Sonia is a social worker in Alberta. Her sister Elizabeth is a registered nurse. As licensed professionals they are accountable to standards set by provincial regulatory bodies. If a patient believes Sonia or Elizabeth have done something wrong, they can submit a complaint to the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW) or the College of Registered Nurses of Alberta (CARNA). The college would then investigate the complaint and could, under circumstances of gross misconduct, prevent Sonia and Elizabeth from practicing their professions. The details of the investigation would ultimately be made available on the colleges’ websites where malefactors are named and punishments publicly disclosed.

One of Sonia and Elizabeth’s guilty pleasures is to open a bottle of wine and read through the results of these investigations.

“Oof, look at this one! Lorna had her license pulled for sleeping with a client!”

“Oh my god, Jeff got busted for diverting hydromorphone! Again!”

“Jeez, look at this one—who would steal from someone on disability?”

It makes sense for people in these occupations to be held accountable to certain ethical standards. There should be significant consequences for misconduct in care professions. If a social worker or a nurse behaves poorly people under their care could suffer.

But nurses and social workers aren’t the only ones with this heightened level of responsibility. Lots of jobs can cause serious harm if done unethically.

A vocation with some of the greatest potential for harm is landlord. A landlord who withholds a security deposit, lets mold grow in the bathroom, or conducts a contrived eviction can ruin a tenant’s finances and health—they can even press vulnerable people into homelessness. In the most extreme cases, unaddressed fire risks for example, landlords can kill their tenants.

Despite the documented harm caused by their bad behaviour, landlords across Canada have very little accountability. There is certainly nothing comparable to the various licensing bodies that monitor social workers and nurses. From the federal and provincial perspectives, all you need to become a landlord is an appropriately zoned piece of property and a lease agreement you’ve downloaded from the internet. In many places, including Winnipeg, Calgary, Regina, and Edmonton, landlords are not required to register with any level of government at all.

Over the past few years some municipalities have been trying to change this. Vancouver now requires landlords to get a rental business licence. Other cities have developed landlord registries. These solutions have diverse functionality with some operating as little more than incomplete lists of rental units. In Toronto, for example, single-family homes and most multiplexes are exempt from the registry. Similarly, Montréal’s registry covers only 35 percent of the rental market.

It’s unclear how much enforcement power municipal business licensing and registration have over landlords. Montréal’s registry does contain information about whether buildings are up to code or have pests and the city has said it is prepared to fine non-compliant landlords. Halifax’s registry requires landlords to provide maintenance plans for their buildings and declares that “inspections will be conducted” when violations are suspected. But the explicit purpose of these registries is to “provide the municipality with a clearer picture of the rental landscape,” and not to set standards of practice among landlords.

The only meaningful accountability tool that exists for landlords is the legal system, and it is known to be structurally biased against tenants. Landlord and tenant boards, the front line of legal disputes between tenants and landlords, are notoriously imbalanced in favour of landlords. Moreover, when tenants are able to overcome these obstacles and secure a fair hearing before a court, the Crown is unable to eject bad landlords from the housing system. A judge might issue fines or even prison time, but the justice system is incapable of interfering with the landlord’s right to rent out their property.

I reached out to several provincial landlord tenant boards and asked under what circumstance a landlord might have their right to rent out their property revoked. They all said the same thing: it would not happen. One representative from the Ontario LTB was flabbergasted by the question, saying “I never heard of such a thing.”

No matter how odious, dangerous, or destructive a landlord is, nothing can stop them from taking on tenants. Landlords may be required to meet basic habitability requirements, and in extreme cases one of their buildings might be shut down due to noncompliance, but no amount of bad behaviour will result in a landlord losing their right to be a landlord.

This reality was made clear in the starkest possible terms last year when shocking accusations of sexual exploitation by landlords was raised by Councillor Rowena Santos in Brampton, Ontario. Soon after Santos sounded the alarm Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown called on the federal government to investigate, describing the landlords, who demanded sexual favours in exchange for reduced rent, as a “cancer” within the city.

Although the heinous behavior of these rentiers prompted local officials to demand federal action, there was never any effort made to prevent these landlords from continuing to rent their property to vulnerable people in the community. Some councillors did suggest referring the case to Brampton’s Residential Rental Licensing Pilot Program, but the maximum fine it’s able to levy amounts to just $1,200.

The fact is that this country does not have a revokable ‘landlord license,’ there are no publicly administered websites where prospective tenants can review investigations into formal complaints brought against landlords, and there is no jurisdiction that holds landlords accountable to standards commensurate with their ability to cause harm. While it is true that criminal activity may bring a landlord before a court (and perhaps even lead to jail time) there is no mechanism to prevent chronically abusive or criminal landlords from continuing to exploit tenants.

The time has come for this to change.

Some may argue that requiring landlords to be in good standing with a provincial regulatory body infringes on their property rights. This is entirely facile. Under no other circumstances do we allow people to cause harm to others simply because they own property. If I run someone over with my car I am not released from responsibility because of my status as the owner of the car. In fact, if I am found negligent my license may be revoked because of the danger the usage of my property poses to others. Why shouldn’t a similar logic apply to landlords? Why should ownership of a rental property come with a permission slip to cause harm?

The time has come to create meaningful accountability for landlords. Their ability to cash rent cheques must be contingent on their adherence to both the law and ethical standards determined by the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate. Landlords who fail to live up to these expectations should have their right to collect rent revoked. Offenders should be compelled to sell any occupied rental properties as a public safety measure. Landlords who refuse to comply should have their rental properties seized and converted into public housing.

Just as patients ought to feel assured their nurses and social workers are behaving ethically, tenants deserve to feel confident their landlords are not engaging in exploitative, unsafe, or criminal behaviour.

James Hardwick is a writer and community advocate. He has over ten years experience serving adults experiencing poverty and houselessness with various NGOs across the country.