Important Campaigns and  Law Reform Work 

Low-Income Energy Network (LIEN)

LIEN brings together 50 anti-poverty, affordable housing and environmental groups to raise awareness of, and propose solutions to, energy poverty. LIEN seeks to ensure universal access to adequate energy as a basic necessity, while minimizing the impacts on health and on the local and global environment of meeting the essential energy and conservation needs of all Ontarians.

Please go to http://www.lowincomeenergy.ca OR
email Keith Stewart at keith@torontoenvironment.org
Telephone:  416-596-0660
Fax:   416-596-0345 

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Tenant Protection Act Reform

Dalton McGuinty’s government promised to improve the law to protect tenants. They promised a new bill within a year of their election. We have yet to see any action on the new legislation. 

If you are concerned about the state of tenant protection in Ontario, call or write your MPP, (look in the blue pages of your telephone directory or http://www.ontla.on.ca, the Ontario Government’s website) especially if they are Liberal members, and tell them what you think. If you want to present a brief to the Government, and need some more information, visit Advocacy Centre for Tenants - Ontario’s (ACTO) website, www.acto.ca. ACTO is a province wide tenant legal clinic, which has been lobbying for major changes in the law since before the provincial election in 2003.

In Toronto, the Tenant Advocacy Group (TAG) and the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Association (FMTA) are taking the lead on the reform process and are organizing groups to get prepared for public hearings once the bill is introduced in the Legislature. Visit www.torontotenants.org or call the FMTA at 416-413-9442 or contact Barbara Hurd, Kensington Bellwoods Community Legal Services, at 416-924-4244 x225.

Tenants’ Concerns are:

There are approximately 60,000 eviction applications a year in Ontario, and over half these tenant households are ordered evicted without a hearing. Tenants want the following changes:

• Reintroduction of rent regulation
• A fair eviction process, where tenants are able to negotiate reasonablerepayment plans at a hearing (removing the default eviction process)
• Protection of tenants from rising energy costs including: no above-guideline rent increase applications, no unilateral removal of utilities from rent
• No rent increases granted if there are outstanding repair issues
• Minimum maintenance standards
• Amendment of the definition of tenant to include spouses and surviving family members
• A revamped Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal with new leadership, competent adjudicators, thorough training and a competitive and transparent appointment process for members
• No electrical sub-metering without tenants’ consent 
  
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Housing Action Now (HAN)

Our clinic is a member of this coalition of groups and individuals lobbying for the improvement and construction of shelters and affordable housing in Toronto. HAN supports strong legal protection for tenants, and recently wrote to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, John Gerretsen, urging him to get on with reforming the tenant legislation as the Liberals had promised to do within a year of taking office. He replied soon thereafter:  click to view letter
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Community Education & Access to Police Complaints Demonstration Project (CEAPC):

The goal of the CEAPC is to ensure that the police complaints system is accessible and available to the specific needs of community members, as well as providing opportunities for education.

CEAPC has 28 community partners who will assist us in achieving this goal by helping the public learn more about what to do when questioned by the police, what to do when they come to a person’s home, and where to get support and legal help.

Contact Information: Leila Sarangi, Project Coordinator, Scadding Court Community Centre, 707 Dundas Street West, Toronto M5T 2W6.
Phone: 416-392-0334 x233
Fax: 416-392-0340

Email: lsarangi@scaddingcourt.org, www.scaddingcourt.org  

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For People on ODSP and Ontario Works:

Contact us if you want to find out if there are extra benefits to which you are entitled.  To look into this yourself, go to www.halco.org for a guide to these benefits: click on publications, and then select from the list of "Recent Public Legal Education Presentations" the publication entitled "2005 ODSP & OW Benefits".
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Inter-clinic Immigration Working Group (ICIWG)

Our staff members belong to clinic working groups that cooperate on law reform efforts. One of our staff lawyers, Lee Tenenhouse, and another clinic lawyer, Caroline Lindberg, appeared before the Federal Government’s Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to present the group’s positions on family reunificiation and to urge the Committee to take their concerns into account. As the brief is 11 pages, it is too long to reproduce here. Contact our office if you want a copy.

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