In April, more than 300 tenants from across the Greater Toronto Area gathered at the founding convention of the Toronto Tenant Union (TTU), whose mission is to “fight rent hikes, win housing justice and protect our homes.”
Given the track record of its two largest founding groups — the York South-Weston Tenant Union and Climate Justice Toronto — the TTU is poised to fight landlords fiercely and win often.
It could also do even more.
This new, city-wide tenant union could inject a much-needed dose of political honesty into housing debates.
Developers and landlords want to make as much profit as possible from housing — selling at high prices and raising rents. But tenants can’t keep up with the skyrocketing rents without sacrificing too much. One side has to give. There is no “win-win” policy solution that will please both tenants and the real estate industry.
What side are our governments on?
Mark Carney and Doug Ford could have done something about predatory financial landlords through a combination of tax policies and strong rent controls. Instead, they are spending $2.2 billion on a HST rebate for new homes. This measure has been described as a “bail-out in disguise” because it will benefit mostly developers who built too many condos and housing investors, who can now buy them at a discount.
Meanwhile, Ottawa and Queen’s Park have done nothing for tenants. The politics of housing really is that naked: for the industry, $2.2 billion. For renters, nada!
Yet mainstream housing debates in Canada routinely sidestep questions of power and class interests. Most housing pundits fuel the fantasy that the crisis is fundamentally about how much housing there is, rather than how it is distributed.
An honest political conversation would clearly lay out the choice in a place like Toronto’s downtown east, where community groups are pushing for vacant lots to be turned into affordable housing while an investment company has bought the land with plans to build luxury condos.
Nearby, in neighbourhoods like Regent Park and along the Dundas East corridor, redevelopment has driven up land values, invited speculation, and displaced low-income residents, with the private developers working closely with governments.
As a quiet observer at the Toronto Tenant Union’s founding convention, I was thrilled to hear the housing question discussed in its fullness. Members debated motions and amendments clearly, getting deep into questions of political power, conflicting economic interests, regulatory capture and state coercion.
There was one lengthy discussion about who can join the tenant union. The original draft stated that members should live in the GTA, agree with the union’s vision statements and not be landlords. But what about homeowners? Do the benefits of tapping the political support of homeowners outweigh the risk of losing focus on tenant issues?
Members decided that homeowners may join as non-voting members. They also agreed that people living with their homeowning parents and people who are unhoused can join as voting members, as they share the same political interests as tenants.
Many similar debates followed. Then, members elected a team to coordinate political action, which is what the union is really about.
Québec has two province-wide tenant coalitions — FRAPRU (translated as: Popular Action Front on Urban Redevelopment) and the RCLALQ (tr: Grouping of Housing Committees and Tenants’ Associations of Quebec) — both formed in the late-1970s in a similar way as the Toronto Tenant Union. Notably, the Québec media treats these groups as the primary political mouthpieces for tenants.
Those coalitions have avoided political co-optation and remain genuine fighting social movements. Their interventions in public debate are uncompromising in tone and content and are backed by internal democratic processes.
In Toronto, where almost 50 percent of the population rents their home, tenant groups get very few opportunities to weigh in on housing issues. And too often, tenants are asked to share personal experiences rather than articulate their collective political stances.
My hope is that the TTU can elevate clear-eyed, grounded stances on housing that cut through the fog of wonky debates.
An earlier version of this article first appeared in Canadian Dimension.