Thanks, Madam Chair. This report had one motion, but it had a number of recommended actions. I just wanted to mention a couple of the recommended actions and some of the discussion that happened at committee in the development of this report on this bill.
First of all, there was quite a bit of interest, and I want to compliment the Department of Justice for the consultation process that they went through. They did get quite a bit of interest from stakeholders, quite a number of submissions, and they considered all of the issues that were brought forward by the stakeholders who made submissions. They didn’t accept them all, but they did certainly consider them. From what we got at committee, the department provided pretty good rationale as to why they didn’t incorporate some of the suggestions from the stakeholders.
For me, the biggest issue and one that provided difficulty for me as a committee member, and I think
we were stuck, I guess, as a committee on the issue of transition housing. It’s not covered under the Residential Tenancies Act currently and the department chose to continue that exclusion of transitional housing in the act. There is no amendment to deal with transition housing in this bill that’s going to come before us. There are two recommendations from committee. One is that the department provide a definition of transition housing in the next round of statutory amendments to this bill and, secondly, that the Department of Justice provide better protection for transition housing tenants against unreasonable restrictions on personal freedom and arbitrary evidence. Actually, there’s one more, that there be a definition of transition housing in the regulations attached to this bill.
There was quite a bit of strong feeling on the part of at least some of committee that transition housing tenants do not have the same protection under the Residential Tenancies Act that any other tenant does, and many of the transition housing suppliers and providers don’t want their housing to be covered under the Residential Tenancies Act. I would say the submissions were pretty much divided 50/50, so I can understand why the department chose to keep the status quo. But I think there needs to be very strong consideration of the human rights aspect of tenants in transition housing, and I think, to make it clear and to make it easy for the rental officer to deal with situations of tenants and landlords, there needs to be a definition of transitional housing. The act specifically excludes it, but it doesn’t define it. I think that that’s something that is missing, and I sincerely hope that the department will make that adjustment the next time this act comes forward for amendment. That’s all I have.