Inaugural SOLO Landlords Day at Queen’s Park

November 27, 2024

The first-ever Small Ownership Landlords Ontario Inc. (SOLO) Landlords Day at Queen’s Park, held on the morning of Wednesday, November 27, 2024, was a resounding success. Over 20 MPPs and/or their representatives attended the event, demonstrating a keen interest in understanding the challenges faced by small-scale housing providers across Ontario.

Hosted by SOLO, the event took place in the Dining Room of the Queen’s Park Legislative Building. It served as a vital platform to discuss key housing issues, particularly the impacts of non-payment of rent, and the ongoing delays at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) on both tenants and landlords.

More importantly, the event served to introduce SOLO to key members of the Ontario parliament. MPPs and their representatives ate breakfast with the SOLO team, and left the event with information pamphlets and a SOLO-branded cookie. Several follow-up items are now accessible to SOLO after the event, including invitations for one-on-one meetings with select MPPs.

Excitingly, after the event, SOLO was recognized in the Chamber by MPP Vincent Ke (Independent, Don Valley North) — a first for any small landlords group.

Highlights of the Day

The event featured engaging presentations by:

Boubah Bah, Chair of SOLO
Weiting Bollu, Co-Founder and CEO of Openroom

Adding their voices to the discussion were two distinguished MPPs:

MPP Ted Hsu (Ontario Liberal Party, Kingston and the Islands)
MPP Ernie Hardeman (Progressive Conservative Party, Oxford), Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs

Throughout the event, SOLO members also had ample time to mingle with the MPPs and their representatives, to introduce themselves, and to share their stories to highlight the need for reform.

As SOLO continues to advocate for shorter LTB wait times and other key reforms, this event marked an important first step in fostering understanding and cooperation between policymakers and small landlords. The message of the necessity to accelerate non payment disputes at the LTB was understood as a key driver to unlock rental stocks from small housing providers. We were assured that the current government is working toward that solution and we should see results in the near future.

Thank you to everyone who attended, participated, and supported the event. In particular, SOLO extends our heartfelt gratitude to the dedicated SOLO members and volunteers who made this event possible, including Boubah Bah, Rose Marie, Vera Makohoniuk, Kevin Costain, Varun Sriskanda, Tracy Tong, Peter Wolfl, Sophia, Shirley, Pearl Karimalis, Gary Titus, Leo Pavone and so many others who worked behind the scenes, to ensure a smooth and impactful day of dialogue and collaboration.

We also thank all the SOLO landlords who wrote to their MPPs, sent recommendations to the team and followed up with calls and letters urging them to attend. MPPs care deeply about their constituents and your efforts made a noticeable impact on the success of the day.