After a year under P.E.I.'s Residential Tenancy Act, both tenants and landlords want changes

It's been just over a year since P.E.I.'s Residential Tenancy Act came into force, and now both landlords and tenants are calling for changes to the legislation.

The province's housing minister has hinted that some amendments are likely to come in the fall, but it's not clear what those could involve.  

The long-awaited act was proclaimed in April 2023, but had been in the works since 2019. It replaced the 30-year-old Rental of Residential Properties Act. 

Among other things, the legislation capped yearly rent increases, extended the required notice period for so-called "renovictions" and imposed penalties of up to $10,000 on parties who break the rules.

One year later, though, the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission hasn't issued a single fine under the act, despite findings that some landlords had illegally increased rents. 

Cory Pater, a volunteer with the P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing, said the new Residential Tenancy Act maintains a power imbalance in favour of landlords. 

"We need to see more enforcement and larger penalties for violating the act," he said. "This is violating people's human rights to a safe place to live, something that you can't survive without. We need to see that taken seriously, and serious penalties need to be imposed on landlords that don't enforce that." 

It's up to the director of residential property at IRAC to decide whether to issue a fine after the commission determines there's been a breach of the Residential Tenancy Act.

During the spring sitting of the P.E.I. Legislature, the Green Party brought an example forward where a landlord had issued a rent increase that was determined to be illegal. After the tenants appealed it, they were evicted.

The landlord was required to pay back the additional rent that it had collected, and at the time Housing Minister Rob Lantz said that was penalty enough under the circumstances.

'The current situation is untenable'

While housing advocates want better enforcement enshrined in the act, an association that represents some landlords on the Island also wants to see the law changed. 

Earlier this spring, the Residential Rental Association of P.E.I. posted a proposed amendment to the act on its website.

The landlords say they want the freedom to increase rents to any level after tenants have left a unit, before the new ones move in. They say P.E.I. is the only province in Canada that doesn't allow that, since the maximum rent increases in this province are tied to the property, not to the tenant.

CBC News asked for an interview with the association, but it chose to provide a statement instead. 

"Rent control within the current legislation is overly restricted and provided equally to all Islanders, instead of just those in need. This causes the government to invest millions of taxpayer dollars in new housing instead of relying on a robust private sector to develop more private housing to ease the demand," the statement reads. 

"As a large segment of the rental housing industry, RRAP feels it is necessary to review the act and bring forth amendments that increase the long-term financial feasibility of operating rental housing on P.E.I.

"The current situation is untenable for many housing providers and the [association] would appreciate further discussions in an effort to ensure a balanced piece of legislation that will apply fairly to both landlords and tenants." 

'The new act is strong'

During the spring sitting of the legislature, Lantz said the government would very likely bring forward amendments in the fall to correct some things in the Residential Tenancy Act, but he didn't say what those changes might be.

"I think that the new act is strong," the housing minister said in legislature on April 9. "It is like any piece of legislation, a living document that we can adjust, and in fact there are some things that we are recognizing that we will very likely bring forward amendments to correct in the fall, perhaps."

After requesting an interview with Lantz earlier this month, CBC News was told to reach out to IRAC to talk about the act.

The director of residential tenancy wasn't available to comment on Friday.