Across Canadian cities, the rapid spread of short-term rentals booked through online platforms has ignited a heated debate in municipal councils over whether such listings ought to be curtailed. In many municipalities the rules let homeowners rent out individual rooms or entire units to travellers for a handful of nights at a time. The practice has spread with remarkable speed through neighbourhoods once occupied only by long-term residents.

Priya Nadeau, who represents the Host Partners Network, an organization financed by property managers and rental hosts, defends the arrangement vigorously. "We lobby councils to keep the regulations light and the marketplace open," says Nadeau. "Welcoming visitors into ordinary homes spreads tourist dollars far beyond the major hotels, channelling them into corner shops, neighbourhood cafés, and the pockets of everyday families. Clamping down with burdensome permits and tight nightly caps would be a false economy that robs local businesses of the very guests who sustain them. Homeowners who take a genuine financial risk and open their doors are surely entitled to profit from it." Nadeau is openly dismissive of the hotel lobby that pushes for restrictions. "The people demanding a crackdown are, more often than not, the established chains that resent the competition. They would rather keep the visitors for themselves, skimming the rewards of a busy city without ever sharing in the wider trade."