Dear editor:

In the last several decades, there has been a worldwide trend for the rich and powerful to put systems in place that will make them more rich and more powerful.

All this re-engineering of governments and economies rests on the backs of ordinary citizens, and is a clear recipe for the impoverishment of the general populace.

In Ontario (and North America generally), the great imperative of government is to turn aspiring yes-men into millionaires, to turn millionaires into multi-millionaires, multi-millionaires into billionaires, and billionaires into multi-billionaires.

This is being done through legislation that consistently favours those already rich and powerful.

The flip side of the coin is that the professional classes are being turned into the ordinary middle class, the middle class is being turned into the precarious lower middle class, the lower middle class is being turned into the barely surviving class, and they are being fast-tracked into becoming the homeless or day-to-day subsistence class.

In late October, Premier Doug Ford tabled legislation which (in the small print) would put an end to any kind of rental security, including rent controls.

To put this in perspective, the average rental cost for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto in 2023 was $2,500. And 48 per cent of the population of Toronto is renters.

Under this legislation, all of these people could be looking at rent increases of 50 per cent overnight. The smart money sees Ford’s proposals as a trial balloon, which Ford is likely to reintroduce at an opportune time.

Even with the offending clause removed, Bill 60 is at least the third Ontario bill in the last 10 years to hand more power over to mega-landlords at the expense of tenants. One can understand that.

How can multi-billion dollar management corporations, land holding consortiums, and international housing speculators survive in a world dominated by tenants trying to exist on fixed incomes and poverty-line jobs?

Even under previous conditions, the process of squeezing all but the more wealthy tenants out of their current housing is well-advanced. For several years, Premier Ford’s government has been setting the annual rent control increases at 2.4 per cent, which is all but the highest possible increase.

At the same time, with full support from the Ford government, large landlords and property management corporations are pushing for annual above guideline rent increases of nearly 2.4 per cent.

The upshot of this is that people on fixed incomes, or earning not much above minimum wage jobs, are often facing something like a 4.8 per cent rent increase annually, even under rent controls.

This is clearly not sustainable, and, under the current conditions, most of these people will be pushed out of their current rental units over the next five to 10 years, supposing that this has not already happened.

Other techniques to evict tenants contrary to the law are well-established, as there are no limits on rental increases when there is a turnover of the apartment.

This makes it almost impossible for tenants who have been evicted unjustly to find another apartment which is comparable to their former one.

It is a harsh judgment on Ontario’s citizens that people commonly get the government that they deserve. Ontarians can only excuse their own political ineptness on the grounds that the Ford government uses both the funding from their millionaire/billionaire friends, as well as large amounts from the public purse, to provide their policies with daily positive advertising and promotion, as well as using regular attack ads directed against their opponents.

It remains possible that when more Ontarians find themselves out on the street, they may reconsider their votes in the past for Ford and his government.

Kevin McCabe
St. Catharines