Copyright thestar
It’s fair to say that I don’t agree with most of the decisions Doug Ford has made since taking office seven years ago. I think he’s a talented retail politician, but an awful premier. Yet none of his failures, cronyism and scandals prepared me for what the Ford government briefly appeared to propose in their recently tabled Bill 60 Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act. Buried deep within a technical briefing, the government stated that they would “consult on alternative options on lease agreement expiry that could allow landlords to control who occupies their units and for how long.” In other words, were such legislation passed, when a tenant’s lease expired a landlord could evict them without cause or could force them to sign a new lease with exorbitant rent increases. These would have been the most radical and harmful changes to tenant protections in our lifetime, reversing decades of progress in securing tenant rights. It now appears that the government has backed down from these proposed changes. Yet, despite the retreat, the episode suggests that the Ford government still isn’t focused on the right things when it comes to housing. Consider what was in the bill. It would have effectively ended rent control, eliminated housing stability and could have intimidated people from asserting their rights to a clean, safe and healthy home for fear of retaliation from their landlord. In effect, the Ford government was floating a trial balloon to see what they could get away with. We needed to pop it swiftly, strongly and permanently. Tenant advocates and their allies mobilized networks, organized petitions and spoke out on every available platform. We knew that we couldn’t remain silent. And the backlash we achieved ultimately was so overwhelming it was only three days after news of the changes broke that we later heard that the province would no longer consult on the proposed changes. But that doesn’t mean we are out of the woods. If this episode has taught us anything, it’s that we must be vigilant and must keep fighting to strengthen tenant rights. In particular, we need to fight back against the Ford government’s narrative that tenant protections are to blame for weak housing starts. Since becoming Premier, Doug Ford has overseen dramatic year-by-year drops in the number of homes being built. In fact, shortly before tabling Bill 60, they backed away from their promise to build 1.5 million homes by 2031. Tenants make an easy scapegoat for his housing failures, but the data doesn’t back up his narrative. One of the first things Doug Ford did as Premier was to eliminate rent control on units built after 2018. He falsely claimed that this would ultimately drive down rents by creating a boon of new rental housing — but since then rents have reached all-time highs. It’s clear that the only way to guarantee rental affordability is to support tenants, not increase the profits of the largest corporate landlords. Ontarians need their government to crack down on illegal evictions, end the abuse of above-guideline rent increases, stabilize rents between tenancies and drive competition in the market by constructing purpose-built rental housing. But a poor track record on housing is also not the only way Doug Ford is failing residents of this province. On his watch, the cost of living has skyrocketed, the number of Ontarians without access to a family doctor has climbed to over 2 million, our children’s education has been underfunded by an estimated $6.3 billion and Ontario’s debt is expected to reach half a trillion dollars by 2027. It’s part of why it was so important to fight back against these proposed changes. If Doug Ford ever again tries to move forward with an attack on renters’ security and affordability, he will hurt the very people he claims to protect. Because even as Ford positions himself as the guy protecting Ontarians from Donald Trump, if he doesn’t stand up for renters and their rights — it’ll be Ford himself who will cause the most serious damage to their lives.
