在加拿大
一名华人地产经纪在出租自己位于Vaughan的房子时广告里写了要求租客完全接种疫苗，不料这个要求遭到两名律师质疑。
图源：yorkregion.com
据yorkregion.com 报道，该出租广告刊登在在torontomls.net网站上，其中列出了出租要求，包括租客至少租赁一年、提交工作信函、当前工资单和推荐信等，该网站只有房地产经纪人才可以登录。但是除了这些通常要求外，还有一条可能有冒犯性的句子，那就是“租户需要完全接种疫苗”。
yorkregion.com 联系到发布信息的房地产经纪人Glen Chen时，他说是他就是房东，他不会住在这处位于Camino Drive房子里，而是将房子全部出租。
Glen Chen说，每个房东都有自己不同的要求，你可以要求租客不吸烟，不养宠物。至于要求接种疫苗他不认为这与其他要求有什么不同。
Glen Chen补充说，这个房子已经租出去了。但是他最终没有要求租户提供接种疫苗的证明。
房产律师Caryma Sa'd 说，房地产经纪人说房东可以要求任何数量的出租先决条件是正确的，但是违反了人权法或违法的要求是不行的，而这种接种疫苗的要求很可能是非法的。比如有些人由于医疗原因无法接种疫苗，对这些人来说这就是一种潜在的歧视。
她说，目前要求潜在租户接种疫苗是房东和房地产经纪人不断要求人们提供越来越多的私人信息已成为一种趋势。我知道租客为了竞争，会向潜在的房东提供很多信息，但是这种趋势并不适合我，这是一个令人担忧的局面。虽然要求接种疫苗不是显而易见的非法行为，但有这种可能。
加拿大公民自由协会的律师Cara Zwibel表示，问题不在于房东是否要求更多证明，而是关于人权。房东的这些行动可能违反人权法。她说，在基本人权层面和社会层面，房东是否有权因为租客没有接种疫苗而拒绝提供住房？我认为当然不行。像这个房东本来也不打算和租客住在同一个房子里，很难理解准为什么要租户提交疫苗状态证明。
Cara Zwibel表示，如果房东有免疫缺陷，我还可以理解，先不管这是否合法，至少我可以看到一个合理的理由。
上周，《多伦多星报》报道说一位女士失去了她租的地下室公寓，就因为房东对她在家中接待已经接种了疫苗的客人表示不满。不过这个房东确实此前提出一项要求，即不得接待哪怕是接种了疫苗访客。
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http://www.healthing.ca/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus/can-a-landlord-require-covid-19-vaccination-from-a-renter
Can a landlord require COVID-19 vaccination from a renter?
"Sorry, it's not going to work if you are not vaccinated. I have to put the safety of my family first."
Ottawa Citizen7 minute readAugust 3, 2021By: Taylor Blewett
Sixteen days before he was supposed to move in to his new rental, Eric Foucault’s son got a text from his landlord asking about his COVID-19 vaccination status.
The Algonquin College student had viewed the place three weeks prior, a room in a basement he’d be living in with two other renters, with a kitchen, bathroom and some other common space shared between them. The landlord and his wife lived upstairs, with their own kitchen and bathroom and a different entrance. They would do some cleaning of the renters’ area, but the renters wouldn’t have access to the landlord’s living space.
On the day of the viewing, the landlord went over the house rules and a verbal agreement was reached. Foucault’s son paid a deposit, got a receipt from the landlord and was all set to move in Aug. 1. No mention was made of a COVID-19 vaccination requirement.
Then came the July 16 inquiry. According to a screenshots shared with this newspaper, the student explained that he hadn’t yet received the vaccine and was still undecided about doing so.
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“Sorry, it’s not going to work if you are not vaccinated,” the landlord replied. “I have to put the safety of my family first. Please come by and get your refund.”
At a time when university campuses, festivals, and business operators have already announced COVID-19 vaccination requirements, and countless other entities are undoubtedly considering them, Foucault’s situation raises some big questions for people who rent — and rent out — homes.
Can landlords ask someone to reveal their COVID-19 vaccination status, if they want to become a tenant? Can landlords introduce vaccination requirements for existing tenants?
Foucault doesn’t think his son’s would-have-been landlord was acting in line with the law, and says he came to this newspaper about the situation because he doesn’t want other students to go through the same thing. (This newspaper agreed to withhold his son’s name over concerns about potential backlash, including securing future housing).
“He’s a good kid, he doesn’t mean (any) harm by not getting his vaccine. He’s just undecided,” said Foucault. “And you know how many people in the world right now are just not ready to get it?”
Whatever their reasons might be, some 17 per cent of Ottawa’s adult population has yet to receive any dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 29 per cent are not fully vaccinated. And even for those with vaccine protection, there’s likely a sizeable portion who would prefer not disclose that medical information to a landlord.
So what if they’re told they have to, in order to secure a tenancy?
Among the lawyers this newspaper surveyed, there wasn’t a consistent opinion on legality in this scenario. At least one thought it probable that landlords can’t even ask for vaccination status.
Under Canadian privacy law (specifically, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act), “a landlord needs to have a legitimate purpose for collecting personal information such as whether someone is vaccinated, and that purpose has to be what a ‘reasonable person would consider … appropriate in the circumstances’” said Ottawa landlord and tenant lawyer Ryan Deacon, quoting from PIPEDA.
“I’m having a hard time coming up with a good reason to ask. Any purpose regarding taking appropriate measures against COVID-19 would fall flat. Landlords should be acting as if non-vaccinated people are using common areas, since tenants are allowed to have guests or occupants in their units.”
Others believed landlords are able to inquire about whether a prospective tenant is vaccinated. Among them was John Dickie, partner at Dickie & Lyman Lawyers LLP and chair of the Eastern Ontario Landlord Organization.
A landlord could even ask said tenant for proof, said Dickie, and decline to rent to them if they refused to answer or weren’t vaccinated. “Generally,” Dickie added, as a caveat.
The room for exception, he went on to explain, comes thanks to the Ontario Human Rights Code, which prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on one or more “protected grounds” — age, ethnic origin, disability and others — in a number of areas, including housing.
According to Deacon, who represents both landlords and tenants, refusing to rent to an unvaccinated person could be what’s known as “constructive discrimination.” Some people can’t get a COVID-19 shot because of heath reasons (discrimination due to disability, in his eyes), while others, such as a recent refugee, might be unvaccinated because they haven’t had time to get a shot (and thus, there’s discrimination based on citizen status).
“A landlord does not have to intend to discriminate, it can simply be the knock-on effect of a policy,” said Deacon. “A classic example is an employer who requires all employees to work on Saturday without exception, which wouldn’t work for someone whose religion requires no work on that day.”
The Ontario Human Rights Commission — essentially, the advocacy component of the provincial human rights system — said housing providers have to make accommodations for people who might not be able to get vaccinated for reasons such as disability “unless doing so would amount to an undue hardship based on cost or health and safety.”
The Commission also noted that the scope of the code’s protections, which could be engaged if potential tenants were able to show that a proof-of-vaccination requirement adversely affected them because of a protected ground, “would be dependent on all of the facts.”
The calculus around health and safety risks would likely change, they noted, for congregate and non-congregate housing, as well as shared personal residences.
In fact, the code doesn’t apply if you have to share a bathroom or kitchen with the owner or owner’s family. Same goes for Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act. And that’s a game-changer when it comes to implementing a vaccination requirement for existing tenants.
For RTA tenancies — which most traditional rental situations in Ontario would fall under — once a landlord and tenant have a tenancy agreement (written, oral or implied), the landlord can’t just decide they no longer want to rent to someone because they’re unvaccinated, explained Michael Thiele, a partner at Quinn Thiele Mineault Grodzki LLP.
“The policy underlying the Residential Tenancies Act is housing in perpetuity,” he said.
In other words: there’s no way a landlord can end your tenancy, unless it’s for one of the “for-cause” reasons in the RTA, or one of the few “no-fault” reasons.
“Nowhere in there is — I don’t want to rent to anymore because I don’t like you, I don’t want to rent you anymore because you’re unvaccinated, I don’t want to rent to you anymore because I just don’t want to be a landlord anymore. None of that is possible,” said Thiele.
The situation is different, though, if the rental arrangement isn’t covered by the RTA. If a homeowner was renting a room to someone who was required to share a kitchen or bathroom with them and who refused to get vaccinated, that landlord could usually end the rental if they wanted to, said Dickie.
It’s unclear whether the arrangement between Foucault’s son and his erstwhile landlord would be considered RTA-exempt. This newspaper spoke to the landlord, who declined to comment for this story but did say that he considered it a roommate situation, and there was shared kitchen area because they use the same laundry, which is located there.
If a renter thinks they’re dealing with an RTA tenancy, but the landlord does not, Dickie said the renter can apply to the Landlord Tenant Board for the remedy they’re seeking, and the first issue considered will be whether the RTA applied to the tenancy. And the landlord, according to Thiele, would have the burden of proving the exemption.
In the world of RTA tenancies, lawyers interviewed could only identify one avenue through which landlords could (legally) require vaccination from current tenants. And none were particularly convinced it would work.
Theoretically, a landlord could try to use a N5 notice to end a tenancy for substantial interference with the landlord or another tenant’s reasonable enjoyment of the residential complex, or an N7 for seriously impairing the safety of another person in the residential complex.
They’d face some difficult questions, trying to make this case.
“Why the COVID vaccine only? Are they going to ask other kinds of vaccines as well? Are they going to ask other kinds of medical information? Like I think it opens up the door for this slippery slope,” said Charles Ng, a staff lawyer at Community Legal Services of Ottawa.
If a tenant were to receive one of these hypothetical N5 or N7 notices, they don’t have to move out. The landlord could apply to the Landlord Tenant Board for an eviction order, and the board would schedule a hearing where the landlord would have to prove what they were claiming in the notice. The expected outcome?
“If I was guessing, there’s no way under the sun that the board is going to order tenants to be vaccinated,” said Thiele. “It would be earth-shattering.”
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