By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton
Case Commented On: AG obo ZG v FirstService Residential Alberta Ltd, 2022 AHRC 38 (CanLII)
PDF Version: Residential Tenancies, Mental Disabilities, and Evictions
This case concerns a challenge to an eviction from a rented condominium – a challenge claiming the eviction discriminated against a tenant’s child on the ground of mental disability. There is something wrong with this decision to confirm the Director’s dismissal of the tenant’s complaint. The conclusion that there was no reasonable basis in the evidence to proceed to a hearing does not follow from the facts that are recounted. This may simply be because all the relevant facts are not set out in the decision. But based on the facts that are summarized, the most plausible –perhaps the only possible – inference is that the tenancy was terminated because the tenant’s son had a mental disability that the landlord, building manager, and other residents of the condominium building thought meant the son would endanger them or their property in the future, and no accommodation was possible.