B.C., Ontario have compliance units to ensure residential tenancy laws are followed. Where are Nova Scotia’s?

It’s a problem we see or hear about every day. Tents in the park, people living in cars, being evicted or worried they won’t make rent. This week we’re looking at the scope of the problem, how we got here, who can fix it and how. 

Conspicuously absent among the dearth of government bills passed in the fall session of the Nova Scotia legislature was the establishment of a residential tenancy enforcement or compliance unit.

“The objective of the Residential Tenancies Program is to ensure that we are meeting the needs of both the tenants and landlords,” Service Nova Scotia Minister Colton LeBlanc said in early November as the House sitting was drawing to a close.

“We’ve heard from both sides that they believe that we need a compliance enforcement division,” LeBlanc said. We are continuing to look at the potential solutions. It is complex, it is complicated and, as government, we want to make sure that we are getting it right. … Before you start enforcing rules, it’s important to ensure that Nova Scotians understand the rules. We’ve done an education and awareness campaign before and we’re going to resume that now.”

A consultant’s report commissioned more than a year ago by the majority Progressive Conservative government recommended the implementation of an enforcement unit that was expected to be in place by March 2024 but LeBlanc could not provide a timeline for when legislation to support the unit will be introduced.

The province can look westward to British Columbia and Ontario for tenancy enforcement templates.

“There had been legislative powers in our tenancy laws to conduct investigations but the branch never really had capacity to do it,” Scott McGregor, director of the Compliance and Enforcement Unit of the Residential Tenancy Branch of the B.C. housing ministry, said in a recent interview.

McGregor, a former Victoria police superintendent hired to create and oversee the enforcement unit established by legislation in May 2019, said the tenancy branch’s energy had previously been directed toward the tribunal, where landlords and tenants came together when they had a dispute they couldn’t resolve.

The role of the B.C. tribunal is similar to that of the director of the Residential Tenancies Program in Nova Scotia, to whom tenants and landlords can apply for mediation or a hearing to resolve disputes.

“They go before an arbitrator and they lead evidence and an arbitrator makes a final and binding decision and those decisions can sometimes result in orders, for example, orders for a landlord to replace a roof,” McGregor said.

“There were no real mechanisms in place to actually enforce those orders and there is a small percentage of people who don’t necessarily follow the tenancy laws.”

The British Columbia government recognized the necessity for a compliance unit and McGregor said the unit recently received a significant budget lift that allowed him to double its size from five to 10 compliance officers and investigators with a team payroll that tops $1 million.

McGregor has delegated statutory authority under the Residential Tenancy Act and the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act to levy fines.

McGregor said the enforcement unit, “completely separate and distinct” from the branch’s dispute resolution process, has a role of conducting investigations into people who contravene the housing laws and “to try to change their behaviour under the potential of facing significant monetary penalties.”

The enforcement unit has the capacity to levy fines of up to $5,000 for each day someone breaks the law .

McGregor said the investigation becomes a matter between the person investigated and the government and the penalty levied becomes a debt owed to government.

“No one ever gets financially compensated as a result of being involved with a compliance investigation.”

An upaid debt can be turned over to the finance department, which can deploy “extraordinary” debt collection powers.

McGregor said the enforcement team deals with complaints from landlords, tenants, third parties, advocacy groups or internally from a branch call centre.

“The role of the compliance unit is not to try to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants, that’s what the tribunal does,” McGregor said. “Our goal is to bring those people that are regularly, repeatedly or seriously and deliberately contravening the Act into compliance.

“If we become aware of something happening in real time and it’s a really serious matter affecting someone’s health or safety, then we can intervene and we proactively contact the parties right away and we explain the law, we issue warnings to the parties to come into immediate compliance.”

Immediate compliance means the enforcement unit’s file is closed and there is no need for the matter to go to the tribunal hearing.

In Ontario, The Rental Enforcement Unit (RHEU) is authorized under the Residential Tenancies Act and operates under Ontario’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The unit enforces rules under the Act that include evictions, vital services, meters, landlord’s entry into a unit, rent, harassment and disobeying a Landlord Tenant Board order, Sherine Williams, a Municipal Affairs spokesperson, said in an emailed response.

The enforcement unit has a contact centre that handles between 14,000 and 18,000 calls per year from landlords, tenants and various other parties and takes complaints regarding potential or alleged offences.

When calls are received, the unit works to encourage voluntary compliance on reported complaints, educates people on their rights and obligations under the Act, outlines potential further enforcement that can occur if there is non-compliance, and investigates issues where compliance is not achieved, Williams said.

“The unit also lays charges where warranted,” Williams said, but it is typically able to resolve 80 to 85 per cent of cases at the compliance stage.

In cases not resolved at the compliance stage, pursuant investigations can lead to charges being laid or fines imposed at the Ontario Court of Justice. Examples of charges laid for offences under the Act include altered locks and unlawfully recovering possession of a rental unit, withholding vital services such as gas, electricity or water, and furnishing false or misleading information in materials filed with the Landlord and Tenant Board.

An Internal Services spokesman said the Nova Scotia Residential Tenancies Program got 4,988 applications for hearings or rental arrears matters that did not require a hearing in 2022. And since January 2023, the total number of those two types of applications is 4,837.

LeBlanc said the department is always looking at ways to modernize and strengthen the tenancy program.

“Part of the discussions that are underway right now (is) how would a new (enforcement) division complement the existing program,” LeBlanc said. “We do have an existing program, it works, it’s designed to be easy, you don’t need a lawyer, you don’t need to be a legal expert. But it’s also understanding there are different scenarios that could perhaps be streamlined and make it easier for tenants and landlords.”

McGregor, who has had conversations with Nova Scotia officials about the enforcement unit, said B.C. has about 675,000 tenancies, based on the last census.

“Our tribunal hears about 20,000 disputes a year. If you think about that, if you do the math, it’s a little less than three per cent of all tenancies in the province. I like to think that, by and large, tenants and landlords are able to work out those issues themselves. When they can’t, that’s what we’re here for. They can come to us for support and we have a whole bunch of initiatives underway right now in the residential tenancy branch to try and figure out ways to resolve those disputes before they have to go to a hearing through facilitation, talking to the parties and helping to mediate those issues and helping parties understand the law.”