Say what?

[cpirate]

A quote heard today on CBC Radio regarding a human rights complaint about migrant farm workers: "they're not tenants, they merely pay a fee in order to be allowed to live there".

Er, maybe you'd want to check your definitions a bit?

Comments

[moomlyn]

You can't be a tenant (or make a human rights complaint) unless you're legally human - and for that you need some kind of passport.

[cpirate]

As far as I know, they're totally legal migrant farm workers. This isn't to say that they'll necessarily be treated as such. But I'm mostly just shocked by the sheer gall of that quote.

[msh]

As far as I understand not everyone who pays money to be allowed to live in a someone else's property becomes a tenant. For example, if you live in a hotel your are not a tenant and you don't have landlord/tenant contract with the hotel owner. A tenancy is a lease of a property. Think of the difference between leasing and renting a car

[cpirate]

As it happens, Quebec law basically does state that if you legally live there and you don't own it, you're a tenant. This doesn't apply to hotels in general because you have another home to which you're returning, but I gather that if you don't actually have another home, then you really are a tenant at the hotel.

Now of course, getting this applied in practice can be tricky. But I was just struck by the flimsiness of the excuse, particularly where this fight is probably going to mainly be played out in the media.

[msh]

Interesting. So if I have a home and rent an apartment for my secret mistress, I'm not a tenant? If I live in a hotel and this is my only residence, I become a tenant and from now on if I stop paying, the hotel has to give me notice, apply for eviction and so on?