After biggest rent hike in decades, Quebec changing method to calculate it
Average recommended rent increase for 2025 would've been 4.5%, not 5.9%, with new method
As tenants across Quebec prepare to get hit with a substantial rent increase, the provincial government is making changes to the way those rent hikes will be calculated.
The changes to the calculation method were outlined Wednesday in Quebec's Official Gazette (page 2368).
They come just a few months after Quebec's rental tribunal, known in French as the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL), recommended an average rent increase for 2025 of 5.9 per cent for tenants living in homes were heat is not included.
That's Quebec's largest year-to-year jump in at least three decades, according to TAL figures dating back to 1988.
That recommendation is still in effect for this year and the new calculation method will be used as of 2026. Had the new method been used for this year, the TAL's average recommended rent increase would've been 4.5 per cent, according to a spokesperson for Quebec's housing minister.
Each year, the TAL releases a set of calculations landlords can use before sending a notice of rent increase to a tenant.
Simpler and more predictable, minister says
In an interview with Radio-Canada's Première heure, Quebec Housing Minister France-Élaine Duranceau said the old calculation was based on 13 variables. The new one will be based on four, she said.
Under the new calculation, the TAL will take into account:
- The average consumer price index in Quebec for the reference year and the three years preceding it.
- Variations in municipal taxes.
- Variations in school taxes.
- Variations in insurance costs.
"I'm expecting that there will be a better understanding from the tenant's perspective and the landlord's perspective, so less distrust," she said. "The less distrust there is, the less conflict there will be and we'll reduce the number of cases that end up at the tribunal."
But a Quebec group advocating for tenants' rights says the reform is a "missed opportunity to curb the housing crisis and abusive property speculation."
In a news release, the Regroupement de comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ) argued that the new calculation method "in no way" responds to tenants' demands for real rent control in the province.
"It opens the door wide for landlords to increase their profits on the backs of tenants, with rent increases now based on the average rise in the cost of living as well as the cost of major renovations," read the statement.
"In this way, Duranceau has standardized rent increases based not on the actual costs of managing a building, but on the potential market value of the property, to the greater benefit of landlords."
The group encourages people to join a national demonstration for the right to housing held in Drummondville, Que., on Tenants' Day, April 24.
Increases over past decade
Although the new method would've led to a smaller increase for tenants in 2025, that's not necessarily going to be the case every year.
According to the minister's spokesperson, the TAL increases between 2014 and 2024 totalled 23.7 per cent. With the new calculation, that increase would've been 23.3 per cent.
"We could therefore say that over the long haul, the increases would've been the same," spokesperson Justine Vézina wrote in a statement provided to CBC News in French.
"Since the variations would be more stable since the [consumer price] index would take into consideration an average of three years, there are in fact years where the increase would've been higher and others where it would've been lower."
With the 5.9 per cent rent increase recommended by the TAL in 2025, someone who pays $1,400 in rent will see it go up to $1,482. Had it been 4.5. per cent with this new method, the rent would've gone up to $1,463.
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With files from CBC's Benjamin Shingler