Although the pace of increase has come down ever so slightly, the price of rental accommodation in Canada continues to go up, with the average new tenant now being asked to pay $2,117 a month.
That’s according to a new report from Rentals.ca, which tabulates the data every month from its database of the largest single group of rental listings across the country.
The $2,117 figure is an increase of 9.6 per cent from the average rent in August 2022. That’s down from an all-time high of 12 per cent from August 2021 until August of last year, but still the highest figure ever in dollar terms.
The ongoing tumult in the housing market has garnered numerous headlines of late, as the Bank of Canada’s campaign to tame inflation has caused mortgage rates to skyrocket.
That’s spilling over into the rental market, as individual landlords are trying to pass those costs on to their tenants.
Cassandra Kranjec recently faced a 14 per cent increase to her rent on a one-bedroom condo unit in Toronto. (Cassandra Kranjec)
But it’s not coming online fast enough to bring down rents.
“Despite rental apartment completions in Canada over the past 12 months reaching their highest level since the 1970s, rent growth has remained exceptionally strong,” the report said.
Strained budgets
Since May, the average asking price for a new rental has increased by $103 a month.
That comes as no surprise to Torontonian Cassandra Kranjec, who earlier this year begrudgingly agreed to a 14 per cent increase in her rent on a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in the Liberty Village neighbourhood.
“I was originally paying $2,100 a month, which was above my budget, but he mentioned that we had to up the rent to $2,400 a month due to his mortgage,” she told CBC News.
Kranjec works two jobs yet still spends more than half of her income on rent. Her main job could be done remotely, so she contemplated moving to a part of Ontario with cheaper rent, but quickly realized those options were also limited.
Prior to moving to Toronto last year, she was paying $1,850 for a similar unit in Kitchener, Ont., where she had to have a car. At least living where she does in Toronto, she doesn’t need the expense of a vehicle.
“It’s really not worth it … to move anywhere else, because the prices are being increased all over Ontario,” she said.
She’s not wrong. While Toronto and Vancouver still lead the way in terms of rent, the rest of the country is catching up fast.
Rents rising almost everywhere
According to the report, average asking rents in Ontario overall hit $2,496 last month, only slightly behind Toronto’s $2,898 average.
Prices in the rest of the province are in fact going up at a faster pace than they are in Toronto, by 9.9 per cent compared to 8.7.
In terms of the pace of increase, other parts of the country have it worse.
In British Columbia, the average rent clocked in at $2,675 during the month, up 10.8 per cent in the past year. Within that, Vancouver saw the average asking price for a rental apartment hit $3,316 a month. That’s an increase of 7.3 per cent.
Renters in Vancouver have mixed reactions to 3.5% allowable rent increase for 2024
Some renters in Vancouver say the city is already too expensive for them to face further increases in their rents, while others say the market should be allowed to dictate rental costs.
For the fourth month in a row, Alberta led the country in terms of growth, with average rental asking prices increasing by 15.6 per cent to $1,634. Tenants in Calgary are feeling the squeeze most of all, where average rents increased by 17.3 per cent to $2,068.
Rent increases were slowest over the past year in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with annual growth of 8.3 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively, reaching average costs of $1,457 and $1,102.
Even Quebec, once a bastion of cheap and plentiful rental accommodation, is feeling the pinch. Average rent hit $1,932 across the province in August, an increase of 14.2 per cent. In Montreal specifically, rent increased by 16.4 per cent in the past year, with average rent topping $2,000 a month for the first time ever.
Booming demand
Steve Pomeroy, a professor at McMaster University’s Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative, says rents have skyrocketed across Canada for a variety of reasons. One thing that all possible housing solutions have in common is that they take time.
“In the short term, it’s very, very difficult to solve the fact we have excess demand, because the only way to respond to excess demand is to significantly increase supply,” he told CBC News in an interview.
While he says Canada’s impressive population growth and surge in international students may pay off down the line for the economy, in the short term at least it is exacerbating an already acute housing shortage.
“There’s a drastic shortage of units at the lower end of the rental market, renting for less than $1,000 a month, and way too many people trying to chase after them now,” he said.
“People can jump on a plane this morning and arrive [in Canada] tonight, but we can’t put a house on the production line today and have it ready by tomorrow — it takes us three or four or five years to do that.”
Until that happens, he cautions that any tenant upset about a rent hike from their existing landlord needs to think long and hard about what alternatives they may have, before pulling the trigger and finding a new place.
OTTAWA – The New Democrats confirmed Thursday they won’t help Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives topple the government next week, and intend to join the Bloc Québécois in blocking the Tories’ non-confidence motion.
The planned votes from the Bloc and the New Democrats eliminate the possibility of a snap election, buying the Liberals more time to govern after a raucous start to the fall sitting of Parliament.
Poilievre issued a challenge to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh earlier this week when he announced he will put forward a motion that simply states that the House has no confidence in the government or the prime minister.
If it were to pass, it would likely mean Canadians would be heading to the polls, but Singh said Thursday he’s not going to let Poilievre tell him what to do.
Voting against the Conservative motion doesn’t mean the NDP support the Liberals, said Singh, who pulled out of his political pact with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a few weeks ago.
“I stand by my words, Trudeau has let you down,” Singh said in the foyer outside of the House of Commons Thursday.
“Trudeau has let you down and does not deserve another chance.”
Canadians will have to make that choice at the ballot box, Singh said, but he will make a decision about whether to help trigger that election on a vote-by-vote basis in the House.
The Conservatives mocked the NDP during Question Period for saying they had “ripped up” the deal to support the Liberals, despite plans to vote to keep them in power.
Poilievre accused Singh of pretending to pull out of the deal to sway voters in a federal byelection in Winnipeg, where the NDP was defending its long-held seat against the Conservatives.
“Once the votes were counted, he betrayed them again. He’s a fake, a phoney and fraud. How can anyone ever believe what the sellout NDP leader says in the future?” Poilievre said during Question Period Thursday afternoon.
At some point after those comments, Singh stepped out from behind his desk in the House and a two-minute shouting match ensued between the two leaders and their MPs before the Speaker intervened.
Outside the House, Poilievre said he plans to put forward another non-confidence motion at the next opportunity.
“We want a carbon-tax election as soon as possible, so that we can axe Trudeau’s tax before he quadruples it to 61 cents a litre,” he said.
Liberal House leader Karina Gould says there is much work the government still needs to do, and that Singh has realized the consequences of potentially bringing down the government. She refused to take questions about whether her government will negotiate with opposition parties to ensure their support in future confidence motions.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet hasn’t ruled out voting no-confidence in the government the next time a motion is tabled.
“I never support Liberals. Help me God, I go against the Conservatives on a vote that is only about Pierre Poilievre and his huge ambition for himself,” Blanchet said Thursday.
“I support the interests of Quebecers, if those interests are also good for Canadians.”
A Bloc bill to increase pension cheques for seniors aged 65 to 74 is now at “the very centre of the survival of this government,” he said.
The Bloc needs a recommendation from a government minister to OK the cost and get the bill through the House.
The Bloc also wants to see more protections for supply management in the food sector in Canada and Quebec.
If the Liberals can’t deliver on those two things, they will fall, Blanchet said.
“This is what we call power,” he said.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand wouldn’t say whether the government would be willing to swallow the financial implications of the Bloc’s demands.
“We are focused at Treasury Board on ensuring prudent fiscal management,” she said Thursday.
“And at this time, our immediate focus is implementing the measures in budget 2024 that were announced earlier this year.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – Treasury Board President Anita Anand has been sworn in as federal transport minister at a ceremony at Rideau Hall, taking over a portfolio left vacant after Pablo Rodriguez resigned from cabinet and the Liberal caucus on Thursday.
Anand thanked Rodriguez for his contributions to the government and the country, saying she’s grateful for his guidance and friendship.
She sidestepped a question about the message it sends to have him leave the federal Liberal fold.
“That is a decision that he made independently, and I wish him well,” she said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not present for the swearing-in ceremony, nor were any other members of the Liberal government.
The shakeup in cabinet comes just days after the Liberals lost a key seat in a Montreal byelection to the Bloc Québécois and amid renewed calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down and make way for a new leader.
Anand said she is not actively seeking leadership of the party, saying she is focused on her roles as minister and as MP.
“My view is that we are a team, and we are a team that has to keep delivering for our country,” she said.
The minority Liberal government is in a more challenging position in the House of Commons after the NDP ended a supply-and-confidence deal that provided parliamentary stability for more than two years.
Non-confidence votes are guaranteed to come from the Opposition Conservatives, who are eager to bring the government down.
On Thursday morning, Rodriguez made a symbolic walk over the Alexandra Bridge from Parliament Hill to Gatineau, Que., where he formally announced his plans to run for the Quebec Liberal party leadership.
He said he will now sit as an Independent member of Parliament, which will allow him to focus on his own priorities.
“I was defending the priorities of the government, and I did it in a very loyal way,” he said.
“It’s normal and it’s what I had to do. But now it’s more about my vision, the vision of the team that I’m building.”
Rodriguez said he will stay on as an MP until the Quebec Liberal leadership campaign officially launches in January.
He said that will “avoid a costly byelection a few weeks, or months, before a general election.”
The next federal election must be held by October 2025.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will try to topple the government sooner than that, beginning with a non-confidence motion that is set to be debated Sept. 24 and voted on Sept. 25.
Poilievre has called on the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to support him, but both Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet have said they will not support the Conservatives.
Rodriguez said he doesn’t want a federal election right away and will vote against the non-confidence motion.
As for how he would vote on other matters before the House of Commons, “it would depend on the votes.”
Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos will become the government’s new Quebec lieutenant, a non-cabinet role Rodriguez held since 2019.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
— With files from Nojoud Al Mallees and Dylan Robertson
