Ravi Sohal: 31 Jan City Hall RRL Delegation Speech Readout
Delegation Speech
Members of the Council, and Brampton citizens. My name is Ravi Sohal, I see myself as the first responder to the questions on the Rental Licensing pilot program's legitimacy and effectiveness. Who also took time to study the pros and cons in detail. I am speaking on behalf of more than 7000 residents, who have signed petition.
I attempted to educate this city on what I genuinely believe will be consequences for tenants, and landlords, resulting from the implementation of RRL, hence pilot program put on shelf.
On the other hand, council members are picking apart the fatally flawed logic, and the weak arguments proffered for implementing this program.
Residentials was consultation was minimal. After launch, now the city is going on all media outlets to market their RRL baby. Where were these platforms to describe about program prior to launch.
The city never once provided independent objective, and quantifiable data to justify the program’s significance.
It is acknowledged by council members that they were not aware of the requirements, clauses, and cross-impact assessment of the programs, even after it has launched as a pilot project. It raises serious concerns for the city of Brampton regarding such law-making practices in darkness. How can council members agree to vote on city policy when it was unbaked?
Brampton has the highest property tax rates compared to its neighbouring cities. Despite having a higher revenue, Brampton is unable to achieve its property by-law enforcement objectives without “recovering” additional costs from the people that provide the fundamental foundation upon which every municipality and society is built.
Hypocritically, city councilors only targeted mom-and-pop landlords and exempted big corporations and real estate investment trust companies from rental licensing for obvious reasons.
Where program will step into the privacy and human rights code of tenants' rights, this program will also lead to an increase in rents and discourage new home buyers from coming to Brampton.
Unexpected increase of population has contributed by federal policies that blindly open the door without making any arrangements when they were warned 2 years ago.
Now, we are facing the consequences.
Now the city is coming up with an unthoughtful wild idea to fulfill election mandates.
City of Brampton and Ontario municipalities should study the City of Oshawa, which voted 5 to 3 to reject its Safety Committee proposal to implement a city-wide rental property licensing program. This rejection ended many potential legal issues such as “Not receiving a license to rent while a tenant occupies the rental unit”.
Also study, Toronto’s RentSafeTO scheme uses bylaw enforcement officers to conduct building “evaluations,” “audits” and the traditional investigation process of complaints submitted to 311. While this is not a license per se, it remains a huge overreach of proactive, invasive municipal enforcement.
Law acknowledgment and enhanced enforcement will help to address the housing, health, and safety issues where
Licensing will not help to resolve anything if you do a case study on the City of Windsor and City of Waterloo licensing.
I urge the Council to stop the Rental Licensing program, permanently and brainstorm with residents to resolve the core problems.
Thank you.
#brampton #ReantalLicense #RRL