The Tenant's Wailing Wall

March 12th, 2006

Last Thursday, March 9th, a "Toronto Tenant Forum" was held in the city hall council chambers. It went on from about seven o'clock until people finally drifted away after ten in the evening. City councillor Walker, the "forum's" master of ceremonies, was left reeling off names of people who were on the list to "depute" but who had gone home.

The matter that required so much endurance of the participants posteriors was the failure of the provincial Liberal government, after two and a half years in office, to make good on its election 'promise' to do something about the "Tenant Protection Act" ( TPA) . The TPA was put in place in 1998 by the previous conservative government. The Liberals never were clear about what they would do about the TPA.

It is hard to see what influence this gathering would have on the provincial government. The only member of the provincial legislature to attend and speak briefly was from the opposition. There were only a few members of the media there and no news cameras. There were not even many members of city council present.

As the event ground on, some of those standing up to give their three minutes noted that most of the speakers were from 'agencies' and were saying the same thing over and over. Nobody can say much in three minutes. A few people tried, and revealed glimpses of a much more complex reality that could not be examined within the rigid format of the 'forum' which was not a true forum; an exchange of ideas.

What it was all about.

The city of Toronto elections are due this autumn. The city is also in its last budget cycle before these elections. Many city councillors have their own pet projects which the structure of the city council allows them to defend as their own turf, regardless of their usefulness.

Usually these projects are a way of ensuring a corps of volunteers to help councillors get re elected. Councillor Walker is in such a symbiotic relationship with the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations ( FMTA). The people in control of FMTA are noted for their particular viciousness in protecting their source of an almost half a million a year income which they never have to account for.

Those who know what FMTA and Walker actually do for tenants felt slightly nauseous at the mutual self congratulations bouncing between Walker and Dan MacIntyre, the chief FMTA staffer. MacIntyre does good work for Walker at election time. Walker does good work for MacIntyre at budget time.

Nothing good happens for tenants. But this article is not to list the crimes and follies of FMTA. One can read about that at/torontotenants/fmta.html

The Tenant Protection Act

This legislation is sometimes called the "Tenant Rejection Act". It replaced a system of landlord and tenant courts that had been established in 1992 by a New Democrat government. It worked so well that one of the first priorities of the subsequent Conservative government was not to destroy it, but to neutralize it. The old law is still there. The TPA is more a code of process than a set of laws. It is cunningly set up so that how much justice you get depends on how much money, clout, and smarts you have. It is administered by 'adjudicators' instead of judges. The adjudicators are appointed by the provincial government on three year contracts. It has been shown that whether their contracts are renewed depends on how well they deliver for the landlord.

How the adjudicators work is controlled by a set of regulations which are passed by cabinet, not by laws which must be passed by the legislature. The process is set up to trap the ill educated, unintelligent, and unconfident. It works very well. Evictions are increasing under the Liberal government and most evictees do not even understand they can dispute the eviction, or else they lose their chance to dispute because of the notorious 'five day' rule.

Remembering justice

It was disturbing to listen to speaker after speaker talk about 'reforming' the TPA. All they proposed were minor tinkering. Some legal clinic people trumpeted that an increasing number of adjudicator decisions were being overturned on appeal to higher court. This means little; the adjudicators work according to their regulations, not interpretations of other courts.

Eight years ago we had in Ontario a system by which disputes between landlord and tenant were resolved by a judge with the impartiality and autonomy of a judge. The landlord and tenant court was run as a division of the regular court system. Its judgements favoured the tenant nine out of ten times.

One argument used against it was that it was expensive to administer. Landlords claimed it took months to 'get somebody out'. "Justice is always expensive and slow", said one deputant. "Injustice is quick and cheap". The tenant loses at the tribunal at least eight out of ten times.

Of all those who stood up at the mike and added their voice to the lament, only this deputant pointed out the most important principle of any landlord and tenant law; the right of the tenant to withhold the rent. This is as fundamental to tenants as the right to strike is to labour.

Social workers wailed that apartment buildings in their area were being deliberately run into the ground. There are not enough building inspectors. When you get one it is hard to get him to sign a 'work order' for the landlord to make repairs. Then the landlord seems able to ignore the work orders as they pile up.

In the golden age between 1992 and 1998, Toronto tenants could and did, with the sanction of a judge, withhold their rent, put it into an escrow account, and use the money to put their building in order. Individual tenants could and did get large 'abatements' of their rent as compensation for harassment by their landlord.

The system of rent abatements in many places led to de facto housing co-operatives, and in one case, to a real co-operative. Impoverished people learned how to run something for themselves, and that justice was possible. So, the landlord and tenant act absolutely had to be stopped. There will be stiff resistance to getting it out from under the TPA again.

Rent control

Introduced at the same time as the TPA was the "Vacancy Decontrol Act". This neutralized "rent control" which is also still there in theory. Vacancy decontrol is another cunning way of giving the landlords what they want by circumventing, rather than replacing, existing law.

Under rent control, rents went up at a rate set each year according to inflation. Under vacancy decontrol, the landlord can jack the rent up as much as he wants whenever a tenant moves out. This incentives the landlord to get rid of existing tenants by harassment as well as more subtle means.

Agency social workers wailed that rents have increased in eight years far more than inflation or the earnings of "working people". Walker and friends had been handing out bright yellow buttons advocating a rent roll back. But it seems the rollback is only to what the rents would have been without vagancy decontrol, not to what people can afford.

Tenants speaking for themselves.

One deputant had time to point out that nobody at this 'forum", including himself, had any legitimate claim to speak on behalf of Toronto tenants. His solution was to found a Tenant's consultative council. His council would be elected at every municipal election, two from each community council district. Everyone who pays rent votes for them when they vote for the school board and everything else.

This council would have its own staff and budget, and ability to run some programs for tenants. The elected members of this council would have real authority in speaking in the interest of the half of Toronto who rents. It might have some credibility with the provincial government.

No one would be stuffing their pockets by branding themselves as a 'voice of tenants'. This council could become a model for representation of other interest groups in the city who are having trouble with political interference with their organisations, and with making themselves heard.

As whenever anyone stepped up to the mike who Walker and the FMTA did not approve of, there was some low warbling and hissing from the claque who positioned themselves right behind the speakers podium to be seen by the television cameras. Unlike previous 'tenant forums', they did not dare to try to boo down anyone.

So this 'deputant' was able to finish talking. At the end the crowd at the wings, away from the cameras, gave him the applause they had withheld from the blatant toadies who got their three minutes in at the beginning and had taken six.

A few people were heard to grouse that the forum was not being broadcast on some public TV channel, as they had expected.

Tim R.