Our discussion about rent control (or rather, lack thereof) under Alberta's Residential Tenancies Act during the last CHAI meeting got me wondering about how we can lobby to change the legislation. I came up with the beginnings of an idea that I'd like to get some feedback on.

I think we could do a lot with the Residential Tenancies Act. This is such a big issue with regards to housing, because the effects are so widespread across the demographics. I've looked at (and printed off) tenancy legislation from other provinces, and
Alberta is WAY behind (ie., Ontario has had a form of rent control on the books since 1944). I think it would be a good idea to start a CHAI working group, have each member review tenancy legislation from one province, create a summary, and write down a few changes we think should be made to the legislation.

Then, we could create profiles of people who have been affected
by excessive rent increases. We could take a picture, and have each person contribute a brief profile about what happened in their
situation (take about 20 min of their time), then compile a report we can present to officials, the media, etc. We can include the faces of children, families, students, seniors, etc., who have been affected. It will be an absolutely enormous binder of profiles, but we can circulate copies to places it will get attention. We could collect a greater number of profiles by putting an ad in FFWD.

Then we can present our proposed solutions, along with our binder of profiles; I'm sure there are other people in the group who can think of some names.

Could this idea go anywhere? Let me know if there's any part of
it that sounds workable.

I think that this comparison would, at the very least, provide a useful set of information with which to critique current Alberta legislation. I would be happy to help you start to work through the various acts across the country to see what we come up with as a first step - how would you like to organize this?

I suppose the best way to approach this would be to have everyone interested in this action choose a province, and post their selection in a reply to this message. This will eliminate overlap. If someone wishes to review legislation from more than one province, they are very welcome to do so. Then, we can raise the idea at the next CHAI meeting and see what suggestions we can come up with to develop it.

Since I'm most familiar with the Ontario Tenant Protection Act (1997), I can get started on that, but will also have a look at Alberta's Residential Tenancies Act for comparison. Adrian, maybe you could review Alberta's legislation in greater detail?

I would be happy to take a look at the Act as it stands in Alberta. I'm also familiar with BC, having lived there for the better part of five years - I'd be happy to take a look at that as well. I'd also be curious to find out what, if any, provisions exist within the legislation as far as dispute resolution is concerned. The inability of Alberta tenants to hold landlords accountable without incurring large costs through the court system remains a large problem. That said, the pilot project in Edmonton may be the beginning of a solution. In any case, I'll take a look at BC and Alberta for the time being.

I was wondering where the status of this action sits at this point. I have worked through BC and Alberta. Have you had a chance to get through Ontario? I think that looking through the different Acts is most useful in comparative sense at this point.