Tenant unions could be the solution to fight rising rents
If you’re a renter, it’s been a hard 12 months. While rents dropped in major cities during the first year of the pandemic, prices have risen as people return to downtowns, sometimes smashing previous records for rental units. Only six provinces https://globalnews.ca/news/8159951/ns-housing-crisis-rent-control/ in Canada have some form of rent control in place.
In Calgary, rent prices for a one-bedroom are up more than 20 per cent from last year. You can expect to shell out almost $4,000 a month https://rentals.ca/national-rent-report for a two-bedroom in Vancouver. In the Greater Toronto Area, prices have jumped since a brief dip at the beginning of the pandemic. A two-bedroom in downtown Toronto can now cost on average $3,300 https://www.thestar.com/business/2022/11/22/the-average-cost-of-renting-a-one-bedroom-in-toronto-hits-2502.html.
The reasons are numerous. Supply has not kept up with demand. There’s a lack of purpose-built rental units https://www.macleans.ca/economy/canadian-economy-guide-2022-rent-prices/, as well as triplexes and duplexes. In some cities, where short-term rentals are popular, rental stock has decreased https://www.marketwatch.com/story/does-airbnb-really-make-housing-more-expensive-these-researchers-say-they-found-an-answer-11612284049 significantly. The financialization of the rental business — when large investment firms purchase buildings and try to make as much profit from a building as possible https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/financialization-and-canadian-renters-1.6378257 by raising rents — has also had a significant impact.
Tenant unions operate on similar principles to labour unions. Residents of a single building — or even from a number of buildings owned by the same landlord — can join together to bargain for rent rates, repairs to units, and a whole host of other issues that may affect them. If the landlord doesn’t come to the table in good faith, or refuses to negotiate, the union can escalate actions. |Read more https://ricochet.media/en/3909/tenant-unions-could-be-the-solution-to-fight-rising-rents|
COP27 failed. So why continue with these UN climate summits?:
Climate change is an existential threat to human civilization and planetary ecosystems.
Yet despite 27 UN Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings that have
taken place so far, the international community has been unable to ward
off imminent disaster.
A number of expert commentators have already declared COP27 — the recent UN climate summit in Egypt — to be a failure. The talks stalled on key issues and failed to secure commitments to stop greenhouse gas emissions from rising beyond thresholds that will lead to dangerous global warming.
Other critical voices are concerned that the whole process is becoming too business-friendly, to the detriment of other perspectives and voices. These yearly big climate conferences have also been criticized as a waste of time and resources.
Given these problems and repeated failures, why continue with the COP
meetings? As researchers who study social movements and environmental
and climate change politics and policy, we believe that continuing with
these climate conferences can still lead to positive outcomes.
The most unconstitutional bill in Canada’s modern history: Yes. I’m calling it the most unconstitutional bill in Canada’s modern history. (Note: Econ Prof Trevor Tombe pointed to legislation under Bill Aberhart to disagree, but modern history in the constitutional context means post-WWII, if not 1982).
Yesterday
the Alberta government under Danielle Smith unveiled Bill 1, the
Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act. This is the ‘Sovereignty
Act’ Smith had long talked about and it is every bit the assault on the
constitutional division of powers, rule of law, and democracy her
initial descriptions foretold. But for an added surprise it includes an
additional assault on responsible government and the separation of
powers in the form of provisions that would allow the government to
unilaterally amend legislation – any legislation – in the legislature’s
stead.
Rather than go through Bill 1 line-by-line, I want to get to
the core issues. Bill 1 purports to allow the Alberta legislature to
determine whether a federal law violates the constitution or to
declare whether it “causes or is anticipated to cause harm to
Albertans” as a prelude to allowing the government to amend legislation
to combat, revoke, or address the allegedly dangerous federal law(s)
however it sees fit. This can happen only after a resolution to this
effect passes the legislature. But upon the passing of such a
resolution, Bill 1 gives a free hand to the government to change any law
on the books and to order “provincial entities” – which include any
provincial agencies or institutions (municipalities, universities and
even the police!) – to ignore or violate federal law, even criminal law.
I want you to read that last sentence again.