Bill No. 154 - Tourist Accommodations Registration Act. - 2nd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : I just want to rise and say one thing about this bill, which is, I would echo most of the comments so far. I think it's good to have a handle on the number of Airbnbs in the province, to understand the impact of the sharing economy, but I would like to be clear that I don't think this bill has any impact at all on the housing situation. I say that because when this bill went through in 2019, we discussed having an exemption for people who rent rooms in their homes, and the logic was that it's hard to afford a home in Nova Scotia.

Remember, that was 2019. In 2019, it was hard to afford to purchase a home, so it made sense that some people might need to rent out a room to help defray the cost of that home. There was no way that that would impact the housing stock because it's not taking an unoccupied home that could be rented long-term and renting it short-term. It's renting a room or a part of a home.

Since then - I can't remember the exact statistic and I'll table it later, but I think it's since 2020 the average median price of a home, at least in HRM, has gone up 69 per cent. I would submit that it's even harder. It would be common sense to say that it's harder to afford a home now. Speaking for myself, I suppose, I would say that I think it's good for people to register, but I don't have a problem with people renting a room in their home.

I think when people talk about the deleterious impact of the sharing economy on housing, and I think when the tourism industry - and hopefully we'll hear about this at Law Amendments - speaks about the challenge of Airbnb to their business model, it's not people renting rooms in homes. It's people purchasing, often several, properties and then converting those into what I think is known as ghost hotels, essentially.

That's where it makes a lot of sense, to understand where those are, to charge a registration fee, and to level the playing field, which I think is the request from the tourism association. I just want to echo my colleague and encourage the department to take further action, in fact, on the sharing economy, because this is fine, but this isn't it, in terms of housing. I think in terms of housing, what we need to understand is how many homes that would otherwise be long-term residences for residents of Nova Scotia are instead being used functionally as hotels, but without being charged all the things that hotels are charged.

That's the question before us. That's what we tried to deal with when the Act was amended in 2019, which was not dealt with well, which we said at the time and we'll say again. I think it's not even really being addressed here, so I won't criticize this bill, but I will encourage the government to address this, because it's really important.

I would go so far as to say that would include - I don't understand why the fee for a multi-unit rental Airbnb would be waived because of the pandemic. I think we've seen that people continue to come here and stay in hotels and stay in Airbnbs. That's revenue I'm sure the government could use, hopefully towards housing. Anyway, just to say this bill is fine, but it doesn't address the housing issue. I actually don't think it directly addresses most of the issues that the tourism industry has brought to the table, and I hope that the government will act on those issues.