How the city election will affect Toronto Tenants

The past month has been a busy one for tenants in our community. On Oct. 24, Oakwood Vaughan’s incumbent city councilor Josh Matlow (Ward 12, Toronto-St. Paul’s), won his bid for reelection. 

The election also saw the reelection of Mayor John Tory. Unfortunately, Tory beat tenant-friendly candidate Gil Penalosa, who received an endorsement from the Toronto ACORN Political Action Committee. Penalosa came in 2nd place.

Tory would not acknowledge that Toronto had a housing crisis until the movements for tenant rights and housing justice became too loud to ignore. Tory has been Toronto mayor since 2014, and under his leadership, the housing crisis has gotten worse. The average monthly rent for a 1-bedroom apartment ballooned from $1035 when Tory was elected to $1431 last year. This is a 38% increase in cost, and inflation was 13.6% over the same time period. 

Tory also strongly defended the violent deployment of police, including police on horseback, to evict unhoused people from their tents in public parks. During the evictions, riot police used pepper spray against protestors. Tory referred to the evictions as “'reasonable, firm, but compassionate.” 

We would like to congratulate the pro-tenant councilors who have been elected, including Alejandra Bravo, Anthony Peruzza, Ausma Malik, Amber Morley, Paula Fletcher. We would like to congratulate Chiara Padovani, a founder of the York-South Weston Tenant Union, for a hard-fought campaign. Pro-tenant politicians make our work as a tenant network easier to push policy that benefits all of us. 

Photo: Eric Sehr

Can Pac Swire