Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
17th Floor, 777 Bay St.
Toronto, ON M7A 2J3
May 13, 2024
RE: No tenant should risk eviction because their foreign landlord isn’t paying their tax bill
Dear Minister Calandra,
I hope this letter finds you well. Our office has been receiving phone calls from tenants who are worried and stressed out because they fear they’re at risk of being evicted because their foreign landlord is not paying their share of tax to the Canada Revenue Agency.
Let me explain the issue with an example. A tenant contacted our office to explain their predicament. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) directed a tenant who contacted our office to withhold 25% of their rent and pay it directly to the CRA if their landlord is a foreign-owned landlord. The CRA is threatening to charge interest and issue fines if a tenant does not comply.1
The tenant asked their landlord if they were a foreign-owned landlord, and the landlord didn’t answer the question. The tenant asked the CRA if the landlord in question was a foreign-owned landlord, and the CRA refused to say, citing privacy reasons.
The tenant then contacted the landlord who told them they were going to evict them if they withheld 25% of their rent and sent it to the CRA.
No tenant should risk eviction for paying their foreign landlord’s tax bill. This is fundamentally unfair, and it is fundamentally un-Canadian.
Tenants have it hard enough without the CRA going after them because they happen to have a foreign landlord that refuses to pay their fair share of taxes.
We are requesting the following measures to resolve this situation.
- The province should direct the Landlord and Tenant Board to deny any landlord’s application to evict if the tenant is being forced to withhold rent to pay their landlord’s taxes.
- The CRA should reverse its policy immediately, and not force tenants to pay their foreign landlord’s taxes or risk eviction, ever.
- Ontario should establish a beneficial ownership registry so the identity of a property owners is part of the public record, and a tenant can easily know if their landlord is a foreign or not.
Thank you for your attention to this pressing issue, and I eagerly await your response and your advocacy on this issue.
Yours,
Jessica Bell
MPP for University-Rosedale
Cc:
Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Federal government [email protected]