With a territorial politician questioning its effectiveness and major new legislation on the horizon, the NWT’s rental office is asserting its independence.
Having made public safety a stated priority, the NWT government is poised to introduce legislation known as Scan that will create a territorial unit tasked with helping landlords evict tenants who are suspected of crime.
That legislation relies on the rental office, a form of court that already governs most landlord-tenant disputes. Scan will make the rental office a central feature of a territorial attempt to crack down on crimes related to the drug trade.
But some, even in the NWT legislature, question the rental office’s current approach.
Prior to an information session held by the rental office in Hay River last week, cabinet member and Hay River South MLA Vince McKay used his personal Facebook page to urge people to attend the event.
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“Please go ask some questions,” he wrote. “Ask the Rental Officer why they let squatters and drug dealers have more rights than the owners of the property.”
McKay, who said he was speaking in his capacity as a regular MLA, told Cabin Radio he was acting on behalf of constituents from whom he’s heard complaints about the way the rental office operates.
“Some of the problems we’ve been having in Hay River, and some of the issues I’ve been dealing with as an MLA, is essentially people squatting in houses and not being able to get evicted,” he said, “or people being in houses illegally and not being able to be evicted, or people being in houses that they don’t even own and not being able to be evicted.”
If Scan legislation – named after the acronym for “safer communities and neighbourhoods” – becomes law, the GNWT will create a new unit of Scan officers. They won’t be police officers but they’ll be tasked with investigating complaints about things like drug-related activity at homes in small communities.
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The Scan officers will have the power to either bring applications to the rental office if they think someone should be evicted, or help landlords do the same thing.
In the NWT, rental officers have powers like issuing eviction orders to tenants or withholding rent if landlords don’t address maintenance issues.
‘Thumbs on the scales of justice’
Like the courts, the rental office works independently from government and elected representatives.
Some worry that comments about independent offices by people in positions of power could influence the decisions that are ultimately made.
“People should not be putting their thumbs on the scales of justice, whether that’s in courts of law or at human rights tribunals or rental offices. The tribunals have to be permitted to exercise their judgment on a case by case basis,” said Yellowknife lawyer Peter Adourian.
“It is deeply insensitive to people who are living on the street that somehow the rental office is pro-tenant or anti-landlord in some way,” said Adourian, who has represented clients in cases before the rental office.
The NWT’s chief rental officer, Jerry Vanhantsaeme, restated his office’s autonomy when asked by Cabin Radio about the issue.
“We’re independent decision-makers,” Vanhantsaeme said. “At a hearing, the applicant has a burden of proof to provide the evidence to support their claims.”
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If a landlord, for example, brings an instance of a disturbance from years ago as grounds for evicting a tenant, that wouldn’t meet the burden of proof because it isn’t current, explained Vanhantsaeme.
Some of the frustration McKay hears from constituents, he said, is that some landlords go through their own lengthy process to recommend an eviction, even before an application is made to the rental office.
According to Housing NWT’s tenant handbook and evictions policy, any resident who breaks their tenancy agreement due to illegal activities taking place in the rental premises, or for other reasons, will be prescribed a “tenant success plan.”
“An Eviction Order will only be sought after actions under a Tenancy Success Plan have been exhausted,” states the agency’s eviction policy.
After that, the eviction process is further drawn out if the rental office decides to give the tenant an opportunity to change their behaviour. (Data to show how often this might happen isn’t available, but Cabin Radio recently analyzed a sample of rental office decisions involving drug claims to understand how those decisions were handled.)
If landlords are seeking “frivolous evictions,” McKay said, he supports the rental office in its decision to deny those applications.
“But if there’s criminal activity and safety issues of not just the individual living in apartments or places, but the residents,” said McKay, “we should be considering that.”
