Editor:
I write to reply to the recent article surrounding a “boarding house” on Beaver Street.
Banff’s workers face a terrible housing situation. Rental rooms are scarce and far more expensive than the town’s minimum wage earners can reasonably afford.
Moreover, landlords in Banff have such unfettered power they make all manner of illegal demands of their tenants (i.e., no visitors, no drinking, church-attendees preferred, etc).
Such demands defy Alberta’s Residential Tenancies Act, which specifically states that “neither the landlord nor a person having a claim to the premises under the landlord will in any significant manner disturb the tenant’s possession or peaceful enjoyment of the premises” (Section 16, B).
Landlords do not legally have the power to impose whatever regulations they fancy upon their tenants. The Town could conceivably take action to protect its workers and tenants. It could, for instance, buy up property and convert it to affordable boarding rooms.
The actions of companies such as Caribou Properties to do the same is also a step in the right direction. The protests of certain residents to such proposals are ridiculous. Banff is too small for the complete segregation along economic and racial lines that occurs in most larger cities.
Until the day total automation of all workforces occurs, Banff’s bourgeoisie might occasionally have to see its “transients” outside of a service-oriented interaction. Banff’s “residents” would do best to remember that the town’s success and profitability as a tourist destination is built upon the labour of its underpaid workers, and demonstrate the respect these workers deserve.
The town needs transient workers to run; what isn’t absolutely necessary are all the middle class residents who profit from working class labour, but wish for these workers to magically disappear from their midst once their shifts are over.
Katrin MacPhee,
Banff
