Rental registry may not be required under new law: housing minister
CBC
P.E.I. Housing Minister Brad Trivers told reporters Tuesday a rental registry may not be required to enforce limits on rent increases in the province.
That appears to walk back a commitment he made a year ago, when he told the house government had committed the necessary funding to make the registry a reality.
The shift in position came as Trivers confirmed an update to P.E.I.'s 30-year-old rental laws likely won't be tabled in the legislature until the fall.
The idea of using a rental registry to track changes in rental prices over time was originally put forward by the Opposition in a non-binding motion that passed in the house in November 2019.
In March 2021, Trivers told the house "we have funds earmarked and we're going to go out and we're going to find out exactly how we can do a rental registry properly, so that we can make it a reality."
On Tuesday, Trivers said the province is still awaiting a consultant's report on the subject, raising doubts about whether government considers the registry necessary.
"Really, the question isn't 'Do we need a rental registry?' It's 'How are we going to make sure our legislation and regulations are properly enforced and adhered to?'" he told reporters.
Increases in rents on P.E.I. are governed by the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission, which sets an annual maximum increase. For 2021, the maximum increase was set at one per cent.
Landlords who wish to increase rents beyond that amount are supposed to apply to the commission, and the limits remain in place even if one tenant moves out of a unit and a new tenant moves in.
But the law is only enforced on a complaint basis — meaning a new tenant has to know how much the previous tenant in a unit was paying, then come forward to IRAC with a complaint if they believe the landlord raised the rent more than allowed.
The idea of a rental registry is meant to provide a repository for that information, and a grassroots registry set up by a federal Green Party candidate in the province led IRAC to order landlords return thousands of dollars to tenants who discovered they were paying too much.
Housing costs are one of the factors pushing up P.E.I.'s inflation rate, which for months has been the highest in the country.
In 2021 the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation concluded average rents on P.E.I. — including rents from newly constructed units, which wouldn't initially fall under the province's rate controls — increased by eight per cent, the highest increase in a decade.
Vacancy rates have also remained stubbornly low, with the rate for 2021 determined by CMHC to be 1.5 per cent.
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