Mr. Speaker, allow me to read the following headline in The Vancouver Sun: “Marijuana grow-op cost $135,000 in damages: B.C. property owner.” The article says:
A Coquitlam woman says she has incurred $135,000 in damage to her rental property due to a medical marijuana grow-op licensed by Health Canada without her knowledge or consent.
That is what we are discussing today.
I would like the thank the Conservative member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo who has come forward to defend the thousands of Canadians who rely on rental properties as a source of income and even retirement. I know people in my constituency for whom a rental property is not just a little extra money. It is not even just an investment. It is a pension plan. Middle-class people who do not have corporate or government plans often build and/or purchase rental properties in order to generate enough income and equity upon which to retire.
It is a win-win when they do that because they provide more affordable housing in our communities. However, the prospect that some may use those properties to host medical or other recreational marijuana growth within the house is threatening the value of the important asset in which the landlord has invested.
This threat is very real. Damage from grow ops in a residence can include the following: mould, humidity damage, electrical wire tampering, wall damage, floor damage, ventilation damage, plant and smoke smell and odours. These damages can effectively destroy the value of a house and make it impossible to resell and, ironically, make it uninhabitable for the person who originally started the grow op in the first place.
If such damage is allowed to occur in the rental properties of the nation, we will have fewer rental properties. When the supply goes down, the price goes up. The result being rental housing becomes less affordable for those people who need it the most.
What I like most about the bill is that it is so straightforward. The whole bill can be read in one page. The bill itself is really one paragraph, and I will read it:
...requiring that persons or classes of persons who intend to produce or sell any controlled substance or any class of controlled substances in leased premises obtain the written consent of the landlord, and prescribing the manner and form in which that consent is to be obtained and the conditions under which it must be renewed;
It is very simple. If people want to grow marijuana in a house that they rent, they need the permission of the property owner. That is a basic article of property rights. If people are going to do something with someone else's property, his or her permission is needed. It is very simple. Most of the best things in life are simple, and that is why we have a bill, thankfully and mercifully, written in one paragraph with a simple aim and an obvious outcome.
If Bill C-330, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, targeting the growing and use of legalized for the production of marijuana for medical use as well as the potential forthcoming requests for business space to sell marijuana, passes, it will require the consent of landlords to tenants if those tenants are going to use the property for the production of marijuana.
We know landlords are aware of the very serious risks that could befall them if they should rent a property to someone who plans to use that same property for the production and use of medical or other forms of marijuana.
Unfortunately, the bill does not have the jurisdictional reach to touch upon recreational marijuana. However, that said, such an example set in the medical space at a federal level may act as an encouragement for provinces to use landlord and tenant legislation to address recreational marijuana as well. That is why Bill C-330 is the best approach to providing landlords the assurance they need. It does not require the creation of unwarranted and unnecessary government bureaucracy to manage this area. It simply requires that landlords give permission to their tenants to use their property for the production and sale of marijuana. Simply put, if the landlord approves of this behaviour in his or her property, he or she will provide a written, signed, and legal consent form to the tenant to engage in these activities. If the landlord does not provide the written, signed, and legal consent, the tenant cannot engage in the production of marijuana on the property. It is very straightforward. If the tenants proceed to do so, they will be in violation of their leasing agreement and the landlord will be able to remove the tenants. In other words, the landlord has ownership of the property and he or she deserves to know if someone is using the property in a potentially destructive manner, and if he or she refuses permission, he or she should have the ability to impose that decision because it is his or her property. This is not unfair to tenants; it is simply logical. If tenants are unhappy with those lease conditions, they are afforded the ability to find new housing and re-enter the housing market in accordance with their province's legislative conditions. Again, it is landlords across the country who take the inherent risk and associated cost of mortgaging and maintaining rental properties, and they must be provided this basic protection.
As I have noted, marijuana production and sales are going to rapidly change over the next several years. As a result, we need to change the legislative framework in which that happens to ensure that all Canadians are protected and that everyone acts with respect for each other's property. Some will argue that medical marijuana is necessary, and I am not here to dispute that. That is not the point of this debate. I am simply here to suggest that property owners should have the autonomy and authority to protect their property against damage.
Some people have suggested that this could simply be regulated at a provincial level. That is not true, because in the case of medical marijuana, a federal licence is extended to the person producing it, and that federal licence may have overriding power over landlord-tenant rules and over other contractual obligations. That is why we need a very simple clause inserted into the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that would protect our landlords against this problem.
The government, I gather, might not support this particular legislation. I would urge the government, for political reasons, to consider otherwise. Normally the Liberals do not take political advice from me, but I will implore them, just once, to do so. If they refuse, I predict that they will regret that refusal when the time comes. That time in the next election will be when the situations just described will be unfolding. I do not think Liberal MPs will want to meet landlords and entrepreneurs who have lost tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars of their net worth because somebody used their property as a grow op without their permission. Let us stand up for our entrepreneurs; let us stand up for the pensions of private individuals who are trying to save for the future; and let us stand up for the availability of affordable private housing by requiring consent for anyone attempting to grow marijuana at a property that does not belong to her or him.
