NDP focus on rent control as Conservatives tackle addictions treatment

The leaders are rounding out their second weekend of the campaign trail, with policy announcements including rent control and addictions treatment.

The NDP promised to protect tenants through national rent control while the Conservatives focused their campaign trail message on addictions treatment Sunday.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in Halifax in the morning that his party would tie federal housing funding for provinces and municipalities to tenant protection policies like rent control.

The NDP says housing and rent prices in Canada have doubled since 2015 and the average asking rent hit $2,109 per month in January.

The party also wants to ban fixed-term leases, “renovictions” and other practices it says are aimed at pushing people out of their homes and driving up rents. The NDP says it would also prohibit the use of artificial intelligence to co-ordinate rent increases.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, campaigning in British Columbia, is expected to hold a press conference in New Westminster on Sunday and make an announcement related to addictions treatment.

In the caption for a video posted to social media Sunday morning, Poilievre said Conservatives would fund lifesaving treatment for 50,000 people facing addiction “to bring them home drug-free …”

In the video, Poilievre said a Conservative government would provide “results-based funding” to treatment centres based on the number of people they help to get sober. He said higher levels of funding would be provided for the “most difficult” cases, such as those facing long-term homelessness or multiple overdoses. He said funds would be paid out gradually and that third-party validators would confirm the results.

“To get new treatment programs off the ground, upfront dollars will go to recovery centres who can attest to prior successes of getting people off drugs,” Poilievre said.