Quebec has rent control. So why are apartment prices still soaring?

Holly Cabrera · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 08, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

As the asking terms for rent successful Montreal skyrockets, lodging advocates are renewing calls for the Quebec authorities to acceptable up a provincewide rent registry to enactment tenants warring for affordable housing.

Currently, tenants tin situation rent increases done Quebec's rental tribunal, known successful French arsenic the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL), if their rent is higher than the lowest rent paid during the 12-month play preceding the opening of the lease oregon sublease.

The TAL also provides guidelines connected rent adjustments each year, but landlords aren't required to travel them.

Despite the state having a rent regularisation policy, the asking terms of rent successful Montreal has changeable up astir 71 per cent since 2019, according to Statistics Canada's quarterly rent statistic report, published successful June.

Between 2019 and the archetypal 4th of 2025, asking rent for a two-bedroom flat successful Montreal grew from $1,130 to $1,930, the study says.

A nationalist rent registry showing however overmuch erstwhile tenants paid would assistance renters contention excessive increases, lodging advocacy radical Le Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) argues.

"If it's not successful spot close now, it's decidedly a governmental prime of not going guardant with the registry," Catherine Lussier, FRAPRU co-ordinator, said connected Friday.

It's an thought 14 municipalities person supported and mayoral campaigner Soraya Martinez Ferrada, person of Ensemble Montréal, is present promoting.

Adam Mongrain, manager of lodging argumentation astatine Vivre en Ville — a Quebec City-based non-profit focused connected sustainable municipality readying — admits that a rent registry isn't "enough to upend the existent marketplace dynamics," but it's a bully spot to start.

"We person laws that support the prices … and we don't usage those laws due to the fact that this accusation is not freely available," helium said.

Plante drops program for mandatory rent registry

Technically, Quebec has had a non-government-run online rent registry since May 2023, created by Vivre en Ville.

The database lets you look up rent paid astatine a peculiar code for a fixed period. But since entering information is optional, determination are gaps successful rent information.

WATCH | Why Quebec's rent regularisation argumentation isn't helping tenants: 

Over 40,000 Montreal rents person been registered connected the website, according to Simon Charron, a spokesperson for the Montreal mayor's cabinet.

In 2024, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante backpedalled connected her committedness to institute a mandatory rent registry for the city, citing ineligible hurdles to person the TAL admit information from what would person been a municipal database.

Charron said successful an email the provincial authorities would person to found the registry since the TAL is simply a provincial body.

Instead, the Plante medication contributed $30,000 to Vivre en Ville, with the politician calling connected the Quebec authorities to instrumentality a provincewide rent registry.

"Our medication has ever supported the constitution of a rent registry. It's an indispensable instrumentality for tenants to cognize the rent prices and for negotiating with landlords," Charron said.

Quebec says operating registry would outgo millions

Mongrain said erstwhile the enactment pitched the rent registry to the Quebec government, it shied distant from the idea, telling the enactment the registry would outgo $50 cardinal to physique and $20 cardinal annually to operate.

After receiving a $2.5 cardinal national assistance for the project, Vivre en Ville took matters into its ain hands.

"You don't person to bash that due to the fact that we built 1 for you," Mongrain said helium told the provincial authorities astatine the time. 

He noted that since launching the rent registry, Vivre en Ville has been offering to transportation power of the website to the Quebec government, which has shown nary involvement successful taking implicit the merchandise and insists that it would outgo millions to operate.

"I don't deliberation they person the credibility close present to accidental however overmuch a website should cost," Mongrain said, alluding to the $500-million outgo overrun tied to the province's automobile security board's online level SAAQclic.

Asked past week astir the costs for a province-operated rent registry, Justine Vézina, a spokesperson for Quebec's lodging minister, deflected, saying successful an email that Clause F and G — which require Quebec landlords to disclose the lowest rent paid successful the past 12 months connected a lease — are tools to marque rent "more predictable and transparent."

Quebec Landlords Association (APQ) president Martin Messier said that connected principle, the radical is against measures similar the registry, which would restrict rent increase.

"We wholly disagree with the information that the rent should enactment ever astatine the lowest that it was successful the past 12 months, due to the fact that that is affecting the capableness of the landlord to support up with the summation successful costs," helium said, adding that tenants' close to contention the rent aft signing a lease goes against the conception of an agreement.

Since the pandemic, tiny landlords person been struggling to "see a aboriginal for themselves and [their] building" arsenic they look rising costs for repairs, mortgages, security and spot taxes, Messier said.

For Mongrain, affordable lodging successful Quebec depends connected reimagining the narration betwixt landlords and tenants successful a marketplace that is "tipped successful favour of sellers of lodging services."

Since that's a lengthy endeavour, helium said increasing the rent registry successful the meantime would assistance determination the needle toward making affordable lodging much accessible.