Child as a Party to a Proceeding (Tenant)

Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, SO 2006, c 17

1 The purposes of this Act are to provide protection for residential tenants from unlawful rent increases and unlawful evictions, to establish a framework for the regulation of residential rents, to balance the rights and responsibilities of residential landlords and tenants and to provide for the adjudication of disputes and for other processes to informally resolve disputes. 2006, c. 17, s. 1.

2 (1) In this Act,

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“person”, or any expression referring to a person, means an individual, sole proprietorship, partnership, limited partnership, trust or body corporate, or an individual in his or her capacity as a trustee, executor, administrator or other legal representative; (“personne”)

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“subtenant” means the person to whom a tenant gives the right under section 97 to occupy a rental unit; (“sous-locataire”)

“tenant” includes a person who pays rent in return for the right to occupy a rental unit and includes the tenant’s heirs, assigns and personal representatives, but “tenant” does not include a person who has the right to occupy a rental unit by virtue of being,

(a) a co-owner of the residential complex in which the rental unit is located, or

(b) a shareholder of a corporation that owns the residential complex; (“locataire”)

The Law Society of Upper Canada v. Chiarelli, 2014 ONCA 391 (CanLII)

[29] Although the appellant may be considered a landlord for the purposes of certain aspects of the Residential Tenancies Act, this does not change the fact that he is providing legal services to a third party. Any obligations or rights flowing from proceedings before the Board, to the extent that they impact on the appellant at all (e.g. orders under ss. 204 or 205 of the Residential Tenancies Act to pay monies or costs to a tenant), are derivative in nature. They flow from the fact that the appellant is providing services to the property owner. If the appellant were not acting for a client in any given case, he would not have any interest in the proceeding and thus no standing.

[30] Statutes are to be interpreted harmoniously. It is presumed that the legislature spoke with one voice and did not intend to contradict itself: Ruth Sullivan, Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes, 5th ed. (Markham: LexisNexis Canada Inc., 2008), at p. 412.

[39] I find that the appellant has no right to self-represent before the Board. The appeal is, therefore, dismissed, save for an amendment to the terms of the injunction to limit the prohibition contained therein to an order prohibiting the appellant from appearing before the Board on behalf of his clients or on behalf of himself, save for situations where he is an owner of a property subject to a proceeding before the Board.