Ontario’s renters and landlords trapped in a broken system

May 4, 2023

GUELPH — Ontario Greens leader and MPP for Guelph Mike Schreiner released the following statement in response to the release of the Ontario Ombudsman’s report on his investigation of delays at the Landlord and Tenant Board.

“The Landlord and Tenant Board is broken – and neither Ontario’s renters nor landlords can afford any more delays.

For too long, tenants and landlords have faced delays of months or even years waiting for a hearing date.

But today’s report shows that hearings for tenants can take up to four times longer to schedule than hearings for landlords – leaving many trapped in unhealthy or unsafe living conditions while waiting in an endless queue.

When tenants are finally able to get a hearing, they face barriers ranging from lack of bilingual adjudicators to unreliable internet to an outdated scheduling system.

I support the Ombudsman’s recommendations to repair the inequities embedded in the LTB. But to protect Ontario’s tenants, we must go much further.

Because our province is at a crisis point.

Rents have become totally unaffordable for most Ontarians – we’re seeing nurses and teachers struggling to afford a place to live in their own communities, let alone minimum-wage workers and people locked into legislative poverty on social assistance.

For years, advocates on the front lines have been calling for real solutions to a broken rental system. Solutions like the ones Ontario Greens have long-championed:

• Reinstate rent controls on all units to protect tenants from being unfairly priced out of their homes;
• Implement vacancy controls to get rid of the incentive for landlords to drive out long-standing tenants in order to increase rents;
• Build 182,000 new permanently affordable community housing rental homes over the next decade;
• And double social assistance rates so people with disabilities don’t have to choose between buying groceries and paying rent.
  

Housing is a human right. Ontario is ready for a government that treats it like one.”

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