The Overhead: Tracking Evictions Across Canada

Evictions are a problem for renters across the country. As we explored in the last episode: part of tackling the housing crisis requires improving "security of tenure" for the many people who rent their homes. But evictions are difficult to quantify. Many of them are not reported. And each province has different processes, legislations, and tribunals surrounding evictions and landlord/tenant disputes. How do we get a picture of evictions across the country? Alexandra Flynn is an assistant professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. She's been tracking eviction data from province to province. We asked her about her findings. And David Wachsmuth an associate professor at McGill University's School of Urban Planning and Canadian Research Chair in Urban Governance. He's been conducting meta analysis and qualitative research on evictions in Canada. He tells us a startling fact about people who experience homelessness after an eviction. What can we learn about eviction policy by comparing provinces and municipalities?