Ontario MPPs Are Begging Ford To Stop COVID-19 Evictions Right Now

They say the province needs to bring back their eviction moratorium from March.
Staff Writer

While Toronto deals with winter weather and a pandemic lockdown, Ontario's MPPs are begging the province's Premier to re-instate a pause on COVID-19 evictions.

Suze Morrison, the MPP for Toronto Centre and the NDP's Tenants Right Critic, put forward a motion on Tuesday, December 8, that called on Ford to stop residential evictions until the province is past the pandemic.

The motion passed in the Legislature, but Ford would need to sign an emergency order before any eviction pause is enacted.

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Morrison's motion calls for Ford to pause evictions "until Ontario has entered a post-pandemic recovery period and by prohibiting evictions for nonpayment of rent for the period of the COVID-19 pandemic."

The motion passed unanimously in Ontario's legislature.

Ontario did have an eviction moratorium in place during the first wave of the pandemic.

But it ended on August 1, and plenty of evictions have happened since then — enough for tenants' rights organizations to call it an "eviction blitz."

Narcity has reached out to Premier Ford's office for comment.

  • Cormac O'Brien was an Associate Editor at Narcity Canada, covering all things exciting and trending about Canada. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Journalism from the University of Victoria, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the campus newspaper and was awarded the BCYNA Community News Scholarship for his writing. He was also the producer and co-host of Now On Narcity, Narcity's flagship podcast.

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