I haven't written because my attention has been taken over by events outside of my control. I have spent the last two months in a panic that varies in intensity but does not lift. I hate it here.
I hate it when the prevailing stupidity affects me personally. I know that it is unrealistic to think that I can remain above the fray, especially as I am not among the rich or very rich, but I can’t help but hold out a naïve hope that I can escape the worst. It’s delusional but it helps me sleep at night.
What is terrible about the ongoing pandemic and the related denial of the ongoing nature of the pandemic is that every time you think you have managed to make the appropriate adjustments to mitigate against whatever it is that the government has completely abandoned, the government decides to abandon some other thing and you are forced once again to think up some kind of mitigation or adaptation so that you won’t die just because the government is trying so hard to either kill you or make your life so miserable that you do the job for them.
Some time ago, a version of these thoughts ran through my head as a barefaced technician poked my eye with some doohickie. I can’t remember why she needed to poke my eye but, after I acquiesced, I found myself wondering if her proximity to my face (I was wearing an n95) and the possibly unsterilized doohickie meant my luck had run out and I was about to become ill with COVID or measles or whatever else healthcare workers are spreading these days. I felt panic followed by resignation. I guess, I thought to myself, this is just collapse. Why should I be exempt?
Then it was reported that Premier Doug Ford (hereinafter referred to as "Dougie") wants to end secure tenancy. He wants to make it easier for landlords to end leases. Right now, in Ontario, you are allowed to stay on in your apartment after your fixed term lease (typically 1 year) as long as you continue to comply with your lease contract. Dougie and his cronies think that this is not a good thing because the Ontario Conservatives don’t think there are enough homeless people yet. He thinks that there needs to be more homeless people because housing isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. Dougie's job is to make that privilege as expensive as possible.
It's terrible policy to force people out of their homes and render their living situations even more precarious, but what does Dougie care? He was born rich.
I care. Firstly, because I am a renter. I am leaving my rental for another one because the landlord is selling the unit in which I currently live. I just signed another lease and now I find out that the terms of the new lease may be changed by the corrupt, cheese-caking eating asshole who occasionally deigns to show up to work at Queen’s Park. I haven’t been dealing well with the proposed changes. I have been stressed. It has been one more stress on top of a pile of pre-existing stress.
Secondly, because I am not a completely heartless bastard. I know there are already too many people who are unhoused or precariously housed and that removing secure tenancy will just make the situation worse. It will increase human suffering so that others, who already have more than enough housing and more than enough money, will get more money.
But I think I know what Dougie is trying to do here.
First, landlords have long complained that Ontario is too generous to tenants. Dougie’s third term has only just started, so he has lots of time to ride out public discontent. He’s going to make sure that the laws favour his friends and prop up the property market. His friends are not poor people who rent and rely on rent control and secure tenancy to stay housed.
Second, making the law more unfavourable to tenants will push those who can afford to do so to buy. People who are tenants who are pushed prematurely into buying real estate are more likely to buy condos. Toronto’s condo market is a mess and needs propping up. Dougie is just the man for the job. Dougie does not know of or care about places in Ontario that are not Toronto.
That still leaves the question of what to do with the homeless. What is my third point? Well, I think we can expect Dougie to make the homelessness problem so bad so that he can then say that it has “gotten out of control” while he eats a dessert on camera. I expect that there will be some sort of forced work camp or workfare (since Doug is Mike Harris’s spiritual heir). Forcing the homeless to work to “earn” the “help” that the state will provide will alleviate the labour shortages caused by shite wages and terrible working conditions, especially if the federal government is serious about closing the border to temporary foreign workers.
Postscript: Dougie has temporarily shelved the idea of ending secure tenancy after everyone panicked and started organizing. I am not, however, breathing a sigh of relief. Dougie has already removed rent control from units first occupied after November 15, 2018, and no one expected him to try to end secure tenancy. The proposed bill is likely still full of other terrible policies and we can expect Dougie to continue to weaken tenant protections.