Quebec government worsens renovation difficulties

In his budget speech, the Minister of Finance announced an injection of $4.5 billion in infrastructure work. In the context of scarcity and exploding prices for both construction labour and materials, this will only worsen the situation for the thousands of rental buildings where various renovation work needs to be done, notably to ensure that the units are safe, functional, and available CORPIQ said.

The large public works projects that are added to the new housing construction boom are monopolizing workers' time and making the situation untenable for the maintenance of the housing stock where tenants live.

CORPIQ recently received a refusal from the Minister of Labour, Jean Boulet, to ease the aged R-20 law that governs construction labour, but it will not be satisfied with his disappointing response. The government must absolutely exclude existing rental buildings from this restrictive law. The regulated workforce has no interest in the work projects that landlords must do, and even if it did, it would cost far too much to keep rents affordable anyway.

A lawsuit initiated by CORPIQ will begin this week in Quebec City against the CCQ, which is claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars from building managers, member of CORPIQ, over work that, according to the CCQ, should have been carried out in accordance with the labour conditions prescribed by law R-20.