Posts by Claudia Pedrero

The ‘right’ to cannabis in housing

October 25th, 2018 by Claudia Pedrero

This article was first published on rabble.ca

With the arrival of legal cannabis last week, Canadians are now free to consume and — in some provinces — cultivate cannabis at home. This new freedom has come with many questions around the extent to which governments and property owners can restrict consumption. Does cannabis legalization mean that people have a protected right to smoke and grow cannabis? What about rules that seek to limit this freedom?

These questions cropped up in human rights cases across the country once medical cannabis became legal. With the legalization of cannabis, it is worth looking at how restrictions on recreational cannabis interact with the obligations of service providers such as landlords to accommodate medical cannabis users.

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Province plans to make legislative changes that will help transitional housing providers

May 26th, 2017 by Claudia Pedrero

Bill 124, the proposed Rental Fairness Act, 2017 passed its third reading in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario last week. This bill has received significant attention in the past few weeks for the important changes it could make to the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (the RTA).

The press has focussed on the fact that Bill 124, if passed into law, will increase rent controls to include units built after 1991 and require landlords who want to take over a unit for their own use to compensate a tenant or provide them an alternate unit.

However, there is another important change to the RTA which deserves attention: those providing transitional housing and rehabilitative or therapeutic services will be exempt from the RTA for tenancies that lasts four years or less.

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Employers take note: Make sure your employees’ termination clauses don’t exclude benefits and severance pay under the Employment Standards Act, 2000.

May 16th, 2017 by Claudia Pedrero

With the provincial government looking at instituting a minimum wage of $15.00/hour, the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (the ESA) is generating headlines this week.

But one of the biggest pitfalls for employers in the ESA made judicial news at few weeks ago: the Ontario Court of Appeal further clarified employers’ obligations when terminating employees in its decision Wood v Fred Deeley Imports Ltd. (Wood) released earlier this year.

The important take-away from this case is: if the termination clause in an employment contract excludes even one obligation under the ESA the entire termination clause is unenforceable. As a result, the employee becomes entitled to common law reasonable notice discussed in more detail below. The employment clause will also be void even if the employer meets the ESA obligations that were excluded from the termination clause.

Continue reading “Employers take note: Make sure your employees’ termination clauses don’t exclude benefits and severance pay under the Employment Standards Act, 2000.”

CRA Consultation Panel Releases its Report on Charities Political Activities

May 10th, 2017 by Claudia Pedrero

The Consultation Panel on the Political Activities of Charities (the Consultation Panel) has now released its Report recommending changes to how charities should be regulated in Canada.

Earlier this year, we blogged about the Canada Revenue Agency’s (the CRA’s) consultation process on charities’ political activities.

Our firm also submitted its recommendations to the CRA advocating for changes that would allow charities to effectively participate in public policy debates.

In our submissions we took the position that the CRA’s current rules restricting charities’ political activities make their political role ineffective despite the fact charities are uniquely positioned to advocate for the public interest and many are experts in their fields.

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How inclusionary zoning stands to grow affordable housing in Ontario

February 23rd, 2017 by Claudia Pedrero

This article was first published on rabble.ca

On December 6, 2016, the Ontario legislature passed the Promoting Affordable Housing Act, 2016, expanding the powers of Ontario municipalities to implement “inclusionary zoning,” a requirement for developers to build affordable units when constructing new market‑rate housing. The Act changes the provincial Planning Act, RSO 1990, c.P.13, by obliging some municipalities, while making it optional for others, to adopt inclusionary zoning policies. A discussion on the adoption of the Act and debates surrounding its inclusionary zoning provisions can be found on our firm’s blog.

These legislative changes come years after rising housing prices, lagging income levels and dwindling federal and provincial funding have created an increasing need for new affordable housing in Ontario. Significantly, according to the 2017 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, over the past 13 years Toronto’s house prices have nearly doubled compared to household incomes, thus making market-rate housing unaffordable for an increasingly larger portion of the population. The same study also notes that nearby areas such as Hamilton and Oshawa are becoming unaffordable for middle‑income residents.

What inclusionary zoning will look like on the ground remains unanswered. By extension, it is difficult to predict whether the changes will have a significant impact on the need for affordable housing in Ontario. For example, it is unclear what an “affordable unit” means under the new changes and how affordable units will have to be priced. However, the province is slated to release regulations in early 2017 that will hopefully give some meat to its approach and allow municipalities to develop their policies and bylaws. Continue reading “How inclusionary zoning stands to grow affordable housing in Ontario”

Landlords and tenants to fight out right to grow medical marijuana under new regulations

October 27th, 2016 by Lauren Blumas and Claudia Pedrero

This article was first published on rabble.ca

The new Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulation (ACMPR), which came into force on August 24, 2016, has changed how patients with prescriptions for medical marijuana can get their medicine. The ACMPR came to be, in part, as a response to a Federal Court ruling that the former Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) violated the Charter because it prohibited personal production of medical cannabis. For many medicinal cannabis users, the cost of accessing through the channels allowed under the MMPR were simply unaffordable.

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