Sometimes, governments test the waters and when the backlash is loud enough, they retreat. That’s exactly what happened with Ontario’s controversial Bill 60, the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act. Introduced with little warning on October 23, the bill would have handed landlords sweeping new powers to evict tenants once their leases ended. Just three days later, the Ford government abruptly backed down.
Housing Minister Rob Flack’s statement on October 26 tried to soften the reversal: “Residents expect stability and predictability in Ontario’s rental market and now is not the time to consider changes to this system.” In political terms, that’s a polite way of admitting the proposal was a disaster in the making.
Bill 60 wasn’t just a technical tweak to housing rules. It was a major restructuring of the tenant-landlord balance in Ontario. Under the proposed changes, landlords could have ended tenancies at the end of a lease for almost any reason “market conditions,” “business strategies,” or even “personal needs.” Tenants who were already paying sky-high rents could have found themselves out on the street, despite following every rule in the book.
The bill also sought to limit tenants’ ability to challenge evictions. It would have forced them to pay half their overdue rent before raising issues at hearings and cut the appeal window for eviction notices from 30 days to just 15. All these measures pointed in one direction: making it easier to remove tenants and harder for them to fight back.
Critics, including NDP housing critic Catherine McKenney, saw Bill 60 for what it was an attack on housing security in a province where affordability is already hanging by a thread. “Ontario is in the middle of a job’s disaster. Now, the Premier wants to make it easier for people to be evicted from their homes,” McKenney said. And she wasn’t wrong.
The irony is that Ontario has been here before. Back in 2018, the Ford government scrapped rent control for new units, arguing it would boost housing supply. Instead, rents skyrocketed while tenants’ protections eroded. Bill 60 looked like a sequel a new way to tilt the playing field toward landlords while the rest of Ontario struggles to keep a roof over their heads.
To be fair, Ontario does need reforms the Landlord and Tenant Board is overwhelmed, the housing shortage is severe, and delays are hurting both tenants and property owners. But Bill 60 wasn’t the fix. It was a short-sighted move that would have deepened inequality and worsened instability for renters already hanging on by a thread.
So yes, it’s good news that the Ford government pulled the plug. But this reversal shouldn’t be mistaken for a change of heart. It’s more likely a calculated response to political heat. The province has promised “common-sense reforms” going forward let’s hope that means policies that protect tenants as much as they empower landlords.
Because if Ontario truly wants to “build faster,” it needs to build fairer, too.
