Global Courant 2023-05-11 13:02:21
For years, Quebec has had what many experts consider to be some of the strictest laws in Canada to regulate Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms.
Airbnb hosts had to register with the provincial government or face fines.
But it was also clear that the law wasn’t really working, as the vast majority of Montreal’s listings on the platform were unlicensed.
The issue came into sharp focus after a fire in March at an old landmark building in Montreal killed seven people, several of whom were staying in illegal Airbnbs.
On Tuesday, the provincial government introduced updated legislation to ensure that only eligible, registered hosts can post an ad.
“This new law represents a pretty significant step forward, because it really tightens the restrictions,” says McGill University’s Prof. David Wachsmuth, Canada Research Chair in Urban Governance.
“That’s a really good template that I think other provinces, and certainly Ontario and British Columbia, the other major provinces, should try to emulate.”
Such a system, Wachsmuth said, would allow municipalities to set their own rules and use the county database to make sure those rules are enforced.
Seven people died in a fire that broke out in March at a landmark building in Old Montreal. Many of them stayed in illegal Airbnbs. (Steve Romre/Radio Canada)
Patchwork system
Effectively regulating short-term rentals could help ease the strained housing market in many parts of Canada, said Wachsmuth, who impact of Airbnb on the market.
Are Research from 2019 found that the company likely led to the removal of 31,000 units from Canada’s long-term rental market.
“Short-term renting is one of the factors currently contributing to high house prices, both for owner-occupied homes and rents,” he said.
“That’s simply because they’ve been responsible for converting thousands of homes into what are effectively hotels.”
Currently, there is a patchwork of regulations across the country trying to get a handle on short-term rentals.
For example, Vancouver and Toronto have already established rules, while Halifax is implementing changes from September 1. Other smaller municipalities, such as Mont-Cascades, Que., have recently taken steps to ban short-term rentals entirely.
British Columbia is also developing its own province-wide short-term rental policy.
Onus on Airbnb
Quebec had already required that all short-term units be registered and that number be displayed on the list, but the rules were not sufficiently enforced. In some cases, hosts have been found to use fake registration numbers.
Under Quebec’s new proposed law, entitled “An Act to Combat Illegal Tourist Lodging,” rental companies such as Airbnb would be required to maintain the registration certificate of each advertised lodging.
They should also validate the registration numbers of those locations and designate a Quebec-based representative to make it easier to actually reach someone from the rental company.
The bill also provides for the establishment of a public register of tourist accommodations, to be kept by the Minister of Tourism or by a body recognized by the Minister.
Fines against non-compliant individuals can range from $5,000 to $50,000, while businesses can face fines from $10,000 to $100,000 per message.
“With the new standards, with the cities and boroughs, I think there will be a lot of compliance,” Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx said when announcing the legislation.
LOOK | How the law would target rental companies:
Quebec is cracking down on Airbnb
The Quebec government has introduced a bill to crack down on short-term rentals after a deadly fire in Old Montreal killed seven people in March. Most of the dead stayed in illegal Airbnbs. The bill targets digital platforms like Airbnb with fines of up to $100,000 if they fail to comply with local laws.
For its part, Airbnb issued a statement saying it was still analyzing the legislation.
“We will have more to say with further evaluation,” said Nathan Rotman, the regional policy leader for Canada.
The company had promised to remove any listing in Montreal without a valid permit after the Old Montreal fire.
But before the new legislation was introduced, critics had expressed concern that the necessary rules were still not in place to hold companies accountable.
“We shouldn’t rely on Airbnb deciding there’s the occasional PR crisis to enforce their end of the bargain,” Wachsmuth said.
“There is no substitute for a universal registration system that complies with the platform… They should proactively remove ads that don’t have current numbers, and the new law being proposed here today will make it much more likely that Airbnb and other platforms will faithfully their share.”
‘They should have some kind of responsibility’
In Montreal, where many boroughs already have rules banning or restricting short-term rentals, the changes could put thousands of apartments back on the market.
For example, nearly 30,000 listings were posted on Airbnb in February, and nearly 80 percent of advertised places were not licensed for short-term rentals, according to a survey conducted by a local renter group, RCLALQ.
Steeve Fabre has two legal Airbnb units in Montreal. He got a license plate after being fined for driving them without.
He says the changes are positive because they place the responsibility on Airbnb and other companies and make it easier for homeowners to comply.
“Given that Airbnb clearly makes a lot more money than the users, the fact is that they should have some sort of responsibility,” he said.
Thorben Wieditz is the director of Fairbnb, a national coalition of organizations advocating stricter rules for short-term rentals. (Yanjun Li/CBC News)
Thorben Wieditz, Fairbnb’s director, hopes the legislation will set a new national standard, with other provinces setting up their own registries.
His organization was founded in 2016 by a Toronto hotel workers’ union concerned about the proliferation of apartment towers filled with Airbnb rentals.
Fairbnb has since urged cities across Canada to develop stricter regulations that allow homeowners to occasionally rent out their own apartment, but crack down on properties used exclusively for short-term rentals.
“There are a lot of municipalities that don’t have the resources that a city like Vancouver or Toronto has, and they need help,” he said.
