Bill 60, called the Fighting Delays, Build Faster Act, proposes to amend more than a dozen pieces of legislation, ostensibly to get more homes built. Schedule 12 of the act further weakens a number of tenant protections in the Residential Tenancies Act in ways that will make it easier to evict existing tenants, even those who aren’t behind in their rent and have not violated the RTA, increasing their insecurity and their risk of homelessness. And under the current rent control rules, once an existing unit is vacated, its rent can be raised by any amount, so the supply of affordable rentals will likely continue to decline.
As part of its rationale for making it easier for landlords to evict tenants, the government said there were lots of landlords keeping tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of rentable units off the market. By adjusting the rules, the government said landlords might be encouraged to rent those units. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives did some calculations based on reports from four of Ontario’s largest cities, that, like Hamilton, have vacant unit taxes. The number of unrented units in those cities was fewer than 18,000 and some of those aren’t rented because they are being renovated or are tied up in settling estates. So there actually aren’t many vacant units being kept off the market, just waiting for even more profitable rules for landlords.
The government also claimed that it needs these changes to end the backlog of cases at the Landlord and Tenant Board. But Tribunals Ontario has said in its latest annual report that the backlog will be gone by March 2026.
Note that even without Bill 60, existing tenant protections in Ontario are weak. When a tenancy ends, a landlord can legally raise the rent by any amount, a key driver of soaring rents plus an incentive for landlords to get rid of longstanding rent-controlled tenants. Rent controls don’t apply to units that came on the market after November 2018. Even with rent-controlled units, landlords can apply for increases above the annual guideline, for a number of reasons. And landlords can evict tenants to move themselves or their relatives into a unit.
Now the government proposes in Bill 60 to
- Shorten Review Periods – The window to request a review of a Landlord and Tenant Board decision would shrink from 30 days to 15.
- The province would gain authority to prescribe the content of termination notices to simplify documentation and clarify legal obligations for both parties.
- Landlords could set termination dates after seven days for rent arrears to be paid, compared to 14 days today. A household struggling with a financial crisis that’s put them behind in their rent needs more than a week to get advice and find help.
- For evictions for “Landlord’s Own Use,” compensation would no longer be required if 120 days’ notice is given. At present, the landlord much pay the tenant one month’s rent or offer another rental unit acceptable to the tenant.
- “Persistent late payment” will be defined. The act currently allows a landlord to give a tenant an eviction order if they have “persistently” failed to pay their rent on time, but doesn’t define what persistent means here.
- Future regulations would limit Landlord and Tenant Board adjudicators’ discretion to postpone eviction orders and restrict tenants’ ability to file motions to set aside such orders.
- Tenants’ existing right to raise their issues, such as serious repairs and maintenance complaints, during a hearing for non-payment of rent will be restricted. When units are in serious disrepair with impacts on tenants’ health and safety, withholding all or part of the rent to trigger an arrears hearing is often tenants’ only recourse to have these issues heard at the Landlord and Tenant Board in a timely manner. Wait times for tenant applications at the LTB are twice as long as landlord applications. The new rules will allow tenants to raise issues to be raised only if advance notice is given and tenants will be required to pay half of their arrears prior to the hearing in order to raise their issues. This requirement assumes that tenants actually owe these arrears before the hearing is even held, let alone a ruling being made on whether arrears are owed.
The government has withdrawn for now a very frightening proposal that would have ended the current practice that allows automatic renewals of leases when their fixed term ends. Those automatic renewals are an important measure of security, and giving landlords any rights to impose new leases, at rents higher than the guideline percentage, would result in many more people losing their homes, either because the landlord refuses to renew or sets rents that the tenant can’t afford. Instant, strongly negative reaction led the government to back off on that, at least for now. But fixed term leases exist elsewhere, including Nova Scotia.
Please send an email to premier@ontario.ca or phone or text Doug Ford at 647-612-3673 to tell him, in your own words, “Do not further weaken tenants’ rights. Withdraw Schedule 12 of Bill 60 and commit to never introducing fixed-term leases. The Residential Tenancies Act already leaves tenants insecure and allows large rent increases. Reducing tenants’ rights won’t spur more rentals, it will just increase insecurity for moderate- and low-income tenants and create more homelessness.” Send similar emails to housing minister rob.flack@pc.ola.org (416 585-7000), local Conservative MPPs monica.ciriello@pc.ola.org, donna.skelly@pc.ola.org and neil.lumsden@pc.ola.org and NDP MPPs sshaw-qp@ndp.on.ca and rlennox-qp@ndp.on.ca