Toronto Airbnb host Allan Eisen says he’s at his wits’ end with the City of Toronto after his Airbnb listing was taken down 16 times in the last seven months.
At least one of those instances is because someone used his permit number, which is accessible on the city’s website, to post an unregistered listing.
When his listing was taken offline last month, Eisen says he was told it was because he’s being investigated for violating the 180-day rule, which prohibits short-term rentals from being booked for more than 180 nights in a year. But Eisen says he makes sure his Airbnb stays within the limit.
“What I heard from [the bylaw officer] was absolutely mind-blowing. I was shocked when he told me that somebody else was using my license number,” he said.
Asked if that could be pushing his listing over the 180-mark, Eisen says the bylaw officer told him, “Yes, that could be the case.'”
Allan Eisen rents out his primary residence in downtown Toronto when he’s away from the city. He says the city has removed the Airbnb listing 16 times in the last five months. (Submitted by Allan Eismen)
All 6,248 short-term operator registration numbers and the first three digits of the corresponding postal code are publicly available on the City of Toronto’s website. The city says it’s aware of instances in which people are accessing the numbers and using them to post unregistered listings on Airbnb, which is leading to some legitimate listings being taken down as the city tries to enforce compliance.
The director of Fairbnbhosts.ca, which describes itself as a not-for-profit that works to protect the interests of Toronto’s registered Airbnb operators, says a city staff member told him they are chasing “pirates” and using a “whack-a-mole” approach to remove the unregistered listings.
“It’s a very big concern,” George Emerson said.
Meanwhile, some hosts are still having issues that CBC Toronto first reported on in the summer; when hosts and guests were scrambling after bookings were abruptly cancelled and listings taken down due to minor discrepancies in how hosts’ addresses were listed on their city registration versus their Airbnb profile. Hosts say the bookings are no longer being cancelled, but their listings are still being removed.
In Toronto, a short-term rental operator can only rent out their principal residence and must register with the city.
City says rules protect Toronto’s rental stock
Eisen’s listing was most recently taken down last week. An email from the city claims his address isn’t an exact match, but Eisen is adamant it’s correct. He says each time his listing has been removed, he makes the changes required by the city, but then it happens again.
“In the meantime, you’re out of business,” Eisen said. “There shouldn’t be such an aggressive approach to just a blanket ‘let’s just delist all these listings.'”
Executive director of the city’s Municipal Licensing and Standards division Carleton Grant says hosts’ information must be accurate so the city can verify listings.
Carleton Grant, the city’s executive director of Municipal Licensing and Standards, says the cases involving people using real permit numbers to post fake or unregistered listings are complex. (Yan Theoret/CBC)
“The rules are in place to protect the housing stock and the rental stock, but allow people to participate in home sharing,” Grant said in an interview.
In a statement, Airbnb’s regional Canadian lead Nathan Rotman says the company understands some hosts are frustrated with the city’s enforcement practices.
“We continue to be in active discussions with the city to ensure that registered listings are not inadvertently removed by City of Toronto bylaw officers,” Rotman said.
Concerns ‘bad actors’ are skirting rules
Eisen says he’s alarmed that anyone can access his permit number on the city’s website and says they should be removed.
“This isn’t a hack. The city’s openly giving this information to people by just putting it on a website. It’s very shocking,” he said.
While an operator’s registration number, city ward and first three letters of postal codes associated with properties are available; full addresses are not visible.
Grant says having the information on the city’s open data portal is required by the city. It shows the government is being transparent and allows the city and others to ensure listings are legitimate, he says.
An example of the message hosts are receiving when the city removes an Airbnb listing. (Submitted by Emil Glassbourg)
But Emerson says it’s worrying people who aren’t licensed are skirting the rules by using someone’s else’s permit.
“If the city is trying to crack down on bad actors, why are they enabling the same bad actors?” he said
“We are small, small business operators and we have been vetted and checked out by the city, and therefore we place reliance on the city to be able to list these properties.”
As part of ongoing compliance audits by the city, 2,626 Airbnb listings were taken down on November 10; 65 per cent of them removed due to missing or inaccurate information or wording that didn’t match; 32 per cent for breaking the 180-day rule and the remaining three per cent for having expired permits, according to the city.
Grant says hundreds of listings are posted daily by people who are not registered with the city and that the city works with short-term rental companies to remove those operators and their listings. He says it’s hard to say exactly how many registered operators’ listings were taken down as a result of people using their permit numbers.
That’s because he says many hosts whose listings were removed had incorrect information on their listings in addition to their permit being used by someone else.
“These [cases] are complicated, they are complex,” he said. “We need to do the necessary legwork to understand what’s happened and then take appropriate action.”
Asked whether the city would consider removing the permit numbers from the public website, Grant says since only a small percentage of hosts are affected, the numbers must justify the change.
He says the city will continue to look into ways to stop unlicensed people from posting listings using other hosts’ permits.
‘Beyond overkill,’ says advocate
Emerson says it’s nonsensical that the city can shut down a listing due to something as simple as the word ‘street’ and short form ‘st’ being seen as not matching.
“It’s beyond overkill,” he said.
Grant says while the details may seem minor, they’re necessary to verify whether a registration is legitimate.
“We equate it to getting on an airplane and you show your ticket and your passport and they have to match,” he said.
Only about 15 per cent, or more than 400, of the listings that were taken down last month are back online, while the rest, like Emil Glassbourg’s, are still being investigated.
Emil Glassbourg says his Airbnb listing was taken down last month and he’s still waiting for it to be active again. (Farrah Merali/CBC)
He discovered his listing was taken offline because his postal code was off by one digit and his property was listed in the wrong category.
“I’m in a financial predicament, which could have easily been solved,” said Glassbourg, who says his only current source of income is his Airbnb listing.
He’s now waiting for an inspection on December 28th and says he hopes his listing will be back up then, but knows it’s not guaranteed.
“Now I’m out of business without an income,” he said.
MONTREAL – The employers association at the Port of Montreal has issued the dockworkers’ union a “final, comprehensive offer,” threatening to lock out workers at 9 p.m. Sunday if a deal isn’t reached.
The Maritime Employers Association says its new offer includes a three per cent salary increase per year for four years and a 3.5 per cent increase for the two subsequent years. It says the offer would bring the total average compensation package of a longshore worker at the Port of Montreal to more than $200,000 per year at the end of the contract.
“The MEA agrees to this significant compensation increase in view of the availability required from its employees,” it wrote Thursday evening in a news release.
The association added that it is asking longshore workers to provide at least one hour’s notice when they will be absent from a shift — instead of one minute — to help reduce management issues “which have a major effect on daily operations.”
Syndicat des débardeurs du port de Montréal, which represents nearly 1,200 longshore workers, launched a partial unlimited strike on Oct. 31, which has paralyzed two terminals that represent 40 per cent of the port’s total container handling capacity.
A complete strike on overtime, affecting the whole port, began on Oct. 10.
The union has said it will accept the same increases that were granted to its counterparts in Halifax or Vancouver — 20 per cent over four years. It is also concerned with scheduling and work-life balance. Workers have been without a collective agreement since Dec. 31, 2023.
Only essential services and activities unrelated to longshoring will continue at the port after 9 p.m. Sunday in the event of a lockout, the employer said.
The ongoing dispute has had major impacts at Canada’s second-biggest port, which moves some $400 million in goods every day.
On Thursday, Montreal port authority CEO Julie Gascon reiterated her call for federal intervention to end the dispute, which has left all container handling capacity at international terminals at “a standstill.”
“I believe that the best agreements are negotiated at the table,” she said in a news release. “But let’s face it, there are no negotiations, and the government must act by offering both sides a path to true industrial peace.”
Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon issued a statement Thursday, prior to the lockout notice, in which he criticized the slow pace of talks at the ports in Montreal and British Columbia, where more than 700 unionized port workers have been locked out since Nov. 4.
“Both sets of talks are progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved,” he wrote on the X social media platform.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Employers and the union representing supervisors embroiled in a labour dispute that triggered a lockout at British Columbia’s ports will attempt to reach a deal when talks restart this weekend.
A spokesman from the office of federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon has confirmed the minister spoke with leaders at both the BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514, but did not invoke any section of the Canadian Labour Code that would force them back to talks.
A statement from the ministry says MacKinnon instead “asked them to return to the negotiation table,” and talks are now scheduled to start on Saturday with the help of federal mediators.
A meeting notice obtained by The Canadian Press shows talks beginning in Vancouver at 5 p.m. and extendable into Sunday and Monday, if necessary.
The lockout at B.C. ports by employers began on Monday after what their association describes as “strike activity” from the union. The result was a paralysis of container cargo traffic at terminals across Canada’s west coast.
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint against the employers for allegedly bargaining in bad faith, a charge that employers call a “meritless claim.”
The two sides have been without a deal since March 2023, and the employers say its final offer presented last week in the last round of talks remains on the table.
The proposed agreement includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term along with an average lump sum payment of $21,000 per qualified worker.
The union has said one of its key concerns is the advent of port automation in cargo operations, and workers want assurances on staffing levels regardless of what technology is being used at the port.
The disruption is happening while two container terminals are shut down in Montreal in a separate labour dispute.
It leaves container cargo traffic disrupted at Canada’s two biggest ports, Vancouver and Montreal, both operating as major Canadian trade gateways on the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
This is one of several work disruptions at the Port of Vancouver, where a 13-day strike stopped cargo last year, while labour strife in the rail and grain-handling sectors led to further disruptions earlier this year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
