Wednesday, March 02, 2022

United Conservative members organize against Jason Kenney ahead of leadership vote

Organizers aid registration fee reimbursement, charter

 buses to boost attendance

Elise von Scheel, Audrey Neveu · CBC News · 
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney gives a COVID-19 update in Calgary last month. UCP members will vote on his leadership at a special meeting in Red Deer on April 9. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

Five weeks before United Conservative Party members vote on Premier Jason Kenney's fate as leader, grassroots organizers and MLAs are working to tip the balance.

Take Back Alberta, a provincial conservative grassroots group, says it's been holding meetings since December to convince members to vote to turf Kenney in the upcoming leadership review. 

The group is also working to pay for transportation and attendance costs for members who would not otherwise be able to attend the special meeting in Red Deer on April 9.

David Parker, a campaign organizer for Jason Kenney during his United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership bid in 2017, is running the efforts.

He says that after devoting time to getting Kenney elected, he's lost patience with the leader and believes others feel the same way. 

"Anyone who cares about the future of the province from a conservative angle must vote Jason Kenney out," Parker told CBC News. 

"On April 9, we're voting out a tyrant."

Since December, he estimates the group has held about 200 face-to-face meetings with members. The number of participants varies from a few dozen to a hundred, according to Parker. 

The movement is seeing the participation of several MLAs from Kenney's own party. Parker says half a dozen are involved. 

MLAs participate in meetings to boost vote attendance

CBC News obtained a partial audio recording from a meeting on Feb. 17 in a community hall in Glendon, Alta., which is northeast of Edmonton. 

In the recording, Dave Hanson, the MLA for Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, says he fears seeing "interference" in the April 9 confidence vote, similar to allegations of fraud that tainted the 2017 leadership race.

Hanson confirmed to CBC News the recording is authentic, but says he participated with the understanding the meeting would not be recorded. He declined to comment further.

During the meeting, he said he was pleased people are working to attend the leadership review. 

"It's a groundswell. I'm very, very happy to see it happening here, too."

The UCP has consistently said the leadership review is happening in line with the rules used for others before it. Kenney said Wednesday a successful vote is 50 per cent plus one, like any majority vote in a democratic system.

Angela Pitt, the MLA for Airdrie-East, told CBC News she's attended some Take Back Alberta meetings but has also attended upward of 100 other grassroots meetings in living rooms and barns across the province. 

"I have been actively meeting with Albertans of all stripes to teach them how to become actively involved in the political process inside our party," she said. 

"High levels of civic engagement give you good government. And I believe, based on what I've been hearing for the last number of years, people want to see a change in their government, and this is how you do that." 

MLA Todd Loewen, who was expelled from UCP caucus in 2021, is also calling on members to travel to Red Deer to vote against Kenney.

In a Facebook post, the constituency association for Airdrie-Cochrane says it's offering a 50 per cent rebate for members who sign up to attend the meeting, and is offering free travel on a chartered bus. The attendance fee for the meeting is $99. 

Kenney responds to news of organized opposition

The premier was asked Wednesday for his reaction to this organization against him. 

"What I'm doing on my end is working with our great team to build Alberta: a strong economy and a strong province," Kenney said, listing off recent economic successes like the projection of a balanced budget. 

The premier said similar rumours of plans to take him down have swirled before but never materialized.

"I think the broad, mainstream of Alberta conservatives want us to continue getting the job done."

Fill the convention centre, win the vote, organizers say

After Hanson's portion of the recording, one of Brian Jean's key advisors chimes in. Vitor Marciano, who is working to get the former Wildrose leader elected under a UCP banner in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, says the only way to remove Kenney as leader is to send enough members to the meeting in Red Deer to win the vote. Marciano also confirmed the authenticity of the recording. 

Jean recently re-entered provincial politics vowing to revitalize the UCP and take out Kenney. 

"That's what this meeting is about. It's about making sure that we send enough members there. Frankly, Jason Kenney is counting on the fact that people might be mad, but are they mad enough to drive to Red Deer? Are they mad enough to spend $99? Ultimately, $99 is a really small investment in freedoms, it's a really small investment in sending politicians a message," Marciano said.

Marciano and Parker, however, claim the Jean camp and Take Back Alberta are not officially teaming up — rather, their interests are temporarily aligned.

Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University, says good budget news, COVID restrictions lifting, a byelection in Jean's riding and other riding nominations make it hard to tell which side has the momentum right now. 

"Almost every event you look at in Alberta politics, you have to view it through the lens of the leadership, because Kenney is," he said.

Bratt said the brief moment of positive news for Kenney likely won't be enough on its own.

"I've been punching you every day for two years, and now I stop. Are you happy?"

Two recent conservative leaders in Alberta have received more than 75 per cent support in leadership reviews, yet stepped down in the months after.

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KENNEY DIKTAT

Alberta to ban Edmonton and any other municipalities from keeping mask mandate or any COVID restrictions

The move, once introduced as a bill and passed, would put the province in a position to overrule Edmonton's mask bylaw, which remains in effect locally

Tyler Dawson
Mar 01, 2022  • 
Office workers go through a walkway in downtown Edmonton on March 1, 2022. Edmonton appears to be the only municipality in Alberta to still have a mask bylaw.
Office workers go through a walkway in downtown Edmonton on March 1, 2022. Edmonton appears to be the only municipality in Alberta to still have a mask bylaw. PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM/POSTMEDIA

EDMONTON — The Alberta government has vowed to ban municipalities from enacting their own COVID-19-related public-health rules, preventing them from contradicting the direction of the provincial government, which has dropped nearly all pandemic restrictions.

The move, announced Tuesday, once introduced as a bill and passed, would put the province in a position to overrule Edmonton’s mask bylaw, which remains in effect locally. The reforms would limit the powers a municipality has to enact public-health-related bylaws.

“It was a bit odd coming in here not wearing a mask, but it was also pretty awesome,” Premier Jason Kenney said in Red Deer.

Edmonton appears to be the only municipality in Alberta to retain a mask bylaw, and certainly the largest city to have one; Calgary dropped its municipal mask bylaw alongside the provincial mandate on Tuesday. (Under the provincial rules, masking remains in effect on transit and in health-care settings.)

Kenney said a patchwork of public-health policy will only feed confusion and division in the province, and eliminating municipal discretion would prevent “virtue signalling” from local councillors.

“We need to move forward together. There has been too much division over the COVID era in our society,” said Kenney. “We certainly shouldn’t allow political science to be a substitute for public-health science.”

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, speaking Tuesday afternoon, condemned the provincial announcement as “overreach” and warned it could have effects well beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting the province could use similar moves to interfere in decisions like development plans or smoking bylaws.

“It is about time that provinces recognize us as an equal order of government and do not meddle into the affairs where we can make our own decisions,” said Sohi.

Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University, described Edmonton’s mask policy as “all politics.”

“It’s not all politics by the Kenney government, right? I mean, the city councils of Calgary and Edmonton are playing their own political games,” said Bratt. “Now, maybe not so much when they first imposed it, but keeping it up is a way of showing opposition to the Kenney government…. So, when you talk about politics, there’s the politics of COVID and then there’s the overall politics where the big cities see themselves as a separate sphere, as a counteracting power to the provincial government. And we’ve seen that for a very long time in this province.”

While cities in Canada are “creatures” of provincial governments, Alberta’s Municipal Government Act, seemingly, gives local government wide latitude to pass bylaws regarding “the safety, health and welfare of people and the protection of people and property.”

Lorian Hardcastle, a health law expert at the University of Calgary, said the provincial government does have the authority to adjust the powers of municipalities, but argued it sets a “negative precedent” for the province to intervene when it doesn’t like what a municipality is doing.

“Public health is the purview of all levels of government, municipal, provincial and federal. And municipalities do a ton of important work in the area of public health. They deal with water fluoridation, they pass safety bylaws related to things like bike helmets, they pass bylaws dealing with cannabis and tobacco consumption,” Hardcastle said. Joe Ceci, the New Democrat critic for municipal affairs, said Kenney’s announcement is a “dramatic reversal from when the UCP not only allowed but forced local governments to make public health decisions.” Kenney’s announcement, which comes roughly one month after he hinted at such legislation in a Facebook Live, represents a complete shift from July 2020. At the time, when asked about why there was no province-wide mask mandate, Kenney said Alberta was too large and diverse for one-size-fits-all policy.

“We think these decisions are better taken locally,” Kenney said, at the time.

Now, he said, the argument his government is making is that public health is the province’s responsibility not a municipality’s, and that cities “improvising” health-care policy is “unhelpful and divisive.”

“We appreciate the care and concern of people in municipal government about these issues, and we’re always willing to listen to their views about public-health policy but we think as we go into this phase, getting our lives back to normal, it’s important that there be unity, clarity, consistency,” Kenney said.

Sohi argued that the cities have stepped in when the provincial government had dropped the ball during the pandemic, and that while health care is indeed a provincial responsibility, “protecting the well-being of Edmontonians is also a municipal responsibility.

“This is not about grandstanding. This is not about political support. This is about making good decisions based on the needs of local communities and listening to our health experts,” Sohi said.

Kenney’s announcement may be more or less moot, though, because it will take time to introduce and pass legislation modifying the Municipal Government Act, and Edmonton’s city bylaw will be reviewed by council on March 8. At that point, it may be revoked.

“The vast majority of Alberta’s municipalities have aligned with provincial public health policy,” said Scott Johnston, press secretary Municipal Affairs.

“Other Canadian provinces generally approach municipal bylaws in a similar way to Alberta. Municipalities are provided with broad authority to implement bylaws, with certain limitations. These limitations vary province to province; however, in all instances, provincial legislation trumps municipal bylaws.”

Provincial statistics show there are roughly 9,000 active cases across the province, with 1,224 in hospital and 83 people in intensive-care units; 3,912 Albertans have died from the virus.

— With additional reporting from the Calgary Herald

• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson

Alberta to force municipalities to lift mask bylaws

'We certainly shouldn't allow political science to be a

substitute for public health science,' Kenney says

BUT WE DO!
CBC News · 
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Health Minister Jason Copping announced Tuesday the province will introduce legislation as early as next week to prevent municipalities from enforcing their own face covering mandates. (Sam Martin/CBC, Jocelyn Boissonneault/CBC)

The Alberta government is moving to force all municipalities in the province to lift their COVID-19 mask bylaws. 

"Something that Albertans do not deserve right now is uncertainty and confusion," Premier Jason Kenney said at a news conference in Red Deer Tuesday.

"That is why I am announcing today that Alberta's government will introduce in the legislature, as soon as possible, amendments to the Municipal Government Act which will remove the abilities of municipalities to impose their own separate public health restrictions."

The Alberta government lifted its mask mandate as of March 1 as part of its general easing of COVID-19 restrictions. 

Calgary ended its face covering bylaw at the same time.

However, the City of Edmonton's face-covering bylaw remains in effect. Edmonton city council will hold a special meeting on March 8 to discuss its mask bylaw.

"A patchwork of separate policies across the province could just lead to greater division, confusion, enforcement difficulty with no compelling public health rationale," Kenney said.

Premier Jason Kenney says amendments to the municipal government act are needed to "prevent a patchwork of different policies across the province" that could "create unnecessary division and confusion amongst the public." 4:11

"That's why we have decided to move forward united with a clear, consistent approach that all Albertans can easily understand and comply with. 

"We certainly shouldn't allow political science to be a substitute for public health science."

Kenney said he hopes the amendments to legislation will be introduced in the legislature as early as next week.

'Far-reaching implications,' Sohi says

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi called Kenney's announcement "deeply disappointing" and said amending the Municipal Government Act could affect the way the city responds to the pandemic and other city operations.

"This has far-reaching implications," Sohi said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

"This overreach of power and abuse of authority under the MCA goes beyond the mask bylaw." 

It could restrict the city's autonomy in managing or restricting other activities, things like smoking and traffic bylaws, he said.

Sohi said he's consulting the city's legal department to see what options are available to oppose Kenney's move. 

Edmonton mayor Amarjeet Sohi described the decision to amend the Municipal Government Act as "deeply disappointing." 3:09

Edmonton's face-covering bylaw was put in place in August 2020, before the province mandated masks in indoor public places.

Near the beginning of the pandemic, Kenney's government encouraged individual municipalities to implement their own mask mandates.

Now, Sohi said, the province is treating the municipalities like children when it should be recognizing their efforts. 

"Particularly during the pandemic, municipalities in Alberta acted like adults to protect our citizens' well-being and looking after the health and safety of our citizens during these very difficult times. It's about time the province recognizes us as an equal order of government."

Cathy Heron, president of Alberta Municipalities, said Kenney's announcement is cause for concern

"Alberta Municipalities finds the provincial government's 'top-down' approach to be heavy-handed and unnecessary," Heron said in a news release Tuesday. 

The idea of amending the MGA was never formally discussed with Alberta Municipalities, she added.  

Potential Charter challenge

University of Alberta law professor, Eric Adams, said Kenney is leaning in the opposite direction of the traditional conservative government that tends to support local decision-making. 

"They certainly feel that way about federal regulation over provincial matters," he said. "So it's a bit curious in that respect." 

Adams said it'll be up to voters to decide whether this is a good direction for the UCP.

"We see the rather remarkable moment of a conservative government saying that local governments and diversity is now bad." 

Adams said the city could consider challenging the move under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"By taking away a power that cities have to keep their citizens safe, are you effectively at the provincial level making cities less safe? That's a question that may receive some constitutional attention in the months to follow," he said.  

Nearly all pandemic public health measures were lifted in the province as of Tuesday, as the Alberta government launched Step 2 of its reopening plan. 

On Saturday, Kenney announced that the phased approach to further lift restrictions — and adopt an endemic approach to COVID-19 —  would go ahead as planned.

Remaining school requirements, including cohorting, have been lifted, along with youth screening for entertainment and sports. 

Capacity limits on all large venues and entertainment venues, limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings and a mandatory work-from-home mandate have all been removed.

"We cannot live forever in fear and we are social beings," Kenney said.

"We are made to encounter one another, to see each other's faces, to smile, to embrace our family and friends, to regain the social lives that we have been so deeply impaired for the past two years and that is exactly what this plan allows us to do."

While the provincial mask mandate has been removed, face coverings are still required in some high-risk settings, including at Alberta Health Services facilities and continuing care sites, and on public transit.

Kenney has said the province is working toward a third stage of its reopening plan where people would no longer be required to isolate if they have COVID-19. That step would also see the lifting of COVID operational and outbreak protocols in continuing care facilities. 

The province is reviewing issues around the "waning protection of vaccines," the growing transmissibility of COVID-19, and the cost and inaccuracy of rapid antigen tests, Kenney said.

"We need to address the workforce challenges that we are facing, particularly in nursing homes and some rural hospitals in under-vaccinated areas, given that there is no longer a compelling policy rationale for proof of vaccination programs," he said.

There is no set date for Step 3 but Kenney has said each stage is contingent on hospitalization trends.

Provincial data shows non-ICU hospitalizations have been generally declining for over two weeks, while the number of ICU admissions has dropped.

"This does not mean that COVID-19 is not still a concern in Alberta," Health Minister Jason Copping said. "We will continue to monitor the impact of the virus and any other variants that make their way into our province.

"We will have to adjust to assessing risks and making decisions that are best for us and our families."

On Tuesday, the province reported 1,225 people were in hospital with COVID-19, including 80 in ICU. Both numbers were largely unchanged from the previous day's update. The province also reported an estimated 500 new cases of COVID-19. 

Due to technical issues the province did not provide a full COVID data update and did not report the number of deaths or the positivity rate. A full update is expected on Wednesday. 

  

City responds to Alberta’s loosening of COVID-19 restrictions

BY LETHBRIDGE HERALD ON MARCH 1, 2022.
 The City of Lethbridge is lifting restrictions on staff including the COVID-19 vaccination policy as the province moves into Phase 2 of its work to cut COVID measures.

Al Beeber – Lethbridge Herald

The City of Lethbridge is lifting restrictions on staff including the COVID-19 vaccination policy as the province moves into Phase 2 of its work to cut COVID measures.

On Tuesday, Alberta made numerous changes to provincial policy which included lifting the mask mandate except on municipal and intra-provincial public transit for Albertans 13 and older and in AHS-operated and contracted facilities as well as all continuing care facilities.

The Kenney government also lifted mandatory work-from-home requirements and capacity limits on all large venues.

Lethbridge People and Culture Manager Jason Elliott said Tuesday “effective today we’ve rescinded our COVID vaccination policy.”

He said the city is following all provincial health changes as they relate to mandatory work from home and other things affecting City employees.

“Throughout this pandemic, we’ve worked hard to comply with the provincial direction on any health measures that are put in place and it’s no different when the health measures are removed that we’re working hard to comply with those removal orders as well.”

Elliott said the City is doing so in “a very careful and methodical way. Just as we got into the putting measures in place, we’re moving very carefully in removing the measures to ensure the continued health and safety of our staff and the community, in general.”

For City staff, changes mean depending on the work situation, employees may start returning to work. The majority of them never left them, he said, with many of them customer service providers whose efforts in the past two years are important to recognize.

“The majority of staff who have been working remotely, a good portion of those are office related staff, that aren’t necessarily customer service forward facing and as a result, we’ll work on bringing those folks back over time subject to other practises that we put in place,” Elliot added.

With two years in this environment, the City has had time to look at what workplace needs may be “and we’re looking at a few folks anyway remaining working remotely where their job function permits.”

Masking will be optional except in Transit, Fire/EMS and at the airport.

“We will certainly encourage staff to do what they feel they need to do and want to do to ensure their own personal health and safety,” Elliott said.

“We do have a couple of operational areas that are under different rules and regulations such as our Fire/EMS folks follow under the AHS policies so those still remain in place and our airport staff are federally regulated so there will be some specific requirements that those staff are asked to comply with.” Those areas are in addition to the requirements for Transit staff.

The public is no longer required to mask so “therefore we won’t be requiring employees to mask. We will certainly support anybody in the public or staff who are comfortable in still wearing a mask.

“This will continue to be a dynamic situation and we will continue to monitor it,” Elliott added.

Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter


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Jason Kenney has a Russia problem

By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | March 1st 2022

The oil and gas industry Alberta Premier Jason Kenney holds up as ethical has some very unethical Russian money in it, writes columnist Max Fawcett. 
Photo via Alberta Newsroom / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

There are few things Jason Kenney loves more than talking about how ethical Alberta’s oil and gas industry is. But when it comes to actually doing something about those ethics, he seems far less interested. Witness the response this week to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from other oil- and gas-producing regions and the stark contrast between the decisions they’re making and the ones Alberta isn’t.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund announced it will immediately freeze any new investments in Russia and start divesting the $3.1 billion worth of Russian assets in its portfolio. British Petroleum went a step further, announcing it will unload its stake in Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil and gas company, at a substantial financial cost. According to Reuters reporters Ron Bousso and Dmitry Zhdannikov, “Rosneft accounts for around half of BP’s oil and gas reserves and a third of its production and divesting the 19.75 per cent stake will result in charges of up to US$25 billion, the British company said, without saying how it plans to extricate itself.”

In Alberta, Kenney has been busy tweeting about “dictator oil” and why dead pipeline projects like Keystone XL and Energy East should be revived. And while it’s impossible to miss the stench of his crass opportunism, there are also some notes of desperation in there if you sniff around a little more. After all, the oil and gas industry Kenney holds up as ethical has some very unethical Russian money in it.

Take Spartan Delta Corp., an Alberta oil and gas company with more than 60,000 barrels per day of production and one very powerful oligarch in its corner. According to Financial Post reporting, Russian billionaire Igor Makarov is — or at least was, as of March 2021 — Spartan’s largest shareholder, with his Switzerland-based ARETI Energy S.A. controlling 21 per cent of the company. Makarov, a former Olympic cyclist, previously founded Itera Oil and Gas Company, which was the largest privately held energy company in Russia until it was sold to Rosneft in 2013.

Makarov is hardly the only Russian oligarch involved in Canada’s oil and gas industry. The more troublesome connection for Kenney might be the one between Evraz PLC — the British-based steel company that’s a key supplier for both the Coastal GasLink pipeline and the Trans Mountain expansion — and the trio of Russians who control it. In 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury put Roman Abramovich, Evraz’s controlling shareholder, along with non-executive chairman Aleksandr Abramov and then-CEO Aleksandr Frolov, on its so-called “Putin list” of politicians and oligarchs who had benefited from their ties to the Russian president.

This is still flying under the radar for the most part in Canada, but it’s already big news in the U.K., where Abramovich owns the Premier League’s Chelsea football club. The image of a trio of Russian oligarchs owning the company that’s fabricating the steel for the Coastal GasLink pipeline and Trans Mountain is a very bad look, and it’s one Kenney should be highly attuned to. He knows how important LNG Canada, which depends on CGL for its feedstock, is to Alberta’s oil and gas industry. And he surely understands how this relationship could be used to slow its construction — or stop it entirely.

If Kenney wants to avoid having this blow up in his face, he needs to do more than tweet about pipelines. Yes, he gave a speech in the Alberta legislature calling on the federal government to freeze the assets of Russian oligarchs in Canada, but he did it at the same time reporters were in an embargoed news conference about the budget with provincial Finance Minister Travis Toews. Crucially, he has yet to repeat the message he delivered to the legislature on his social media channels.

Any and all involvement by Russian oligarchs in his province’s ostensibly ethical oil industry is a non-starter, and companies that have benefited from their money should own up to it if it’s still there. The involvement of an oligarch-owned steel company in the Coastal GasLink pipeline should never have been allowed to happen, and it should be rectified as quickly as possible. And if Kenney really wants to be ethical, his UCP should probably return the $4,243 maximum donation in 2021 from Don Archibald, who sits on Spartan Delta’s board of directors.

Oh, and if Alberta’s premier really wants to “defang Putin,” as he said in a recent tweet, then he should forget about new pipelines — which wouldn’t come into service until the end of the decade under even the most optimistic scenarios — and focus on helping Europe and other importing nations get off fossil fuels and onto renewables that Russia doesn’t control.

Alberta’s energy companies could even invest in projects in Europe that increase the continent’s energy security and reduce its carbon footprint. But that would cost real money, not cheap talk.


March 1st 2022

Max Fawcett Columnist @maxfawcett


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$4,094 rent for three bedrooms now meets Vancouver’s definition of “for-profit affordable housing”

by Carlito Pablo on March 1st, 2022


A Rositch Hemphill Architects rendering of the proposed rental development at 277-291 West 42nd Avenue.

The City of Vancouver grants many incentives for developers of “for-profit affordable rental housing”.

It’s a policy that started during the time of then Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision Vancouver council.

The program continues with the current council led by Mayor Kennedy Stewart.

City incentives include waivers on the payment of development cost levies or DCLs, which typically amount to millions of dollars.

To be exempted from paying DCLs, the starting rents should not exceed rates set by the city based on average rents for all residential units built in Vancouver since 2005.

For those on the West Side of the city, the rents are set higher by 10 percent compared to the East Side.

A city staff report on a rezoning application provides an update on what West Side rates now qualify as “for-profit affordable rental housing”.

Marcon Properties Ltd. filed the application on behalf of W 42 Properties E Nominee Corp. to rezone 277-291 West 42nd Avenue.

The development involves an 18-storey residential building with 211 rental units.

The staff report listed the maximum starting rents for West Side rentals that could qualify for a DCL waiver.

For three-bedroom units, that would be $4,094.

For two bedrooms, it’s $2,912; one bedroom, $2,224; and studio, $1,818.

The Marcon Properties project includes only two-bedroom, one-bedroom, and studio units.

The staff report indicated that the applicant has not applied for a DCL waiver, but can do so at a later time.

“If the DCL waiver is taken, the value of the City-wide DCL waiver on the residential floor area would be approximately $2,357,903,” the staff report stated.

The rezoning application is included in the public hearing agenda of city council on Thursday (March 3).

Here's how much it costs to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Metro Vancouver this March

Vancouver continues to see the most expensive rent in the country.
Elana Shepert
Elana Shepert
vancouver-downtown-view-2022
Metro Vancouver, BC rental prices have increased slightly this month over last but some neighbourhoods are lighter on your wallet in March 2022.Photo via Artie Photography (Artie Ng) / Getty Images

Residents of Metro Vancouver who are looking to score cheap rent may feel slightly deflated about this month's average apartment prices. 

While prices haven't taken an enormous leap this month over last, March prices have increased slightly for the region and the City of Vancouver continues to see the highest rent in Canada.

Metro Vancouver's rental prices for unfurnished, one-bedroom apartments have increased by $16 from $1,840 to $1,856 finds Liv.rent, a rental platform based in Vancouver and creates monthly rent reports for the region.

The City of Vancouver continues to see the highest rent of Canada's big cities, with average rents for unfurnished, one-bedroom apartments going for $2,039 in March. But report authors note that "most of the major price increases came from outside Vancouver itself, where rent prices remained largely the same this month. Areas like Langley, Coquitlam and North Vancouver saw comparatively significant gains this month, particularly for unfurnished, one-bedroom units."

Another B.C. city, Victoria, has the second-highest rent in the country, with average listings selling for $1,835. Toronto follows in third, with unfurnished units selling for an average of $1,772. Ottawa rounded out the top fourth, with rentals averaging $1,660. 

Across the region, there has been only one month out of the past six where prices declined on the aggregate, and that was a mere $4 drop from December to January.

average-rent-unfurnished-march-2022.jpg
Photo via liv.rent

Metro Vancouver rent by city/municipality

Vancouver residents spend an average of 32.17 per cent of their income on rent, which Liv.rent notes is just above what financial advisors recommend spending. 

Surrey is the least expensive city for unfurnished one-bedroom listings, at an average of just $1,449 this month. Langley follows, with average unfurnished one-bedroom units costing $1,641. New Westminster had the third-best market, with one-bedroom apartments averaging $1,712. 

North Vancouver has the most expensive unfurnished one-bedroom apartments this month, with rentals costing an average of $2,210. West Vancouver has the second-highest rentals, with one-bedrooms costing an average of $2,040 this month. Vancouver came third, with one-bedroom apartments costing $2,039.

municipality.jpg
Photo via liv.rent

This month, Downtown Vancouver is the most expensive neighbourhood to rent an unfurnished, one-bedroom unit, at $2,327. Mount Pleasant and Fairview aren’t far behind, at $2,227 and $2,216 respectively.

neighbourhood-listings.jpg
Photo via liv.rent

Where are the cheapest neighbourhoods to rent in Metro Vancouver? Have a look at this rental map to find the lowest price listings in the region.



Vancouver renters need to work 48 hours more per month to keep housing cost at 30 percent of income

by Carlito Pablo on February 28th, 2022

Real-estate company rennie notes that the rental vacancy rate in the Lower Mainland is a low 1.2 percent.CMHC

It’s not uncommon to hear about people working extra jobs to make their rent.

A Canada Mortage and Housing Corporation report calculates how much more hours an individual has to do over full-time employment to keep rent affordable.

By affordable, the CMHC explains that it’s a dwelling where a renter household spends no more than 30 percent of gross income on rent.

Full-time work is 37.5 hours per week or 150 hours a month.

CMHC’s calculation also assumes that an individual is earning the average wage in their respective urban centre, and lives in a two-bedroom apartment.

Hence, metropolitan areas in Canada that show more than 150 hours required for the 30 percent affordability measure “implies that the average rent is not affordable for a single average wage earner without another source of income, even if they work full time”.

Guess which urban centre topped CMHC’s list of unaffordable places?

It’s Metro Vancouver, with Victoria following second.

The CMHC list shows that residents in Greater Vancouver have to work a total of 198 hours per month to keep their rental cost affordable or at the 30 percent mark.

This means doing 48 hours more over the full-time employment of 150 hours.

In Victoria, it’s 162.6 hours per month.

In its report, CMHC noted that major urban centres in B.C. and Ontario are “above 150 hours, indicating significant rental affordability challenges in these markets”.

The agency noted that data in its report indicates that “rent growth has exceeded wage growth” in most urban centres in the country.

As for Metro Vancouver, CMHC stated that “lower-income households face significant challenges in finding units that they can afford”.

For instance, less than one-fourth or 25 percent of purpose-built market rental units are affordable to households earning less than $48,000 in annual income.

A yearly income of $48,000 means that with a 30 percent affordability measure, a household’s rent should be $1,200 per month.

Moreover, CMHC reported that only one in 1,000 units in Metro Vancouver is affordable to households with the lowest incomes.

“Most of the lowest-priced units are small and unsuitable for families,” CMHC noted.

The CMHC report was released in February 2022, and is based on data as of October 2021.

The agency reported that the average rent for a two-bedroom unit in a purpose-built rental building in Metro Vancouver is $1,824 per month as of last fall.

This means that rent in the region increased by 2.4 percent compared to October 2020.

Vancouver real estate company rennie took a look at the housing agency’s report, and highlighted a number of points.

In its own report, rennie noted that Metro Vancouver continues to have the lowest purpose-built rental vacancy rate among major Canadian markets at 1.2 percent.

The national vacancy rate is 3.1 percent.

The 2021 vacancy rate of 1.2 percent in Metro Vancouver represents a tightening from the previous 2.6 percent in 2020.

“The return of international students, elevated immigration flows, and robust domestic in-migration each played a role in the market’s tightening,” rennie stated in its report.

The Vancouver real estate company also noted that while rental rates were frozen for existing tenants, rates increased by 1.9 percent overall “due to both the turnover of units and the addition of new units to the existing stock”.

And as the vacancy rate in Metro Vancouver fell, the average monthly rent increased by 1.9 percent between 2020 and 2021 to $1,537.

“The average rent for studios rose by 3.4% (driven by the chase for affordability), while that of three-bedroom homes rose by 5.4% (driven by the chase for space),” rennie reported.

For more details, see table below.
CMHC table shows hours of work needed per month to keep monthly rent at 30 percent of gross income for a two-bedroom purpose-built rental apartment.


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