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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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1st July: in Montreal this isn't only the Day of Canada federal holiday. Here it's called "Moving day" because many year-long leases expire on that same day. We already have discussed the housing shortage in the city but didn't mention one of its reasons - the discrimination between the would-be tenants by the landlords.

When we talk about "discrimination" the first thought is about the race selection made by certain landlords, who don't want to see "visual minority" faces around. This of course is discrimination but it doesn't stop here. In Montreal like in many other cities around Canada there are different kind of discrimination, for poor people but also for some wealthy people too.

Let's mention some of the means used by landlords to make illegal selections of their would-be tenants. But first we have to point out that under the regulations in most major Canadian cities the landlords can ask only for the first rent to be prepaid, no security deposits or financial checking are allowed.

The most hidden and thus most unnoticed form of discrimination, "soft" version so to say, is when the landlords don't announce that they have vacancies. They find tenants among the friends of their actual lessees. Before allowing the new would-be tenants to see the housing, the landlord knows everything he wants to know about them, race, age, number of kids, alcohol problems, cigarettes, etc. This kind of discrimination prevents even people with sufficient finances from renting an apartment just because they don't know that it will become vacant.

There are of course more "hard" versions of tenant discrimination. One of them is to ask for employer references or to ask for more than 1 month of rent to be prepaid. When you don't have a work this kind of discrimination is sufficient to stop you from moving from one place to another where you can hope to find work easier.

Another "hard" version of discrimination is to ask newcomers to send the copy of their passports with their photos clearly indicating to which race they belong.

The "hardest" form of discrimination I have heard of is when the landlord asks for Canadian credit history, which virtually eliminates all foreign would-be tenants (including US residents) and also all Canadian residents with at least one late payment.

To consider the race when you lease an apartment is looking at the race of the clients going to buy fruits and vegetables. It's immoral and also it's against any market strategy. Doing so the landlords artificially limit the number of their would-be clients.

So what to do, how to force the landlords to respect the laws? Some will propose to strengthen the sanctions against those landlords who don't respect the regulations. I doubt that this can solve the problem because these discriminations are very difficult to verify.

So I propose a radical solution - take the landlords out of the process of tenant selection. Sounds incredible? Unrealistic? Just listen. When you try to buy a ticket for some Airline and there aren't empty seats you are put on the waiting list. Right? When a seat is freed who takes it? First-come-first-served, right? Nobody objects to this system because it's fair and impartial. You can't just call the Airline boss and ask for a ticket because there is a waiting list. It doesn't matter which race you belong to if you have come later.

That's what I intend to offer for the tenant market in Canada and not only for Canada. Today IT can make such system that eliminates the biased and prejudiced landlords. Thus they will be eliminated from the tenant-selection process.

How should it look in practice? Tenants deciding to end their lease will call the system and announce their decision. A copy of this decision will be sent to the landlord and he will be informed that his housing is available. Automatically the system will inform first-come-would-be-tenant that an apartment according to his wishes and budget is available and will set up a day and hour for visiting. The landlords won't have a right to veto any would-be tenant just because they don't like his skin. Any lease made outside this local information system should be declared void. Any payments of the rents should be made via this system.

It sounds so simple but there will be a huge opposition to this new system. The landlords of course will be against because this will eliminate their power to increase rents whenever they like it. Some of the tenants also will be opposed because they would prefer too not to see some different faces around. The big winner though will be the fairness and transparency of the market. There will be no unoccupied buildings just because they have been announced and the society will know exactly know many new housing units are needed to meet the demand.

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