To say our “Email Your MPP Monday” campaign has been a success is an understatement. The effort to make politicians aware of our current struggles with the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board and the Residential Tenancies act has been doubling in engagement each week. The campaign’s reach has even popped up on Reddit and various media. We’re on a roll. Because of this, many of you are starting to hear back.
Of course, we want to reply to their messages by voicing our detailed displeasure. If you get an answer from your Mail your MPP message that effectively says, “The LTB is not my department,” then respond with some (or all) of the following text. Maybe you’d like to continue an email conversation but are unsure what to say. We’re here to help.
You can choose to select and copy one paragraph of text or select the entire message and respond with that. We’ve formatted the following text to best fit on mobile, but it can be used anywhere.
Hello, Your response is unacceptable, as you are sidestepping our point that the LTB is a broken system. Repeating a few improvements is useless because it does not drive actual results. The LTB needs reform, and it needs it now. We are suffering from undue stress and financial exploitation. You are well aware that thousands of landlords are experiencing abuse because of a miscarriage of justice on a mass scale. The LTB needs to follow its own guidelines to schedule hearings within 25 days. Currently, the wait time is 40 weeks (10 months) and up, amounting to apathy on the tribunal and legislators' part. That delay is over ten times the service standard -an excess of 280 days! How is that justice? "Justice delayed is justice denied." Tens of thousands of small landlords and tenants are impacted by the LTB delays, and they expect you to hold the LTB accountable and find a solution to alleviate the housing crisis in Ontario. The RTA needs legislation reform. The flow of applications for non-payment of rent needs to be immediately reformed. When thousands more rentals are built, the system will become more clogged. Inefficiency in alleviating unprecedented financial loss on the landlords' side cannot be a societal norm any longer. As the elected representative of the people of this riding, you have a duty to raise any issue affecting your constituents. The LTB is not so "independent," being it is a creation of the people of Ontario through operational responsibility and the passing of our legislation. It is bound to the law, and you must, on behalf of the people of Ontario, ensure that it is fulfilling its obligation to adjudicate disputes between landlords and tenants in Ontario in a timely fashion. This responsibility is not interference but, in fact, accountability. Checks and balances are part of democracy, and so is access to justice. Ontarians expect no less from you, and we will continue to ask for answers and, more importantly, action every Monday. We need real answers. We will not suffer silently any longer.
That’s it. Be sure to sign off from your message and hit send.
