Toronto Renters Forum

Berlin renters have called for a referendum to kick-out the landlords!

The main reason is: "From our perspective, the rent should not go into the dividends for shareholders, but rather into either lower rents, or into the buildings​​​​​​."

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/berlin-residents-to-vote-in-referendum-on-seizing-rentals-from-corporate-landlords-1.6185423

And the renters backed the referendum - their motion won!:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-berliners-back-plan-to-expropriate-big-landlords/

How do we do this here??

I love this idea and really wish there was a way Toronto could do something similar, but don’t even know where we would start.

I've done some googling and it seems to me that Canadian Law does not have a mechanism by which members of the public can create a referendum or plebiscite.

For example, the most recent referendum was the 1992 question about the Charlottetown Accord, but that took parliament passing a bill to enable that referendum:

   https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/R-4.7/page-1.html

So the government could hold a referendum, but getting them to ask people about issues that would be beneficial to renters is a lost cause (because Reits have the politicians in their pockets), and also because rental law comes under provincial jurisdiction, and our current conservative provincial government has demonstrated itself to be very hostile to renters (for example, with the removal of rent control, allowing adjudicator positions to remain vacant at the LTB (harder to get a hearing), and allowing landlords to evict people during the pandemic (and continuing right now during this fourth wave), and giving hand-outs to protect business leasers but not residential tenants, etc.).