Ontario-wide Phoneblitz to oppose Doug Ford’s Bill 97 & other regulations

Today, 40+ ACORN members from across Ontario came together for a virtual phone blitz in opposition to Doug Ford’s Bill 97 & other recent problematic regulatory changes.

ACORN members’ biggest concerns about these changes are that:

1. Tweaking the renoviction processes will do little to stop renovictions – only real rent control will!
2. Municipal rental protection laws will likely be replaced by weaker provincial law.
3. Air-conditioning units in apartments will now enable landlords to increase rents.
4. More adjudicators at the LTB will only speed up evictions – this doesn’t help tenants.
5. Building expensive low-density homes on protected farmland is bad for the environment and does nothing for affordability.
For more information on Ontario ACORN’s response to Bill 97 click here.

After reviewing the problems with these provincial changes, the state of Ontario’s housing crisis and listening to moving testimony from an ACORN member experiencing demoviction, ACORN leaders went over how to submit comments to the Province and started making phone calls to Doug Ford, Housing Minister Steve Clark and PC MPPs sitting on the provincial committee that’s reviewing Bill 97.

ACORN members were determined to make sure tenants’ voices were louder today than the landlord lobby’s!! They filled up nearly every office’s inbox with voicemails and were able to catch a few staffers on the phone to share our frustration and demands for real rent control.

Public comments on the changes related to rental replacement bylaws and renovictions are closing May 21st!

Here’s how you can make your voice heard:

1. Add comments through the Government of Ontario website:
   1. Rental Replacement Bylaws
   2. Renovictions
2. Send an email to residential.tenancies@ontario.ca
3. Sign ACORN’s online action to email Ford, the Housing Minister and your MPP

Don’t know what to say? Feel free to use our template here.

BIG shoutout to the ACORN leaders who ran today’s phone blitz – Marcia Stone (Toronto), Amanda Teske (Ottawa), Megan Ruttan (Waterloo Region), Aiden Janey (Peel), Liz Scott (Hamilton) and Robin Slade (London).