent controls, address the [units] we lose to tourist housing, augment our construction of social housing and support marginalized and older renters – if we don’t address all of that, homelessness will go up,” said Dussault.
Véronique Gagnon of the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) noted that the measure came too late for the thousands of renters who received eviction notices late last year or early this year, and are scrambling to move before July 1. “There are a lot of people who are living with roommates, living in places that are too small or have nowhere to go. We’re expecting a tough July 1.”
The Quebec Landlords Corporation, better known by its French acronym CORPIQ, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new bill. The landlords’ association “understands the laudable intentions behind this measure, but emphasizes that it will not help resolve the widespread housing shortage which continues to grow,” its president, Éric Sansoucy, said in a statement.