Downtown property management firm makes flag-flying mandatory for tenants
Residents in the Edmonton House apartments downtown received a notice of entry from building management that raised a few red flags on Tuesday.
Midwest Property Management — which runs 22 properties in Edmonton and surrounding areas — distributed a notice to residents of Edmonton House advising that building staff would enter their apartments during the day on Friday to “secure a Canadian Flag to (their) balcony, in honour of Canada Day weekend.”
A resident tweeted a picture of the notice, wondering why tenants seemed not to be given a choice in the matter.
“I love my country and Canada Day buuuuuttttt it seems very odd to force every unit in my building to fly a Canadian flag,” tweeted Kristin Raworth, who said she has lived in the building for three years and has not seen this situation before.
James Dang, another Edmonton House resident, said Wednesday that the notice didn’t bother him much but that he feels it is “a bit excessive.”
While Raworth said she would not remove the flag, it is “more the principle of the whole thing” that matters to her.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Raworth confirmed no flag was hanging from hers or others residents’ balconies, and only two flags hanging on the third floor of the building were visible from the outside.
Under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), there are very few reasons a landlord or property manager can enter a unit without the consent of the tenant.
“In our reading of the RTA, we don’t see how a landlord has the right to enter a rental apartment unit in order to place a Canadian flag on the balcony — normally, the tenant’s consent will be required,” Judy Feng, staff lawyer for the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta, wrote in an email to Postmedia on Wednesday.
Chandrima Chakraborty, a professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University who studies nationalism, pointed out that people of different backgrounds have different relationships to national flags. In the case of Canada, many Indigenous peoples see the flag as a representation of settler colonialism. For newcomers from countries where nationalism stoked intense conflict, flying any flag might not be something they are comfortable with, said Chakraborty.
“At a time when jingoistic nationalism is on the rise, people might not be as comfortable participating in these displays of nationalism” said Chakraborty on Wednesday. “You cannot force people to be patriotic just because they rented your flat.”
Midwest Property Management did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Postmedia by press time Wednesday.