Opposition parties, housing groups, fight for tenant rights
Québec Solidaire spokesperson, Gabriel Nadeau Dubois, made an appeal to the CAQ government on Feb. 13 to push for improvements in Bill 31.
“I’ve said it every day since the beginning of the session, the housing crisis isn’t about statistics, it’s about human lives being shattered,” Nadeau Dubois said, sharing the story of a family with four children in Shawinigan facing eviction.
Meanwhile in Montreal, housing advocates like Christine Plawutsky from LogisActionNDG are empowering tenants with knowledge about their rights, specifically concerning rent increases. Despite the complexity of official guidelines, Plawutsky emphasized that there are resources like public records and online tools to help tenants determine if their rent hike is fair.
“Tenants always have the right to refuse their rent increase, but sometimes it’s not in their best interest,” she said. “If when they go to court, the judge is going to increase their rent even higher than a landlord might be asking for, that’s kind of the trade off,” Plawutsky explained.
