WATERLOO - My office saw more renoviction cases in 2025 than we did in the previous 12 years. Municipalities have passed renoviction bylaws to protect tenants from unscrupulous corporate landlords. I hope the City of Waterloo steps up to protect tenants on January 19th.
Transcript:
Hi. My name is Catherine Fife. I'm the MPP for Waterloo.
I'm here in a community that is experiencing record levels of renovictions. In fact, my office has seen more renoviction cases in the last 12 months than we did in the last 12 years. This is a serious issue and we are in a housing crisis in the province of Ontario.
What we're seeing right now is corporate landlords letting units get to a state of disrepair, insisting that they have to fix it up, but then preventing tenants from coming back because they jack up the prices of the rent. We have seen record renovictions, record above-guideline increases for rents. We need to make sure that tenants have the same rights that other provinces have brought in.
For instance, in BC, they passed a renoviction bylaw. Closer to home, Hamilton has recently passed a renovation bylaw which would ensure that if people are being removed from their homes, they have the right to come back and that those renovations are above board. To make matters worse, in Waterloo region, we are seeing a pause in development of new housing because we don't have the water infrastructure to continue to build which is actually going to compound the housing crisis in Waterloo and Waterloo region.
We have Bill 60 right now which the provincial government passed which is gonna make it easier for corporate landlords, who are very focused on profits not serving people, to evict tenants. and, of course, the Government of Ontario has decided that they're not gonna go back to work until March 23rd, so there's no urgency to this issue which is impacting health and well-being and the economy.
In the absence of any leadership on housing in Ontario, we need municipalities to step up.
I need the City of Waterloo to protect people who are renting in our city and pass a renoviction ban bylaw on January 19th.