Until recently, I only knew about rent strikes from history books. In the 1930s and ’40s, labour leaders used rent strikes to advocate for rent control, public housing and building-code enforcements. In the 1960s and early ’70s, tenants withheld rent to protest landlords who were neglecting their buildings.
Now, rent strikes are back. Tenants in Canadian cities are withholding payment to protest rent hikes and push for better conditions in their buildings. The fundamental issue is Canada’s massive shortage of affordable housing. There are now 40 active tenants’ unions nationwide, with new groups springing up in Montreal, Victoria and even small towns like Nelson, B.C. We’ve reached a time of social upheaval and a simmering class war, where tenants feel so squeezed that they rally in the streets.
In Ontario, the epicentre of the rent strike movement, unions are fighting landlords that skirt rent-control legislation by charging “above guideline increases”—rent hikes based on building improvements like balcony renovations, elevator repairs and lobby enhancements. These aren’t old-fashioned mom-and-pop landlords. In recent years, sprawling corporations have purchased low-income apartment buildings to fix them up, attract wealthier tenants and charge higher rents that the current residents can’t afford.
But do rent strikes work? The participants are making a dramatic statement. It’s one thing to march in the streets and sign a petition; it’s something quite different to withhold rent each month while still occupying the space. The strikers risk being evicted and may well end up with diminished credit scores, which would make apartment hunting in a low-vacancy environment even harder.
Maclean’s asked the writer Jason McBride to explain the genesis of today’s rent strike movement, to get to know its leaders and to illustrate why so many people are willing to take such a big risk. We also asked him to learn how strikes will play out in cities across the country: what’s the end game for this movement? His sweeping story, “Revenge of the Renter,” answers those questions and more in the cover story of the December issue, out today.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
