Singh ends Atlantic tour with promise of national rent control

HALIFAX — In a relentless, pounding Maritime rain, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh ended a two-day tour of Atlantic Canada with a visit to a rally in Halifax that he cut short due to the weather.

A few hundred people had braved the steady downpour to attend an “Elbows Up, Canada!” rally outside a convention centre, where they stood in puddles a few inches deep to listen to a band play covers of the Tragically Hip and Stan Rogers.

“Oh, my goodness,” one woman said breathlessly as she caught sight of Singh making his way through the crowd.

The NDP leader received a warm, if modest, welcome at the waterlogged event, where he shook hands, took selfies, listened to some music and got back on the campaign bus. He had planned to spend more time there, but his team, anticipating that turnout would be low due to the rain, decided to speed things along.

It was perhaps a fitting end to an understated trip, which included stops in St. John’s and Halifax. There were no big rallies or thunderous applause, no heckling or animosity. It was, in a word, uneventful.

Earlier in the day, Singh pledged to implement national rent control to protect tenants from unfair rent increases, saying the federal government needs to “step up” to support those who are struggling.

“People are talking about how much their rent is costing them, how it takes up sometimes more than half of their income,” he said at an announcement in Halifax. “And that is wrong.”

The NDP says housing and rental prices have doubled since 2015. Rentals.ca estimates the average asking rent in Canada was $2,088 per month in February.

Singh said a government led by him would make rent control policies a condition for getting federal housing money.

“If any province or municipality wants federal investments … to build homes, they have to put in place laws that protect renters,” he said.

Rent regulations vary widely by province. Ontario, for example, has a system of rent control that limits rent increases on units built before Nov. 15, 2018. In Alberta, there are no limits on annual rent increases.

The NDP says rent control could take various forms, including rent increase guidelines or vacancy regulation. The party says it would pass a renter’s bill of rights to enshrine in law the obligation to tie federal housing funds to tenant-protection measures.

A survey by Royal LePage released last year found that 53 per cent of Canadian renters were paying more than 30 per cent of their income on rent.

“Right now, people need some hope,” Singh said. “I want to give you some hope.”

Singh made his pledge alongside his candidate in Halifax, Lisa Roberts, who is trying to win a seat the NDP held for nearly two decades until the Liberals swept Atlantic Canada in 2015.

Roberts, a former member of the provincial legislature, said she was the NDP’s housing critic the first time she became aware that someone in her constituency was sleeping in a tent, less than 10 years ago.

“At that time, I had folks calling my office and saying, ‘You have to do something,’” she said. But now, she added, people have gotten used to seeing tents around the city.

At Roberts’ campaign office on Saturday, canvasser Asia Urquhart, a 16-year-old high school student, said the housing crisis is one of the main reasons she got involved in the NDP campaign. “I want to go to university and I want to study, but I know that it’s all so expensive right now,” she said.

The NDP is currently polling far behind the Liberals and Conservatives nationally and is not projected to win any seats in Atlantic Canada.

But in a spot of bright news, Singh announced Sunday that Ruth Ellen Brosseau, a former Quebec MP who became the face of the so-called “orange wave” in 2011, is attempting a political comeback in her riding of Berthier-Maskinongé.

Brosseau lost her riding to the Bloc Québécois in 2019, when the NDP was reduced to a single seat in Quebec, but is one of the party’s best-known figures in the province.

During a Sunday evening appearance on Quebec talk show “Tout le monde en parle,” Singh referred to Brosseau as a “star candidate,” and made a pitch for Quebecers to send more NDP MPs to the House of Commons.

But when pressed to say whether this would be his last campaign, Singh was equivocal.

“Honestly, I’m targeting the election campaign in front of me,” he said. “We have several weeks left.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 6, 2025.

— With files from Christopher Reynolds in Montreal and Catherine Morrison in Ottawa.

Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press