The Yukon government’s intention to end rent control after an agreement with the NDP expires in February has the territory’s third party worried that housing could become even less affordable for renters.

During question period Tuesday, the Yukon Party asked Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn if the government will repeal rent control after the Cause and Supply Agreement (CASA) between the Liberals and NDP ends Feb. 1. Rent control policy was a stipulation of CASA. 

Introduced in May 2021, the Yukon’s residential rent index has tied rental costs to inflation. That has prevented landlords from raising prices above the Consumer Price Index (CPI) calculated each year by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics.

In 2022, for example, the CPI was 3.3 per cent; that meant as of May 15, landlords weren’t able to raise their rents by more than 3.3 per cent.

That restriction could end prematurely though.

Calling the rent index a “flawed policy”, Yukon Party MLA Patti McLeod asked Mostyn what the government intends to do when CASA ends in February. 

“The rent index was a commitment that the NDP campaigned on and brought to us as part of our Confidence and Supply Agreement,” Mostyn told the legislature. “The index is temporary; it will end in January, Mr. Speaker. That is the intent.”

Rent control would technically end after January, assuming CASA isn’t renewed before Feb. 1.

The Yukon Party might be happy about that. McLeod said rent caps “bind the ability of rental owners to control the rent that they charge” and their effects have been “disastrous.”

But the NDP isn’t impressed with Mostyn’s comments.

“It is now clear that the Liberals have no intention to protect renters unless the Yukon NDP forces them to,” the NDP said in a release issued after question period.

The cost of housing remains a significant barrier to affordability, according to a 2022 cost-of-living report published by the Yukon Anti- Poverty Coalition.

“The rising cost of basic household needs such as housing, food, and transportation continue to place upward pressure on the living wage rate,” reads the report, which examined the living wage in Whitehorse from 2020 to 2022.

“Most notably, the rising cost of rental housing remains the most significant affordability challenge for low- and modest-income Yukoners.”

The report found that a family of four, with two working adults and two children, spent 36.8 per cent of its pre-tax income on shelter in 2022.

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. defines housing as affordable if it costs 30 per cent of a household’s pre-tax income.

NDP Leader Kate White is worried renters could be spending even more on housing without rent control.

“Before the rent cap, our office would see people being served rent increases of up to 50 per cent,” she said in Tuesday’s release.

“They’d be expected to come up with an extra $700 per month or move out.” 

She said the Liberals would put renters “at risk of unaffordable rent increases” if they repeal the rent index.

“The Liberals – and the Yukon Party – are choosing to leave tenants behind,” she said. “The cost of housing is a huge issue in the territory, and tenants are going to be put in the most vulnerable position.

“If the Liberals won’t extend the rent cap, it just proves they are out of touch with everyday Yukoners. They talk about affordability, but they’re going to let rents skyrocket,” White added.

The government’s intentions on rent control don’t just affect renters though. The future of its agreement with the third party could be in jeopardy.

The Liberals and Yukon Party both won eight seats, and the minority Liberal government reached an agreement with the NDP for vote support from its three MLAs. In return, the Liberals agreed to pursue such NDP policies as rent control.

The government said Tuesday that two other policies pursued in that agreement, a public dental program for low-income Yukoners and a seven-day-a-week mental health phone line, will come into effect soon.

Health and Social Services Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the mental health line, run by the Yukon division of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), is now open to Yukoners, either by phone or in person, seven days a week.

The dental program has contracted a company to process claims, and it will come into effect in January.

But White hasn’t been overly enthusiastic about the Liberals’ progress on CASA policies.

She said Mostyn’s comments on rent control show the government is only doing the bare minimum to meet its obligations under CASA.

White not only wants rent control extended, but wants to see it embedded permanently in Yukon legislation, she told the Star this morning. 

“Rent control, it has been effective. It’s protected hundreds of tenants,” she said. 

If the Yukon Party or the Liberals are concerned about landlords, she added, a dispute resolution process could also be embedded in law, so that landlords could argue when they feel a rent increase beyond inflation is necessary.

As for other CASA policies, White said she’s been disappointed the dental program is so late rolling out and that the government hasn’t taken the lead on the seven-day-a-week mental health clinic itself, instead handing operations to the CMHA. 

White said any CASA renegotiation will have to wait until the Liberal party selects a new leader. Premier Sandy Silver announced in early September he will be stepping down once a replacement is decided on.

No one has publicly announced plans to pursue the job.

“Until they elect a new leader, I don’t know that they or I actually have any opinions on the future of CASA,” White told the Star. “I’m willing to negotiate totally for the benefit of Yukoners.”

If a new agreement isn’t reached, the minority Liberals would lose guaranteed vote support from the three NDP MLAs, and, as Mostyn has indicated, rent control would likely be repealed.

Critics of the rent caps have publicly shared incidences of rental property owners selling their holdings, saying the controls, coupled with a realm of steadily-rising maintenance and insurance costs, have made renting out accommodations financially pointless.