Verification of short-term rental listings should be done by the government, Airbnb says

Airbnb said it is ready to remove all illegal accommodation listings on its site, but the company believes that it is the responsibility of the government to verify the compliance of offers.

"What [Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx] asks us with Bill 25 is essentially to do the work of civil servants," said Airbnb Policy Adviser Camille Boulais-Pretty in an interview on Tuesday with The Canadian Press.

Earlier this month, Quebec's tourism minister tabled Bill 25 to fight against illegal tourist accommodation. Platforms such as Airbnb will now be required to ensure that accommodations posted on their site comply with the law, or face fines of up to $100,000 per illegal listing.

Bill 100 had made it mandatory to register one's accommodation for short-term rentals, but it is widely flouted: currently, only 30 per cent of accommodation listings are legal in Quebec, according to the Ministry of Tourism. Airbnb, for its part, said it has no data on the number of illegal listings.

Bill 25 would impose a "too heavy" administrative burden on Airbnb, Boulais-Pretty said.

"The platforms will have to manually check each of the [registration] certificates and verify their validity … We don't have the role of the regulator. We don't have the power of the regulator. We don't have the power of the police."

In its brief, Airbnb argued that it is the government's responsibility to do the necessary checks. It assured its full cooperation to remove offending businesses. A dedicated portal for this kind of inspection allows the government to remove the offers itself.

This system is also in operation in the city of Ottawa, says the policy advisor of Airbnb.

"The solution we propose would be a system by which platforms would be required to remove at the request of the government ads that it considers non-compliant," she said.

"It's a system that's clear, that's really applicable to the whole industry and that keeps the platforms accountable."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 23, 2023.