Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that my motion is pretty self-explanatory. Over the last while we have seen an increase in rents in our market here in Yellowknife, and in some cases as much as 46 percent people's rent has increased in one month. We do not currently, as I stated, have any parameters or measures in place in the Residential Tenancies Act to protect renters against high increases to their rent. Only we limit the amount of times or when the landlords can actually bring those increases forward.
As part of this motion, I did look at a jurisdictional scan, Mr. Speaker, of different territories, different provinces, and what they're doing. Currently there are six jurisdictions that have maximum allowable rent increases, which is British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, PEI, Nova Scotia, and the Yukon. There are two that have jurisdictions with recommended maximum of allowable rent increases, but this is not in force, and that's in Quebec and New Brunswick. And then there are five left that don't have any limitations to the amount of the rent increase, which includes the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Speaker, why I think that this is so important to do is that given the very, very low vacancy rate right now in our territory for the rental market, private rental units, it leaves our residents vulnerable. As we can see, it's very apparent to large landlords that they can just come in and increase the rent in the apartment without doing any upgrades and sometimes not even providing any heat to the people living in the apartments. I think it sets a dangerous precedent if we don't do anything now to stop this because there's nothing that's going to stop large REITs, like Northview, from deciding that they don't want to rent to low income families and instead would rather rent to the professionals and the students that may be moving north in the next while. We need these people as well but, in this case, it's going to be on the backs of our vulnerable people. So therefore, Mr. Speaker, I think it's very important that we set this precedent now, and I welcome the debate from my colleagues. Thank you.