Quebec refuses to abolish clause F, which facilitates rent increases
The Parliament Building of Quebec, housing the National Assembly.
A motion by Québec solidaire (QS) aimed at abolishing the “F clause”, which allows owners of new buildings to impose rent increases not subject to the grid of the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL) during the five years following construction, was defeated on Thursday. The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) and the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) voted against the motion in the National Assembly.
Before the rejection of the motion, QS invited the liberals and the caquistes to “give themselves the means to be able to control the rents of the abusive increases”. The Liberals have “made choices for 15 years that have not helped us in terms of social housing or affordable housing,” denounced solidarity MP Manon Massé.
“There is a real problem in terms of access to housing for our fellow citizens, our most deprived fellow citizens, our fellow citizens of the lower middle class, our fellow citizens of the middle class; it does not work anymore. I really invite the Liberals and then the people of the CAQ to take the train because, there, it is our fellow citizens who are currently suffering, ”she argued.
Following the vote, the supportive deputy who had proposed the motion, Andrés Fontecilla, denounced the position taken by the CAQs and the Liberals in a tweet.
Liberals demand more
Despite their vote against the motion, the Liberals want to see the government do more on housing.
“We can see hundreds of HLMs which are completely barricaded. Hundreds of houses barricaded because they have not been renovated. They are unsanitary, ”said the interim leader of the PLQ, Marc Tanguay. “There must be more construction of affordable housing units. And those who do not have access to affordable housing, well, have to fall back on the market, and the market, as we can see, is exploding,” he continued.
< p>For her part, the official opposition spokesperson for municipal affairs and housing, Virginie Dufour, specified that the distinction between “affordable” and “social” housing is important.
“The CAQ government has focused primarily on affordable housing. Social housing is a maximum of 25% of income. So, if the person has a modest income, it is limited to 25% of his income. Affordable housing is only 20% below market. As we have seen, the market is very, very high at the moment. In Gatineau, we saw affordable housing at $1,800. There are a lot of families who cannot afford this type of housing,” she says.
Ms. Dufour maintains that the CAQ government has only delivered 550 units of social housing per year over the past four years, while the PLQ would have, during “its last years in power”, delivered between 1,500 and 3,000 units per year. She is calling for major investments in housing from the CAQ government.
“There are currently 1,000 HLM units that are barricaded. So, if they were renovated quickly […], 5,000 people could move into those units. So there are currently 37,000 people out of 37,000 households who are on the social housing waiting list. Well, if we can get out of it, already, with existing housing, but unsanitary, we have to act quickly, ”she concludes.
