Montreal tenants plan rent strike amid housing crisis

Hundreds of Montreal tenants are pledging to go on a rent strike this fall as they protest skyrocketing rents amid a housing crisis.

“Tenants are seeing this and saying ‘oh my God, the government is doing nothing to protect me, actually they’re taking steps backwards,’” said Lyn O’Donnell, a community organizer with the Comité d’action des citoyennes et citoyens de Verdun (CACV).

“The tribunal doesn’t protect them, the government definitely doesn’t protect them.”

The Montreal tenants vowing to strike are hoping to get enough signatures in their opposition to Quebec’s Bill 31, skyrocketing rents and the housing crisis.

More than 200 tenants have signed on to strike in November.

“The way this rent strike is being organizing is they’re trying to get 5,000 participants to go on strike,” said law student Ki’ra Prentice. “Only if only that 5,000 tenant mark is reached. Anything short of that, the action will not be pushed forward. I have put my name forward that I would be willing to go on strike.

“We’re demanding action from the housing minister, from the government, and if 5,000 tenants would be able to go on strike, that would demand a response from the government, there would be no way around it.”

A Montreal tenants organization says it’s about hitting landlords where it hurts – their wallets.

“The rental strike is the ultimate tool that renters… have, and the intention here is to target their finances,” said Enrique Ale Guzman, a member of SLAM-MATU. “If we can show up in an organized manner.”

But many are left wondering how tenants can refuse to pay rent without serious consequences?

“Fortunately, it’s incredibly to difficult to be evicted in Quebec,” said Prentice. “Especially for simply withholding rent for a political purpose. Before any tenant can be evicted they need to be brought before a judge, and the judge will order them to pay and if they pay upon order then the eviction won’t go through.

“This isn’t particularly pertinent to consider when we’re talking about a rent strike with thousands of people involved because that would shut down the court system, it would be years before all these things go through.”

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“The article A-1883 from the Quebec Civil Code, if you’re facing eviction for stopping your rent as long as you pay your rent by your court hearing, you may not get evicted,” added Guzman. “There’s some constitutional elements there that are on the tenant’s side.”

Renters add they are also protesting Quebec’s Bill 31. If passed, the legislation would grant landlords the “power to nullify” a lease transfer, even if the tenant sent notice of it. The landlord can even block the transfer on the date the lease transfer takes effect.

Lease transfers are a tool used by many tenants to keep rent costs low.

“There’s a lot of small language changes, so social because affordable, so we’re no longer looking at programs dedicated to social housing, we’re looking at programs that are opened to the private sector,” said O’Donnell. “Encouraging private speculators or developers to be in charge of our housing stock, we know we can’t trust them to build affordable housing.

“We know what happened with Montreal when we entrusted that to them, we gave them an opportunity to pay out if they decided not to build social or affordable housing and look what happened, no developers built social housing.”

Rent striker Chloe Nantel says Bill 31 would give landlords too much control.

“Getting rid of lease transfers also opens the door to a lot of discrimination,” she said. “I was trying to transfer my lease once and my landlord told me he wouldn’t accept anyone Haitian or Black because he thought they brought cockroaches or were dirty. And so if we don’t have lease transfers there’s no way he could back that up at the tribunal du logement.”

“Lease transfer are the only tool, for fighting the housing crisis, it’s the only way to fight against prices going up, it’s the only way to fight against discrimination,” said tenants rights activist Lina. “There are a lot of protections written into the Quebec law for tenants but there are no mechanisms enforcing them and making sure they’re followed.”

Housing advocates and organizations saying they are planning to take to the streets of Montreal in the coming weeks to continue their protest.