A quarter of Alberta MLAs moonlight as landlords

New database from The Maple identifies 27 MLAs with investments in real estate, 19 of whom earn income from renting out their property, including the minister of affordability.

Nathan Neudorf is Alberta’s minister of affordability and utilities. He’s also a landlord. (Flickr/Alberta Newsroom)

A new database from online news site The Maple identifies which provincial legislators are investing in real estate as housing becomes increasingly unaffordable across Canada, calling into question their ability, or willingness, to implement policies that would eat into their earnings.

The database, which Maple opinion editor Davide Mastracci compiled through provincial disclosures, is up to date as of Sept. 15, 2023.

It follows a similar undertaking he did for MPs a few months ago and an earlier list of provincial legislators from 2021.

I want to hone in on Alberta for this piece.

The databases distinguish between legislators who own property, those who are landlords, those whose spouse is a landlord, and those who earn rental income from being landlords.

Of 87 MLAs, 75 have completed their disclosures. Of those who have submitted their disclosures, 27, or 36%, own real estate.

This breaks down along party lines as 19 UCP MLAs and eight NDP MLAs investing in real estate.

Since Mastracci last compiled disclosures, this is an increase of one UCP MLA and decrease of one NDP MLA, with the same number of legislators owning real estate.

But the 2021 database was more complete, with all but one MLA having completed their disclosures. This time, we’re missing 12 MLAs. Unless none of them own real estate, there’s going to be some increase in the number of MLAs owning property they don’t live in since last time.

While owning real estate for investment purposes while increasing numbers of people struggle to afford housing to live in is itself problematic, earning rental income is far more egregious, because it means you’re profiting off of housing precarity.

Of the 27 MLAs who have confirmed owning real estate, 19 are either landlords who earn rental income from their property, or have a spouse who does.

That means you can justifiably accuse a quarter of MLAs of directly profiting off the housing crisis.

Of those 19 MLAs who make money from being landlords, 13 are UCP and six are NDP.

That’s about 30% of UCP MLAs who submitted their disclosures and 20% of NDP MLAs who did the same.

The 13 UCP MLAs are:

• Minister of Justice Mickey Amery (Calgary-Cross)

• Eric Bouchard (Calgary-Lougheed)

• Nolan Dyck (Grande Prairie)

• Deputy Premier and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Mike Ellis (Calgary-West)

• Minister of Infrastructure Peter Guthrie (Airdrie-Cochrane)

• Minister of Energy and Critical Minerals Brian Jean (Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche)

• Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver (Calgary-Hays)

• Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange (Red Deer-North)

• Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf (Lethbridge-East)

• Pradeep (Peter) Singh (Calgary-East)

• Jason Stephan (Red Deer-South)

• Minister of Children and Family Services Searle Turton (Spruce Grove-Stony Plain)

• Tany Yao (Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo)

As you can see, that’s eight cabinet ministers who make money off of rental housing, most egregiously including Neudorf — the one responsible for making life in Alberta more affordable.

Neudorf’s July 19 mandate letter from Premier Danielle Smith instructs him to collaborate with Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services Jason Nixon “to develop and implement an affordable home ownership and rental strategy that focuses on incentivizing the construction of new homes and rental units while removing barriers for prospective homeowners and renters.”

The six NDP MLAs profiting from the housing affordability crisis are:

• Leader Rachel Notley (Edmonton-Strathcona)

• Seniors issues, continuing care and homecare critic Lori Sigurdson (Edmonton-Riverview)

• Transportation and economic corridors critic Lorne Dach (Edmonton-McClung)

• Infrastructure critic Jasvir Deol (Edmonton-Meadows)

• Technology and innovation critic Court Ellingson (Calgary-Foothills)

• Deputy House leader and agriculture, forestry and rural economic development critic Heather Sweet (Edmonton-Manning)

Earlier this month, Notley was widely criticized after being outed as an AirBnB co-host, along with her husband, CUPE Alberta spokesperson Lou Arab, for a vacation property in Balfour, B.C.

In response to the backlash, she changed her name on the app to Anne — her middle name.

This is unsurprising, given that Notley hired AirBnB lobbyist Nate Rotman, who previously served as her chief of staff when she was premier, to run her 2023 campaign.

Notley didn’t disclose the location of the rental property, which is owned by Arab on paper, so it’s hard to know whether this is the one referenced in her disclosures, or if it’s the recreational property Arab is also listed as owning.

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It’s interesting to look at the changes since 2021 in the MLAs who earn rental income, excluding those who weren’t re-elected in 2023.

On the UCP side, Amery didn’t report income from his rental property in 2021, but he does now.

Finance Minister Nate Horner (Drumheller-Stettler) earned income from a rental property in 2021 and while he still owns property, doesn’t earn rental income from it.

Grant Hunter (Taber-Warner) reported income from his property in 2021, but doesn’t own property anymore.

For the NDP, Sweet didn’t report income from her rental property in 2021, but does now.

In 2021, David Shepherd (Edmonton-Centre) didn’t report income from his rental property, which he no longer owns.

Marlin Schmidt (Edmonton-Gold Bar) earned income from rental property in 2021, but no longer owns rental property.

Sarah Hoffman (Edmonton-Glenora) owned a secondary residence in 2021, which appears to have been converted to a rental property, although she hasn’t earned income from it.

University of Alberta housing researcher Laura Murphy, when I spoke to her for a piece in May about the Alberta NDP’s disappointing housing platform, cautioned that MLAs’ direct investments in the rental market are just the tip of the iceberg, since the financialization of housing is so deeply embedded in other investments.

The Alberta NDP's Lacklustre Housing Platform

“There's just so much that’s so shadowy about housing that it's very difficult to understand where clear conflicts of interest are,” she said.

In an October 2022 piece I wrote for Ricochet based on Mastracci’s database of MPs invested in real estate, York University political scientist Dennis Pilon identified politicians’ rental investments as symptomatic of how politics is largely confined to the ruling classes.

“In elections, you don't get renters running because if you're renting property, you probably don't have enough income to stabilize your housing through property ownership. And if you can't do that, well, then you probably can't take time off work to run for office either,” Pilon said.

“We end up with a situation where our politicians don't reflect the broader population.”

Read The Maple’s database here.