Four tenants in a north-end Toronto apartment building — from left, Maria Concepcion de Ramos, Rose Strachan, Luzviminda (Minda) Mendoza and Mohamed Nizam — show the lawsuit their landlord filed against them after they demonstrated and flyered outside her cheese-making business.
Tenants already face plenty of potential snarls in dealing with landlords. But now some landlords are suing their tenants for defamation when disputes go public.Four tenants in a north-end Toronto apartment building — from left, Maria Concepcion de Ramos, Rose Strachan, Luzviminda Mendoza and Mohamed Nizam — show the lawsuit their landlord filed against them after they demonstrated and flyered outside her cheese-making business.
"Tenants will not be pushed out of their homes," read the flyers they were posting. "Tenants… demand that Anne DeMelo put an end to the harassment and do the repairs they have requested."Tenants at a Toronto apartment building protest outside their landlord's business in November 2023. They ended up being sued by Anne DeMelo, the landlord, for defamation.
"It's definitely an escalation in the tools that landlords have at their disposal to try and stop tenants from engaging in their expressive rights." "We're in one of those moments of an upward trend in tenant activism — and of the more militant type," said Ricardo Tranjan, a senior researcher on housing and social policy with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "It's safe to assume that the retaliation is also going to be there."
Jonathan Petrov said a half dozen tenants at his building were shocked to be served with a lawsuit from their landlord after they protested and flyered in downtown Vancouver. In an emailed statement, Majithia said the tenants he's suing "assumed an extreme and antagonistic stance even before Plan A began managing the property." The company had no desire to "have a strained relationship with the tenants," he said.Libel lawsuits aren't the only tactics landlords have turned to in reaction to tenants who have taken their concerns public.
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