Parliament should expropriate apartment buildings owned by landlords who “violate human rights,” says a Canadian Human Rights Commission report..According to Blacklock's Reporter, federal law should also ban private lending to landlords who “contravene human rights including the right to adequate housing,” it said..Parliament “should expropriate housing owned by financial firms when their business strategies are known to violate human rights, including the right to adequate housing whether via plans to raise rents, renovict or reduce the quality of housing,” said the report The Financialization Of Multi-Family Rental Housing In Canada. The report said large corporate landlords, including real estate investment trusts, owned about 344,000 rental units across Canada, “20% of the nation’s purpose-built rental housing stock.”.“Because the profits for shareholders and executives are achieved by extracting more from tenants through higher rents and often reliant on displacement, the financialization of rental housing works against the realization of the right to adequate housing,” said the report..The Rights Commission report recommended Parliament “expropriate housing owned by financial firms that violate human rights,” “regulate lending institutions to suspend lending to entities that contravene human rights including the right to adequate housing,” “prevent the sale of housing to financial firms,” “stop subsidizing financial landlords with CMHC preferred lending” and “require public pension funds to promote the social good.”.The report said abusive corporate practices extended beyond large rent increases..“The actions of firms can make life miserable and stressful,” said Financialization. .“In one Toronto building, the company wrapped the entire apartment in a green tarp for months cutting off tenants’ access to sunlight and views,” it added. “Removing tenants’ balconies also affects their happiness, particularly in the summer.”.“Tenants often speculate firms use construction as a tool of harassment to push out longstanding tenants,” said the report. “At an apartment conference one financial landlord admitted as much, noting ‘one strategy is to create World War III in the lobby’ to push out longstanding tenants who pay low rents.”.The report was written for the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, an agency created with Parliament’s 2019 passage of an omnibus budget bill C-97. The Housing Advocate and a 17-member National Housing Council were mandated to “set out a long term vision for housing in Canada that recognizes the importance of housing in achieving social, economic, health and environmental goals.”.Bill C-97 included a National Housing Strategy Act that enshrined “a right to adequate housing” in federal law. The Parliamentary Budget Office in a 2019 report Federal Program Spending On Housing Affordability said the measure appeared unenforceable..“The act does not have any fiscal impact beyond the administrative costs associated with maintaining a National Housing Strategy,” wrote the Budget Office..“It does not create any enforceable individual rights that would give rise to statutory spending nor does it bind future parliaments to commit voted spending to housing programs.”
