Montreal wants rent control, mandatory registry. What would that look like?
The city of Montreal passed a motion asking the Quebec government to create a mandatory rent registry and to cap rent increases to inflation over a three-year average. Housing advocates are praising the move, but not everyone is on board.
City says goal is to make rent increases more predictable, rental market more transparent
Annabelle Olivier · CBC News
·
Listen to this article
Estimated 6 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Nicolas Marion has been living in Montreal for the past 11 years, but now he's worried about being pushed out of his neighbourhood.
"I'm starting to reach the limit of what I can afford to pay," he told elected officials during a city council meeting on Monday.
Not only does Marion fear being pushed out, he's afraid of becoming homeless. He says renovations in his building aren't always necessary and are being used to generate profits.
Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada responded by saying his situation resonated with all those present, and that unfortunately it's a reality for many Montrealers who are struggling to keep up with rising rents.
"The work we are doing regarding homelessness isn't just about supporting those already living on the streets; it's also about turning off the tap to prevent others from ending up there," she said.
Marion shared his concerns shortly before council voted in favour of an amended motion on rent control and a mandatory rent registry.
WATCH | City hopes new rent measures can help ease housing crisis:
Montreal adopts motion calling on Quebec to cap rent hikes, create mandatory rent registry
October 24|
Duration
2:32
Housing advocates are praising the move, but some landlord associations say a rental registry could impede maintenance on existing units and discourage the building of new projects.More specifically, the city is asking the Quebec government to cap rent increases to inflation over a three-year average to better control rent, with exceptions for major renovations and significant investment.
It's also asking the province to put in place a universal and accessible rent registry that would allow tenants to know the rent history of a property.
Projet Montréal's Elvira Carhuallanqui tabled the motion, saying the goal is "to make rent increases more predictable, and the rental market more transparent."
According to city officials, two thirds of Montreal households are renters.
Registry about restoring balance of information
Under Quebec law, landlords are supposed to disclose the lowest rent paid over a 12-month period, as stipulated by section G on the Quebec residential lease form.
Benoit Rullier, with the Coalition of Housing Committees and Tenants Associations of Quebec (RCLALQ), argues that section G is not effective when it comes to protecting tenants.
Vivre en Ville is a Quebec City non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable communities. A recent study they carried out in collaboration with polling firm Leger indicates that 79 per cent of tenants in the province are either unaware whether their landlord had filled out section G of their lease, or knew that their landlord had not filled it out.
Without knowing what the previous rent was, it's difficult for tenants to prove a rent increase is unjustified or abusive.
Rullier says a mandatory rent registry will allow for better enforcement of regulations.
David Wachsmuth, a professor of urban planning at McGill University, says that even with a rent registry, it would still be up to the tenant to make sure that the rent stays within the allowed limits.
"The key idea about a rental registry is to solve the problem of what economists would call 'information asymmetry,'" he said. The concept suggests that when one party has a lot more information than the other, it gives them negotiating advantages in a transaction.
"There's kind of one law that says, ‘Hey, here's the allowed rent increases,' but it doesn't amount to anything if both parties aren't in an equal position to verify that everybody's following the rules," he said.
What a rent registry could look like
Although it can be tricky to implement a new system with government oversight, Wachsmuth says there are a few options available.
He said the government could build on the framework of the registry implemented by Vivre en Ville, where current and past tenants can anonymously submit information about their rental units.
The data collected includes information such as street addresses, monthly rent price, rent adjustments and utility costs.
Quebec housing tribunal recommends a 3.1% basic rent increase
Montreal landlords under fire for rent increases as high as 20% in Park Ex
Another option, which would cost more and require more time and resources, would be for the province to require that leases be submitted into a government portal. Wachsmuth said the information could be verified, and then whatever is determined to be in the public interest could be posted.
Yet another possibility would be to piggyback off existing tax systems.
"Revenu Québec already has an enormous amount of apparatus to gather and verify everybody's income information, and so adding one additional hook into that system would make the rental market much more transparent," Wachsmuth said.
Rent registries have long been discussed in Quebec, but never implemented.
WATCH | The costs of homelessness:
Quebec sees sharp rise in cost of homelessness services
September 15|
Duration
1:53
The average cost of providing services to people experiencing homelessness has risen to more than $95,000 a year per person – up from just over $72,000 in 2023, according to a report commissioned by the Union of Quebec Municipalities. Experts say these rising costs highlight the need for bolder investments in social housing.Housing advocates and the City of Montreal hope that showing a united front will help nudge the new Parti Québécois government — which has said housing and homelessness are top priorities — to act.
Wachsmuth says, however, that as a minority government, the actions it might take will have a lot to do with the alliances it forms with other parties regarding housing policies.
Rent control's merits debated by landlords
But not everyone supports the idea of a registry or rent control.
Éric Sansoucy, a spokesperson for Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec, a non-profit organization that represents and supports residential rental property owners and managers throughout Quebec, says the province already has enough safeguards in place.
Sansoucy pointed to a 2025 study by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) on rent-control laws which limit annual rent increases.
The study shows they can help current tenants with lower rents, but that there can be trade-offs, such as higher rents for vacant units. They can also lead to lower investments and repairs, the slowing down of new construction and reduced tenant mobility.
Sansoucy says a registry would stifle maintenance without lowering market pressures, and favours a different approach to solving the housing crisis.
"The real solution is to help the people and provide direct financial assistance and housing allowances to low-income households," he said.
In the interim, the City of Montreal has agreed to continue funding for Vivre en Ville's registry, and to put some effort into making sure more tenants know the resource exists.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Annabelle Olivier is a digital journalist at CBC Montreal. She previously worked at Global News as an online producer. You can reach her at anne.isabelle.olivier@cbc.ca.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.