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10 (1) A provision of a municipal bylaw has no effect if it is inconsistent with a Provincial enactment.

  • (2) For the purposes of subsection (1), unless otherwise provided, a municipal bylaw is not inconsistent with another enactment if a person who complies with the bylaw does not, by this, contravene the other enactment.

2003-26-10, effective January 1, 2004 (B.C. Reg. 423/2003).

CASE LAW

Overlap Contemplated between Municipal Bylaws and Provincial Enactments

The Official Community Plan of the respondent city provided that the city was to “foster a rental housing stock in which tenants have adequate opportunities to live in healthy, safe and secure housing”. In 2019, the city passed a bylaw amendment restricting the ability of landlords to evict tenants in order to accommodate renovation work. The petitioner, the owner of a multi-family residential rental building, challenged the bylaw amendment as being ultra vires. It contended that the “pith and substance” of the amendment was landlord-tenant legislation and that it was thus an attack on the adequacy of the Residential Tenancy Act, S.B.C. 2002, c. 78 (the “RTA”). The court dismissed the petition. The “pith and substance” analysis as a means of limiting the scope of municipal power is appropriate only where there is an applicable legislative direction that precludes overlap between the municipal power at issue and another specified power. Section 10 of the Community Charter contemplates an overlap between municipal bylaws and provincial enactments and does not prohibit a municipal bylaw from dealing directly with the same subject matter as a provincial enactment unless there is an inconsistency in the manner specified by s. 10. Here, the impugned bylaw was not inconsistent with the provisions of the RTA such that compliance with the bylaw would result in contravention of the RTA. The bylaw fell within the jurisdiction granted by s. 8(6) of the Community Charter; it established rules that constituted regulations in relation to the business of renting apartment units. The bylaw also fell within the jurisdiction granted by s. 8(3)(g). It established rules in relation to tenants aimed to protect them from the consequences of eviction from their rental units (1193652 B.C. Ltd. v. New Westminster (City), 2020 BCSC 163, affirmed 2021 BCCA 176, leave to appeal refused 2021 CanLII 126365 (SCC)).