This installment of the TENANT POWER series features three members of the Ottawa Neighbourhood Organizing Centre (NOC) and their work supporting tenants in their fight against landlords, and of course, capitalism.

The work of the NOC began in the most organic way. By going into their community and talking to as many people as possible. Listening to their neighbours and finding common ground. Overwhelmingly, people needed and most importantly, wanted to fight, as tenants.

Hear how they continue to learn from one another and build power where they are. Quite literally going door by door, building by building and block by block to Activate the Tenant Class.

Guests: Seema Shafei, Shivangi Misra, Ethan Mitchell

CALLS TO ACTION:

• If you are a tenant organization, please reach out to NOC through their Instagram, or email us at bpofdisruption@gmail.com
• Donations can be made to the Bank Block Tenants here

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Resources:

• “A So-called Tenants’ Union”: Defining the Organizational Power of Tenants within and outside the Law
• Follow NOC on Instagram

This is Blueprints of Disruption, a podcast made for rabble rousers, and I'm Jessyl McClean.

You're in for another installment of Tenant Power, a series that should really worry landlords,

which is actually what our next guests aim to do. Landlords really, their whole business

model is based on inflicting violence on people, on tenants, which they are completely removed

from. So they can force people out of their homes, onto the street. They can force people

to live in horrible conditions while they live in mansions and they never have to deal with

it. So I think with 2025, I know Toronto is a bit ahead of where we are in Ottawa, but

we're gonna show them that they can't get away with it anymore. That you can't inflict this

kind of violence on people and expect to just wash your hands of it and live comfortably

in your home. It's just not gonna, that era has passed. That was Ethan Mitchell. He'll

be joined by Seema Shafi and Shivangi Misha, all of the Neighborhood Organizing Center in

Ottawa. This piece perfectly complements last week's discussion with the Bag Block Tenants,

who praised the work this group is doing to activate the tenant class, as they say, door

by door, building by building, and block by block. How would you describe your organization?

I mean, we'll get into the nitty gritty, but like you have to come up with a little bio

for your insta. How can you describe yourself to the audience? Yeah, I would say that the

neighborhood organizing center or knock, and I'm also a big fan of the acronym in part because

we've knocked on so many doors over the last couple of years. It just seems appropriate

at this point. But yeah, the brief description of it would be that we are a group of people

who have come together to build capacity to support tenant organizing. So our focus is

on being that kind of structure in our community where we can build familiarity, where we can

develop knowledge of how tenants can fight and win, and where we can develop some structures,

too, of community support. And concretely, um, work with tenants who want to get organized

in their buildings or on their blocks to form a tenant committee or a tenant union. So we

see ourselves kind of in that supporting role and building capacity. Just because there have

been so many struggles where tenants are faced with an eviction or with some serious maintenance

issues or an above guideline rent increase. And it's not like in the in labor organizing

where there's a very clear framework for how things like bargaining and unionization are

supposed to work. A lot of the time tenants are having to learn those lessons for the first

time when they're faced with a critical issue. So our goal is to make sure that tenants don't

have to learn the same thing every time, but that there's a group of people in the community

who can be there in support of those tenants and help share some lessons that have been

learned and support them in forming, building their power in their buildings. That really

hits because we've talked to so many tenant unions that have begun when their backs are

against the wall. They're having to do that learning process in a moment of crisis. It's

traumatic getting an eviction notice or exhausting having to go up against a landlord for a maintenance

issue. It's likely hit a peak in your frustration and then you have to figure out how to organize

yourself. absolutely, it's like preventative medicine. And I can't tell you how excited

I am to talk to you folks because. The audience will know we've really focused on tenant organizing

and tenant unions here at Blue Sub-Disruption because of the potential it holds to harness

the power of the, you know, quote unquote, working class. 30% of people are tenants in Canada.

That is a huge number to leverage. It's also a huge power imbalance, which I'm sure you've

heard about. We've got a million episodes dedicated to that as well. So these folks are going to

help us understand how they do what they do, what those support structures look like, and

update us on how it's going for tenants in the Ottawa area. Seema, is there anything you want

to add to Ethan's description of the organization that makes you unique? Essentially, the Neighborhood

Organizing Center came out of a bunch of mass work that was done, work. door knocking on

people's buildings throughout Ottawa to ask people what it is that they saw as a really

pressing issue in the city that they needed assistance with or that they wanted to organize

around. And that was over the course of a year, year and a half. We did door knock in the neighborhood,

in the center town, center town west neighborhood and spoke to people and we spoke to, like we

door knocked, we spoke to a bunch of people about their jobs, about... just our everyday

life and what matters the most and what are the main issues that our community is facing

and overwhelmingly it was housing and then followed closely with the cost of living. It's not a

surprise to anyone, but I think talking to more and more people strengthened that and that

led to the People's Assembly, which was an event where people came together and we spoke about

what... kind of neighborhood organizing has happened. It is in the history of Ottawa and

what can be done. And from People's Assembly, as we were organizing the People's Assembly,

some tenants on Bank Street had begun organizing a tenant committee to resist their mass eviction.

And one of those folks organizing BBT was also one of the main organizers of the People's

Assembly. So we were closely connected right from the beginning. At that event, we spoke

about some general analysis of the housing situation in Ottawa as well as what we can do about it.

And the kind of big takeaway from it on the one hand was the need to fight and to struggle.

Recognizing that what's often called the housing crisis is not a system that's not working the

way it's intended to. The housing crisis is a system working exactly the way it's intended

to, which is to say exploiting working class people. in order to enrich landlords and developers

and big investors. So a big focus of the People's Assembly event last summer of 2023 was how

do we fight? And our next steps that we identified based on hearing from other tenant organizers

in the city, for example, folks that had been involved in the Herringgate struggle, as well

as an eviction. defense at Osgoode Chambers, also in Ottawa in the Sandy Hill neighborhood.

The big takeaway was that we need to get organized, not just at the city level or building organizations

at a large scale or at the neighborhood or city level, but building by building and block by

block, which also gelled with our initial assessment of the People's Assembly, where we had a good

turnout at the event. but it wasn't necessarily the people who we really wanted to be there.

We spoke to a number of tenants in preparation for that who were facing severe issues, whether

maintenance or eviction, or other kinds of abuse by their landlord. And even though we spoke

to some of those people a number of times, many of them didn't show up at that event. So we

kind of realized that we need something deeper and more structural if we want to actually

support. tenant organizing in a way which is impactful. Our goal as a group was to find

tenants who had issues and support them in getting organized. And this is the group that evolved

over the last year plus into the Neighborhood Organizing Center as we gained more experience

doing that and internally became more organized. And now we're at a point where we're going

to reconvene the People's Assembly, but with these lessons in mind. I absolutely love how

you had to re-evaluate. Like you knew you had people in mind and you knew there was people

who needed help. And, you know, even though I've heard great things about the People's

Assembly, it wasn't enough, right? So rather than just beat your head against the wall,

it was a pivot of sorts, but I... I would be curious to hear the lessons you're going to

apply because some of the people in the audience have organized town halls, I'm sure, or been

to them. Maybe not, like a people's assembly with that spirit in mind, if you understand

what I mean. I mean, most of the town halls I think a lot of us have experienced are usually

just platforms for politicians or... local leaders or somebody with an agenda, right? Somebody

who wants to relay information, maybe just be accessible for questions. But this is different.

This is a form of democracy. A lot of people have an experience. I mean, maybe you did a

great job the first time, but can you talk a little bit how you create an environment that

you can rightfully call a people's assembly? Right? So you're not talking to people, but

you're gathering voices in an effective way. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I'm

sure others will also want to speak to this, but I'll just start off. For us, the assessment

is really that it's good and it's necessary to have something like a larger people's assembly

or a larger forum, which brings together people from across different neighborhoods. But in

order for that to be successful in the way that we want it to be successful, it has to be built

on a foundation. And that foundation is immediate organizing in people's buildings with their

neighbors and on people's blocks. Because what we're talking about really with tenant organizing

is something that is genuinely it has the potential to be transformative. And in order to get people

organized to a point where we can push forward that kind of transformative politics, we need

to have more than just a few conversations with them. in a large group, we found while working

with the bank block tenants, for example, how neighbors who see each other every day, who

live side by side and who share the same conditions and the same interests and the same struggles,

in those groups there's potential to have a much deeper form of discussion, of democracy,

and also of engagement. So moving forward with organizing at the level of the people's assembly,

our goal is really to build up from immediate struggles in buildings and on blocks where

neighbors can have that direct engagement with one another. And then from there, it can be

built up to a larger level where people in different buildings representing their buildings can

engage with one another. And that's our goal going forward. a tenants union union.

If I could add to that, like what Ethan had said previously about, you know, there being

rules and regulations and legislation specifically around labor organizing, what that looks like,

certain parameters that have to be met before the next step is completed. there isn't really

that rule book in the same way for tenant organizing. In Ontario, the Residential Tenancies Act simply

just says, you have a right to organize and the landlord can't interfere with that organizing.

But beyond that, it's really up to tenants themselves to be able to figure out what exactly needs

to be taken, how to create power for themselves. And in that realm, there is a lot more creative

potential because there isn't, there's not limitations to tenant organizing in the same way that labor

organizing is. So we are kind of at a really good ground for shaping how tenants build back

their own power. Union organizing can be so frustrating because you have to stay in these

avenues of bureaucracy often that just, you know, it's not really effective to... disruptive

change. And when you're going up against landlords, and I imagine we've seen tenant unions bring

cockroaches down to the office buildings of the landlord. And I imagine that just wouldn't

be on the manual of union organizing of ways you could negotiate with your boss. The good

news is also the threshold, that number threshold, although it's ideal to get as many people as

possible in your building signed on. five good shit disturbers in a building telling the landlord,

you know, pushing back on the lack of notice or anything is better than nothing, you know,

and can get a lot done. Right. Even in the labor organizing context, right, all this legislation,

all the rules came out a very specific history of labor unions becoming very real shit disturbers.

So the point that the government needed to pass legislation to be able to control it and saying,

okay. We can't control this any longer just by putting people in prison, because that's

really not working anymore. We have to create this very bureaucratic rule book for labor

unions to be able to still exist, but we still have control over them. And over time, as we've

seen, you know, government support a lot of the times. So we've seen this in, you know,

private companies having more and more power. places, taking their factories overseas, that

kind of thing, that there's not necessarily the same idea of a workplace floor anymore.

And it becomes harder and harder to organize. So whatever unions do exist, a lot of the times

their current idea, their current focus is around how to maintain the power that they do have

rather than organizing the unorganized. But we currently intend on organizing. We're still

in that. preliminary stage to be able to have the breadth and freedom to be able to define

those parameters without that government intervention. And there's also room for mutual solidarity

there. So the nature of the struggle that we are in, the tenant organizing, it makes the

labor movement a natural and necessary ally as well. So Building a working class movement,

which is based on the collective power to be able to bargain and win gains for ourselves

is the basic principle which is connecting us to labor. So that remains. And we see the differences

and we see that we have the tenant organizing, we see it as a part of the labor movement,

even though the labor movement may have, with the concessions from the government because

of the labor organizing. So similarly, the working class movement in Canada. tenant organizing

is a part of it. And these struggles can mutually reinforce each other too. So we see the unions

in Canada with thousands of workers, they have the potential to support organizing in neighborhoods.

And also our homes have become the site of struggle as well. So it is important to recognize that

the tenant unions can also support the labor unions in building that community support for

their bargaining efforts. So there can be mutual support at the workplace, but also where we

live, right? So... For example, the BBT, the bank block tenants, they received critical

financial support from locals and regional union committees. These funds are so crucial for

supporting tenants materially. So in BBT's case, to be able to afford lawyers against landlords

and big law. And if you want to see successful organizing in our city, the labor movement

can play that important role through material and hopefully political support as well. Absolutely.

It can help politicize people as well. I met union workers or tenants quite often going,

realizing your power through connecting with your neighbors and having a villain of sorts

that you band against. It creates an awakening. Class consciousness naturally emerges without

literature perhaps. That always helps, but it just kind of seems to happen naturally when

people especially get to see a victory. So encouraging the work of somebody already there pushing

up against a landlord, it's great to see that the locals recognize that value, right? Could

you only imagine if the city of Ottawa could see a victory from the tenants union there?

I mean, it's not like it's been without. Can you report on any victories from tenants in

Ottawa? There is definitely victories, not in the same way, because our odds are stacked

against, you know, laws and big landlords. But there are moments where you see, basically

things would have happened much faster, evictions would have gone on much faster, the compensations,

like landlords would be getting away with much more and much lesser time if the tenants were

not organized. Even looking at the bank block tenants, like they've been able to organize

against their landlord smart living properties that their own employees have also. in some

cases left the organization or there you can see the community support that is rising around

to push back, exposing investors in their land, people who are doctors in the neighborhood

who are invested in these landlords which are evicting people. So victory is also in different

steps, like step by step, we are seeing it every step of the way that even gaining, for example,

what I spoke about the labor movement supporting it, more and more people getting involved.

I would count that as like a big win for tenants as we go along. As Ethan mentioned, like we've

seen an incredible amount of support from people. So for the bank block tenants have been an

inspiration for many week by week, day by day, being present in the community. We are meeting

people passing by, doing their groceries on the weekend, walking their dogs, stopping to

see the tenants and us on the sidewalk and talking to us. And we see that people are interested

and they want to know more. But what is important about this interaction is that it's not just

to support from the outside. People are sharing their own experiences of renovations and demo

evictions. And you hear about the landlords neglecting their homes, the lack of repairs

and maintenance, constant threat of eviction looming over all our heads. And then we learn

about landlord tactics. So to evict tenants before even reaching the landlord and tenant

board. And we can go more and more into this, but I feel like this is a time where because

some people have that these tenants are leading the struggle and have organized themselves

and are opposing some very powerful people in the city, people are feeling more empowered

to come out and not only in support, but also organizing themselves and their buildings.

So I would count that as a win, I think, starting that process. I would agree in the sense that,

you know, we are quite new, but one of the things that we have constantly seen is through being...

organized, we are seeing tenants recognizing themselves as political actors. And so it's

not just about, you know, understanding their rights or feeling empowered to enforce their

rights, but even going so far as to demand more, to see themselves as having a role to play

in the sort of society that they want to live in for themselves and for future generations.

Oh, that's just music probably to everybody's ears who's hearing that because that is half

the struggle, if not more. Obviously, you can't quantify people realizing that they deserve

more and that they absolutely have the power within them to get it, if organized. If organized.

And that doesn't just mean teaming up. with your neighbors. That is the first step in tenant

organizing, you know, meeting your neighbors and finding common ground. But if we could

talk about to making these connections and how you folks talk about a lot of door knocking,

we'd call that deep canvassing, right? And that seems to be how you're reaching a lot of people.

You also have weekly meetings where you're finding new tenant groups or potential new tenant unions

popping up. I told you that I just kind of put a TikTok up about tenant organizing and a friend

mentioned, oh yeah, last year my building was organized into a union, just like really nonchalantly.

And I'm going, how many are there out there? And if there's so many out there, we need to

get them connected. We need to get them organized amongst themselves, right? To create that massive

power. So. few folks can hit on the things that you do that would kind of qualify as organizing.

Because I think sometimes when we say it, people don't know sometimes what that means, what

that means for your time. What are you actually doing to support the bank block tenants and

grow networks of tenants? Since last summer, I suppose, we've been working on building community

support for the... bank block tenants and their struggle. That process has been led by the

bank block tenants as an organization and our role is to work as supporters based on what

they tell us they need from us to try to build that community support. And what that looks

like concretely is as we alluded to before, a lot of door knocking. So when they have calls

to action. or if they have stuff they want to put out, we share it on social media, but we

go door knocking, often with members of the Bank Block Tenants, to directly talk to others

in the buildings around them in the neighbourhood about what's going on Bank Street and asking

folks if they know about it, if they're interested in supporting, sharing the action items with

them. But as part of that process, also asking them about the situation in their building.

And we've found that more and more it seems like almost every building we're in has some

kind of serious issue. Whether it's an above guideline rent increase, whether it's maintenance

issues, there are so many rent evictions and dem evictions happening in central Ottawa,

roughly speaking, right now. Almost everyone we talked to can relate immediately to what's

happening on Bank Street. So as part of having those conversations, in addition to sharing

the info from Bank Block Tenants, we also try to provide a way for those people to get involved

by coming out door knocking with us maybe in the future or coming out to meetings. But we

also support them if they have things in their building that they need, even if it's as simple

as putting together a survey or delivering a letter. We can support them. in doing that.

So it's just a lot of face-to-face interaction, connecting with people, seeing what they need,

and building the capacity to support them. And now we're at a point where, since we've spoken

to so many people, and we've learned a lot through building the People's Assembly, we're trying

to create a space where tenants in those other buildings can relate to one another. and to

struggles like those on bank block. Because we've seen the number one thing that people

ask if we talk to them about getting organized is, has this ever happened before? Or they

ask, has anyone ever managed to fight something like this? Has anyone ever won? Like the same

question you were just asking. And there are examples locally too, at Osgoe Chambers and

Manor Village for example, where tenants have been able to successfully resist eviction attempts.

So just being able to, when we talk to people, putting them in touch with the bank block tenants

and showing them what's going on, sometimes one block down the street from them can really

open the doors for what's possible in their building. And that's a lot of what that community

support building work looks like concretely.

These landlords and law firms, and they rely on the isolation and alienation of tenants

as well. And in a lot of these cases, you will see that because of the lack of support, because

of the lack of awareness, and awareness is not everything. However, it is key to know that

you can fight this. And when they see that other people are also organizing, we have actually

seen in how... Even a little bit of just connecting from one tenant to the other can lead to them

deciding to take action and then leading that. So the landlords are organized among themselves.

They are well organized with their common lawyers, with their team of people, with a team of property

managers and strategies. So on our end, combining our efforts just makes sense. With tenant organizing

happening all across Canada. We, and like a big shout out to Vancouver Tenants Union, who

we have worked in solidarity with, extended our solidarity to them, and they have extended

solidarity to us as well. So one of their landlords and, or investors and one of their owners of

their buildings was in Ottawa recently speaking at a public event and talking about different

issues. completely ignoring the fact that they're actively evicting people in Vancouver. So,

people in Ottawa have disrupted their events, have spoken to them and asked them the tough

questions in Ottawa that why are you evicting people? How are you comfortable evicting people

in Vancouver and what do you have to say about that? But no answers. Similarly, a Toronto

tenants, Thorncliffe tenants recently drove six hours to Ottawa. and attended and confronted

the PSP investments, their public event where they were reporting to their decision makers

and also the people whose funds they manage. And these tenants confronted them, Thorncliffe

tenants here in Ottawa and asked them the questions like, what do you have to say for increasing

rent above guidelines and evicting thousands of tenants? Complete silence in the room, not

a word. So, you know, they cannot even look the tenants that they are evicting in their

eyes and have a response. Nothing. I love how they fly across the country or halfway across

the country, some of them, and just to be faced with the issues they thought they left behind

and how heartwarming it must have felt as being those tenant unions and seeing folks act in

solidarity all that way away, just haunting these investors wherever they go. Absolutely.

I don't think they should be at peace and remove themselves from the tenants who they are actively

evicting. Make landlords afraid again. And Toronto has experienced a few victories of its own

with tenant unions, even at the Landlord Tenant Board, which would surprise a lot of people.

You can tell the people you talk to, they have gone on rent strike and won. There's another

set of tenants that just the other day were able to come to an amicable agreement with

their landlord after being on rent strike for a very, very long time. And no wonder people

feel like that. I don't think some people will realize, especially if they've been listening,

because we know about tenant rights, but there are people who will simply get an eviction,

not notice, like not an N13s. They'll get their landlord telling them to get out. And they

have no idea if they have. any rights at all. Like they are just scrambling to find a new

place to live. So for those people to then discover what a possible alternative is, that must be

mind blowing at first and come with a lot of skepticism, right? I imagine that folks are

worried about getting in trouble going up against their landlord in the same way that you would

get in a workplace hesitation to unionize as to not stir the pot. So Yeah, finding more

and more examples to provide people is critical. That's how all revolutions begin. Typically,

it's also by learning from previous ones, right? Seeing previous victories and knowing it is

something that's achievable. You know, if we think back to the course of the past half century

and we see a decimation of social supports, government services, wages not keeping up with

inflation. And even those who might be afforded social supports, you know, their constant surveillance,

the government constantly threatening to yank these supports away at a moment's notice. This

lack of a social safety net ends up performing this disciplinary force over the working class

so that people, working class people become concerned with maintaining what little scraps

the government provides them. rather than feeling empowered to enforce any rights that the government

tells them that they have, let alone even demanding more. And so we have, we see this constantly

with door knocking, with talking to tenants is they're constantly in a situation where

they feel they don't want a target to be put on their back for enforcing rights. They don't

want to become a problem. So, you know, as you said, when a landlord tells them you have to

leave, or even if they are given an N13 notice, which the landlord tenant board doesn't even

have access to, it's just the preliminary notice. they might immediately read that and think,

oh, I have two or three months to leave, I'm just going to leave. And no matter how many

times an individual is told, oh, you don't necessarily have to leave right now, you can have a hearing

in eight or nine months or whatever the time period is to be able to possibly get your apartment

back. Tenants oftentimes just think it's not worth the trouble, it's not worth the stress

of thinking, oh, I might be thrown on the street. So it's just this intense. power imbalance

that has had this civilizing effect over the course of the past half century or so. And

it's only through this collective power for people to be able to turn to their neighbors

and say, you know, as an individual, we might have this power, but together, we have a hundred

times as much power. That's where we see an ability to be able for tenants to successfully

organize and fight against the immense power of these landlords. You used civilizing with

such disdain. Like, I've never heard anybody use that word in a negative way. I know we

all understand the issues with that word and Western civilization, but like she didn't miss

a beat, you know, it's had this civilizing effect, you know, that we wish we could undo. And it's

just. Sorry, that was such a moment for me because I was like, he knows where we're at. Right?

She gets it. Ethan, I'm sorry. What were you going to say, brother? Oh, no problem. No,

I was just going to say I think that the point that Seema was making connects to, I think,

another point that she's made many times in our organizing, which is the importance of

being proactive. And that's something that, as the knock, that's one of our focuses is.

not just waiting until there is a critical issue, not just waiting until there is an eviction

to organize in a building, but to create tenant committees and structures in buildings well

before that happens. Because we've seen landlords try to use every trick imaginable to get tenants

out of the building, whether it's directly threatening them, whether it's trying to trick them into

there's really no low that they won't stoop to. So I think it speaks to the importance

of having people organized even before that point, so that when something comes up, people

know what their rights are, but they're also already in touch with their neighbors, they

don't feel as isolated, they can discuss it collectively. And going forward, that's one

of the things that we're really trying to do, is develop those structures in buildings and

blocks. getting neighbors talking to one another well before a building has been issued with

eviction notices or a similar critical crisis point has been reached. We've heard from York's

Southwest tenant unions that immediately after the ruling in their favor from the landlord

tenant board, the attitude of the landlord changed. interactions with property management became,

shall we say, civilized. And it was the repercussions of tenant organizing that started to mitigate

some of the predatory behaviors of the landlord. Do you think we're reaching a level of tenant

organizing where landlords will have to change

they, I think, will need to adapt their tactics because this isolation that you say that they

rely on, which is absolutely true, you and other people doing this good work are eroding that

and they can't use the normal manipulation tactics and the power imbalance is also being eroded,

right, with the people power you're building. So can you imagine how landlords are going

to respond? Should I say our goal is to... Our goal is to make housing not profitable again.

Abolish landlords, is that the new hashtag? Yeah, I mean, that is the ultimate goal. Until

we get there though, it'd be nice to know that they at least make it known to them that we're

here to keep them in check in the same way bosses of unionized workplaces understand their limitations.

because a lot of landlords don't take unions seriously. Are you finding that? I mean, obviously,

because you've been dealing with bank block, one of their main gripes was, you know, the

landlord refused to even talk to them collectively, recognize them collectively. Now the landlord

tenant board did recognize the tenants in Toronto collectively because the landlord tried to

take them to the board for their rent strike. And they said, okay, well, we're also going

to bring our complaints at the same time collectively. And that was a huge, that was a huge win. I

mean, that's what ensured that they were able to, I think, gain the upper hand there. Can

you speak to that at all? In just trying to find ways to get landlords to understand this

absolutely is a serious thing that you are going to have to deal with as a collective. Like

you said, whatever that big win may look like, and of course we want to end the commodification

of housing, right? Like that's the ultimate goal. We look at them as investors, not the

rebranding that they're attempting to do with like, oh, they're small landlords, big landlords.

At the end of the day, the commodification itself supported by policies and government laws and

policies and infrastructure is at the root cause of this. That goal in mind, but on an everyday

level, like the immediate demands that Ethan was talking about. In the case of bank block

tenants, they have been consistently from day one saying, we are a collective. You will talk

to bank block tenants. That's what they're saying to the landlords. And as we have seen, there

was a rally recently. It's almost like movie-like villain. They would shut their drapes on us

as we are standing outside their offices, and the tenants are standing outside saying, you

said you want to talk to us. Here we are with 40 and 50 other people. Let's talk. and the

property managers are shutting their drapes, closing in as if we are, I don't know what,

they're closing the doors on us and hiding inside, trying to enter from the back doors to their

own offices. The extent that they would go to avoid talking to tenants is just crazy. They

also, one of the things, one of the tactics that they've used, that's an example of when

landlords are forced to change their tactics or scramble in the face of this collective

power is, the rebranding that they keep doing. So smart living properties, they own whose

names and faces people in our community know that you are the owner of smart living properties.

They will go ahead and change their name to something else and rebrand completely and then

show up again in your neighborhood. So that's an example of what they try to do, that they're

in a corner, they're cornered and so they come up with new tactics, but they're not fooling

anybody. people realize in the neighborhood that we are talking to each other. And when

these changes happen and you cannot do that in isolation anymore, you cannot have a hearing

expecting the tenant to not show up. Because if they are talking to other tenants, they

know that showing up is important. So things like that, I think, is one of the examples

that I could think of that how the landlords also are now coming up with new tactics is

because they're forced to. And any victory in labor history or any other people working class

victory is because they were forced to change that. So this collective power, it's not going

to be asked nicely and they are going to give these concessions. I think this building of

collective power is absolutely necessary and issuing, I think, results. LESLIE KENDRICK

I was just thinking of another example of a tactic that landlords have taken now. What

is that now they're filing defamation claims against? tenants and tenant unions, and that's

happening in Toronto and Vancouver, to get to use their resources, their whole host of lawyers

to file these bogus defamation claims in the hope of instilling fear in these groups so

that they have to second-guess the sorts of posters and information that they're distributing

in public. so that they have to second guess communications that they're having amongst

each other. So it ends up having this, their intention is to have this sort of chilling

effect on the organizing of tenants. Those have to be slap suits, you know, hopefully a court

sees those for what they are. Those are, and Ontario does have protections for that, but

that's when, you know, those material supports that you're talking about that not everybody

can provide, but locals can, and some people can, but. it for the legal fees, the unnecessary

legal fees. Some people might not understand just how extensive it gets, but those are really

classic tactics, I think, of capital. We've seen corporations use those tactics. I'll tell

you, the NDP employed similar tactics. Their main focus was keeping writings from talking

to one another so that you couldn't share gripes or experiences with abuses And that is, it's

all part of that civilization, that's civilizing, diminishing of power, right? And the second

guessing is when you're asking people to just forge ahead and take risks, that's really tricky

when it just gets thicker and thicker, you know, with lawsuits that they wouldn't expect. I

don't imagine it worked though. Hopefully, hopefully that just makes people more angry. Like we

shouldn't succumb to the legal. avenues because they've never worked for tenants in the first

place. Landlord and tenant board and these other legal avenues, they are not designed to be

giving or providing justice in this context. The Land, the Tenancies Act, it treats landlord

and tenants, like landlords and service providers, and then the tenants that are receiving these

services. That's how the treatment is. And if they're simply applying the law, but the law

in itself. is not created or designed to see this as an exploitative relationship in the

first place. So there is lack of recognition or development of the law at this point that

sees this inherently as an exploitative relationship at the landlord and tenant board stage. So

if they don't recognize that, the adjudicators have no responsibility and legal obligate.

They have through the law, they can, right? But that needs to develop over time and that's

what the struggle hopefully will also go. But organizing is primary because right now without

that, they will not be compelled to. These facts that are being brought to the adjudicators,

they have the ability, but they can only do that once they are forced to face the facts,

which is this is how the tenants have organized themselves and also making those arguments

in and of itself. So that's... work has to come. The second point I also wanted to say is this

movement will require everybody. So it's, yes, we need the legal fees and we need the support

and allyship and political and material support of the labor movement, but also lawyers and

people who want to get involved using those skills to help the tenants as well, not for

profit, not to profit off these services as well, because at the end of the day, these

are absolutely critical services that the movement needs as well. So we have, there's different

roles to fill. And I think more people getting involved and getting involved in those parts

as well as necessary. But not the most important thing because without organizing there are

massive limitations. What's the one number one need that you folks have right now? Whether

it be material or logistical, if you could wave a magic wand and we could get you one thing.

There's not one thing, but I think others can speak to that better. But I will say one thing

that, yes, definitely, I think material support is necessary. So financial support for lawyers,

yes. But secondly, I think what's important is come out, get out in person, come out for

the door knocking, come out, meet us at the tables, and increase the strength as we meet

out, for example, on Saturdays or any other weekly meetings to come out and then go out

door knocking with us, get involved. become tenant reps in your buildings and organize

your building, talk to your neighbors. That just cannot happen alone in an isolation. So

come out, meet us in person, and reach out to us so that we can get involved and think of

concrete ways how people can start supporting tenants. Because this is at the end of the

day, not aid walk, this is not charity. Housing is not just a topical hot issue or strictly

an academic issue, even though there's great work happening to study and expose systemic

issues. While that is important, and policies and laws change when the ruling class is forced

to change them. When I say that this isn't charity, then what it is, it's actually a group of tenants

who are getting organized. If you are a tenant and this directly applies to you, it's your

interests are advanced through working with tenants, then people will be able to get involved.

working people in the city need to come out and strengthen it, and also learn how to organize

our own buildings and neighborhoods. I mean, deep canvassing and door knocking, I think,

is something that is undervalued. I mean, grassroots organizations understand its value, but for

those who have only canvassed politically, you're typically taught, you know, go to the door,

knock on it, find out. if you've got the right person and who they're going to vote for and

move on to the next one. It's so when you say door knocking, you really mean go talk to your

community members or listen rather to your community members. Do you want to speak to the difference

between those two types of door knocking just a little bit? No, for sure. I think that gets

to a key, a key point, which is maybe in the case of what people are familiar with from

electoral politics would be a kind of canvassing that sees people as passive. You go door to

door to identify who people are voting for, to collect data, but it's not so much geared

at encouraging those people to take action beyond maybe just voting. So what we're talking about

is instead seeing... people that we speak to as potentially active in the process of organizing.

And that can be a number of levels. That can be just by encouraging them to come out if

they if they're not at a stage where they're ready to organize in their building, encouraging

them to come out in support of other tenants like the bank block tenants. But it can also

be if people identify that they have issues in their building and they're interested, instead

of us telling them exactly what to do or us coming in and doing it for them. Our goal is

then to work with that person and be a strong supporter for them in taking action for themselves

with their neighbors in their building. So every tenant that we talk to we see as a potential

organizer as well, not just somebody who we are going to organize and mobilize and do things

for. And in so many ways, I think this approach can be more effective too. in the sense that

it'll allow them to build power in their buildings, but also I think a network of people in buildings

who are in touch with their neighbors and who are able to work with their neighbors to, you

know, whether it's bringing them out for a demonstration or whether it's organizing a more direct action,

that's something that has an incredible amount of potential power in it. So I think the distinction

is whether when we're going door knocking, we see people as data points or as passive contacts

to be mobilized. Yeah, exactly. Or if we see them as potential organizers who can play a

leading role in the struggle as well. Before we started recording, you folks were talking

about something you've got brewing. I mean, the idea of getting tenants connected with

one another must just scare the shit out of landlords. I mean, you should jokingly invite

them to this just so they know just at what level you folks are talking to one another.

Because I think that could have a chilling effect on even those mom and pop landlords that we're

really supposed to feel bad about when we're shit talking landlords. What do you folks have

up your sleeve that you can leave the audience with? So just since I teased it, I guess I

might start. So we, the Neighborhood Organizing Center, although we've been organizing for

a while, us doing it under that name is relatively new. So we are encouraging people, if you are

interested in doing this kind of work of supporting tenant organizing and helping... helping build

the capacity for tenants to get organized. Please reach out to us. There are a lot of folks in

the community who have different levels of, different kinds of time on their hands, different

capacities, and there's room for people to be involved at whatever level works for them.

At the same time, the NOC, the Neighborhood Organizing Center, is convening the People's

Assembly, which is that wider forum for participation. And as mentioned, we're hoping that will be

the product of deeper organizing, where tenants are attending as representatives of our buildings,

and that can be a space where tenant committees and tenant unions can thrive and can help support

tenants in getting that started in their buildings. So if that interests you, in January, on January

18th... We're going to be doing a workshop, which has a more educational focus on tenant

organizing. And then for the first meeting of the People's Assembly in this new forum, it

will be in February of 2025. And we in our own work will continue to learn from other tenants

and tenant unions and tenants as well, which I think this podcast also talks a lot about,

but that's sort of the way forward. Yeah, and connecting our different movements and different

struggles is also a key part, but that can be a whole other episode too. So, kind of not

talk about that right now. That is like the whole podcast, you know, social movements,

labor movements, tenant movements, how can we get them all going in the same direction at

the same time? And can we imagine what that would look like if we could? Definitely. Even

if you're not based in Ottawa and you're organizing across Canada, we would still be interested

in hearing from you. As has been mentioned previously, this is a struggle across the country for tenants

and for the working class more broadly. Yes, I wish we were recording when I asked Ethan,

you know, is this your sole focus, tenant organizing? And he said, well, right now it is. And I said,

Oh, had you done something previous? And it was like, No, no, just this is where we're

starting people. You know, this is just the beginning, the seed of the potential that people

could hold. Right. Ethan, did I represent you well enough there? Absolutely. Yeah. So that,

yeah, like, like Seema said, we see this, the tenant struggle is not an isolated thing. It's

not cut off from the rest of society, but it's a part of the larger system that we're living

in. And the way that the housing system is exploitative is the way that capitalism is exploitative.

And the way that working class tenants can get organized for power is the way that the working

class can get organized for power. So we see it as part of that larger movement and larger

struggle. And that's why we're very thrilled to be on a platform like this. I will just

say one more thing. just because I was thinking about it earlier. Landlords really, their whole

business model is based on inflicting violence on people, on tenants, which they are completely

removed from. So they can force people out of their homes, onto the street, they can force

people to live in horrible conditions while they live in mansions and they never have to

deal with it. So I think with 2025, I know Toronto is a bit ahead of where we are in Ottawa, but

we're going to show them that they can't get away with it anymore, that you can't inflict

this kind of violence on people and expect to just wash your hands of it and live comfortably

in your home. It's just not going to... that era has passed. That is a wrap on another episode

of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also a very big thank you to the producer

of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production

operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to

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