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Administrative - Admin Law as Second-Class Law?. Miller Estate v. Arguelles
In Miller Estate v. Arguelles (Ont CA, 2026) the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed a tenant's RTA appeal, this respecting s.48 ['Notice, landlord personally, etc., requires unit' (personal possession)] and s.71.1 ['Application based on certain notice' (supporting affidavit)] issues.
Here the court summarizes the purpose of the RTA, and make useful comments regarding the (at least initially intended) nature of administrative law:c. Remedial purposes of the RTA
[23] The stated purposes of the RTA are found in s. 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. [24] In White, at para. 10, this court described the overarching remedial purpose of the RTA, as follows:The [RTA] is remedial legislation designed to redress the imbalance of power between landlords and tenants. It removes leases from the ordinary contract law principles that would otherwise govern and establishes extensive statutory rights for tenants. The [RTA] enjoys primacy over all other legislation, save the Ontario Human Rights Code, and the parties are prohibited from waiving or limiting the protection the [RTA] provides. [25] As remedial legislation with a tenant protection focus, the RTA must receive a fair, large and liberal construction that will best ensure its protective purpose is attained, resolving any ambiguity in favour of its tenant protection objects: Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority v. Godwin (2002), 2002 CanLII 41961 (ON CA), 161 O.A.C. 57 (C.A.), at para. 19; Price v. Turnbull’s Grove Inc., 2007 ONCA 408, 85 O.R. (3d) 641, at paras. 26 and 44; The Law Society of Upper Canada v. Chiarelli, 2014 ONCA 391, 120 O.R. (3d) 561, at para. 72, per Juriansz J.A., dissenting in part, but not on this point, leave to appeal ref’d [2014] S.C.C.A. No. 326; Honsberger, at para. 19; Ricketts v. Veerisingnam, 2025 ONSC 841 (Div.Ct.), at para. 97, per Nakatsuru J., dissenting, but not on this point.
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f. Conclusion
[56] The respondent [SS: the landlord] argues that allowing this appeal merely delays the inevitable. Similarly, the Board observes that allowing this appeal in the face of this inevitable result is a waste of its resources and undermines what this court emphasized in Chiarelli, at para. 74, is the “simplified and fair framework for the resolution of land-tenant disputes.”
[57] These submissions, respectfully, miss the point. Administrative efficiency can never serve to undermine the fundamental purposes of remedial legislative provisions designed for consumer protection. Nor can they override substantive principles of common law and statutory law.
[58] Moreover, there is no prejudice to the respondent in requiring compliance with the RTA and the common law and statutory requirements of estate law. The dismissal of this appeal is no impediment to the delivery of a proper N12 notice by an individual entitled to invoke s. 48 of the RTA and, if the notice is contested, a properly constituted eviction application. . Casiechitty v. Imran
In Casiechitty v. Imran (Div Court, 2024) the Ontario Divisional Court dismissed an RTA s.210 appeal by a landlord, this from an LTB decision that "found the landlord was in breach of his maintenance obligations and substantially interfered with the tenants’ reasonable enjoyment of the unit" and awarded $10,000 rent abatement.
With respect to the court and tribunal involved, IMHO these passages show how degraded from any semblance of procedural consistency - and thus needed party predictability - both the LTB administrative law regime, and the court's appellate tolerance, have strayed in assessing fairness:[10] Although the Board member did not expressly offer the landlord an opportunity to cross-examine the tenant, the landlord by that time had been given ample opportunity to present his case. The landlord’s representative did not formally ask to cross-examine, although did say he had a question for the tenant. But the Board member was extensively involved in questioning the tenant. The landlord’s representative also interjected during that process and provided evidence where he disagreed. He was the primary source of evidence for the landlord, as he had been main person dealing with the tenant. The Board is entitled to control its process in this manner.
[11] When asked in this court what additional evidence the landlord wanted to elicit on cross-examination, counsel for the landlord said the landlord wanted to show the tenant had no documentary evidence of reporting maintenance issues at various times. This type of evidence was canvassed extensively in the hearing, with the Board member himself asking numerous questions to elicit evidence about when and how the landlord was notified of various issues. The Board member also questioned the landlord’s representative directly for his evidence on this point. The Board members reasons, at paras. 48 and 49, rely on the dates the landlord’s representative admitted to being aware of the leaks and flooring issues. At the hearing, the landlord’s reprsentative also expressly admitted to receiving the mould report after it was prepared in April 2023.
[12] Riddell v. Huynh, 2021 ONSC 4820 (Div. Ct.) is distinguishable. First, in that case, the party claiming a lack of procedural fairness was the tenant facing eviction. Here, the landlord faced a rent abatement, which resulted in being unable to collect arrears of rent of $10,000. Second, there, the breach of procedural fairness related to the denial of a critical document that was important to the tenant’s case. Here, the landlord says he should have been able to cross-examine the tenant on various factual matters where the Board member had already probed her evidence with extensive questioning and at the same time asked the landlord’s representative to provide his own responding evidence. There was no denial of procedural fairness in this case.
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