Posted by Dan McIntyre on 10/24/2008, 3:42 pm
Message modified by board administrator 10/24/2008, 4:19 pm
this is a letter we sent to the Minister yesterday
October 22, 2008
The Honourable Jim Watson
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
777 Bay Street, 17th Floor
Toronto, Ontario
M5B 2E5
Dear Minister,
We are writing to you about two urgent and immediate issues affecting tenants.
Smart Sub Metering
This issue has caused great stress to tenants because landlords are using regrettable tactics to push tenants into bad deals to take over hydro payments. Tenants who have taken this matter to the Landlord Tenant Board have had to deal with hundreds of pages of legal documents from a high priced lawyer to avoid a simple declaration that landlords can not force tenants into a deal they do not want or risk losing electricity.
This is also a “back door” method to get an extra rent increase by offering tenants only a very low rent reduction that does not meet the real costs of hydro for tenants.
We believe that it is imperative that you protect these tenants with swift and decisive action.
1. Charges need to be laid against those landlords who are threatening tenants with the loss of their electricity. We are aware that some landlords are doing this in several apartment buildings in the Greater Toronto Area.
2. Take steps to proclaim section 137 and 138 of the Residential Tenancies Act. We are aware that there is work to do on the regulations and some issues of concern to some tenant advocates. However, these sections do have elements of fairness and it would be far better to have this in place than to have tenants go through the stress that landlords (and smart meter sales people) are causing. To protect the thousands of tenants we have been meeting with in the last few months, the proclamation would need to have retrospective effect to July 1, 2008. This will still leave plenty of time to work on the regulations.
Mr. Minister, we fully support the goal of energy conservation. We are encouraging tenants to conserve, and we will step up those efforts. We know that every person in Ontario can do better, although we reject the suggestion from landlords that tenants are terribly wasteful.
Tenants can not wait until the landlords take this matter to Divisional Court to know that the Government will protect them from this blatantly unfair scheme foisted on them by some landlords. We have been meeting with tenants in their buildings across the City for several months. The stress and strain on them is unacceptable.
Protecting Tenants Suffering From A Disaster
We very much appreciate the answer that you gave the member from Beaches East York with respect to the recent disaster at 2 Secord in East Toronto.
You indicated that you would look at possible amendments to protect tenants better.
All of us can imagine the stress and trauma of being forced out of our apartments by an explosion in the middle of the night, and then weeks later having to move back in to units that smelled and were dirty and having to worry whether they were really safe. The tenant population in this building included families with children, the elderly, and many newcomers.
We also realize that it may not have been the fault of the landlord and that needs to be factored in.
We would like to meet with your policy advisors and eventually yourself to see if we can help develop ideas to improve the legislation. Your answer to Mr. Prue was a great start.
We thank you for your consideration to these matters. We will follow up in the days ahead.
Yours sincerely,
Gene Lara, Dan McIntyre
Chairperson Program Co-Ordinator
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