Stoney Lake, Northern Ontario          The last session of the night found me assigned with others from ACORN Canada’s western provincial offices in Calgary and Vancouver to discuss an upcoming ACORN National Day of Action around housing.  One thing led to another, and we started all talking about what kind of protection tenants have when they complain to their landlords and have fixed-term leases that might allow landlords to evict them in retaliation.

I wondered if there was anything that might exist in “whistleblower” statutes that might shield against such retaliation.  A little next morning research with the Google people indicated this was somewhere between a “maybe” and a “no.”  Whistleblower legislation in the United States is largely federal and intended to protect federal workers, not private sector workers or tenants. Pretty much the same applies in Canada, but not as harshly.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission says the following:

While specific federal “whistleblower” legislation for tenant-landlord disputes is generally absent in Canada, protections exist through other avenues, primarily the Human Rights Code for discrimination-related issues and through the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) in Ontario or similar provincial bodies, which can offer dispute resolution. You can also report potentially illegal landlord actions to relevant authorities, and while your identity may not be protected under a formal whistleblower law, you may be able to request confidentiality from the investigating body.

This might be the same under similar tenant boards in Alberta and British Columbia, but it was less clear.

On the other hand, if a tenant is complaining about the landlord’s handling of public health related issues like mold, sewage backup, clean water, rats, garbage, and the like, there are much better protections.  Looking up Calgary for example,

…tenants in Calgary are protected against landlord retaliation when they report issues of public health by Alberta’s Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) and the Minimum Housing and Health Standards. These protections ensure landlords must maintain rental properties according to minimum standards and cannot retaliate against tenants who report violations to public health officials like Alberta Health Services. If a landlord retaliates, a tenant can contact Service Alberta for an investigation or seek a landlord’s substantial breach of the RTA.

That sounds better.  The same exists in Canada’s largest province, Ontario, where…

tenants are protected from landlord retaliation when they raise public health issues by both the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) and the Ontario Human Rights Code (Code). The RTA prohibits landlords from harassing, threatening, or interfering with a tenant’s quiet enjoyment of the unit, while the Code provides protection against discrimination and requires landlords to accommodate tenants’ needs related to their health, such as providing a healthy living environment. Tenants can seek help from the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) or health units for these issues.

In the USA, it’s a patchwork quilt, and a tenant is at greater risk…

…tenants have rights and some legal protections when addressing public health issues with their landlords in the United States, primarily through the implied warranty of habitability, which requires landlords to provide safe and livable housing, and “right to counsel” (RTC) laws, which provide legal representation for tenants in certain cities and states. However, the effectiveness of these protections can vary significantly, as some warranty policies have loopholes and legal action can be financially challenging for tenants.

With fixed term leases, at expiration the landlord can refuse to renew and evict.  If the tenant has made complaints and normally the renewal would be automatic, it could only be for one of two reasons or both:  retaliation or an excuse to raise the rent, if there are no caps.  One of the biggest wins in the pending ACORN backed housing rights bill in the United Kingdom is an end to fixed term leases.  In the meantime, it seems to protect our leaders and tenants more if our complaints focus on public health conditions that are the landlord’s responsibility.