COPE's policy

COPE will support the growth of tenant unions by:

• Affirming the right of tenants to create tenant unions in their buildings, neighbourhoods, and city-wide;
• Creating a legal framework for recognition of tenant unions (learning from the San Francisco model) and obliging landlords to bargain in good faith with tenant unions.

This policy was approved by COPE members in August 2022. COPE is a democratic, grassroots, member-led party. Become a COPE member today.

Why it’s important

Eviction pressures

In Vancouver, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment has gone up by almost 20% since last year. 

Renters are facing eviction pressures from their landlords who have a financial incentive to force out current tenants for an opportunity to raise the rent amount for the suite. 

Uneven playing field

Scarcity of affordable housing means that tenants are not in a position to negotiate their rent or terms of the lease. Further, the fear of homelessness and the stigma of a history of eviction puts tenants into a vulnerable situation that silences them from advocating for the safety and adequacy of their home. 

Tenant unions are crucial to the security and safety of tenants because they help to level the power differential between them and their landlords. The landlord owns the property and makes decisions about who gets to live there and how the tenants conduct themselves. If the tenant makes a transgression, the landlord has the power to take away their home. 

On the other hand, the only power a tenant has is to lodge a complaint about a landlord’s misconduct with the Residential Tenancy Branch. Tenants on an individual level do not have enough power to level the playing field - it can only happen when they organize. 

Organized together, tenant associations can exercise collective bargaining to achieve tenant security, ensuring the landlord performs their obligations, eliminating unreasonable terms in tenancy agreements, and gaining control over their rent amount. 

Vancouver tenants with COPE candidates

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of tenant association would constitute a city recognized tenants union?

The city would recognize groups of tenants who organize within their building and, if their landlord or property owner has more than one building, tenants could also organize based on their property owner. However, tenants will be free to organize and bargain without needing to be recognized by the city.

Tenants unions need a legal framework to be able to collectively bargain and take action against their landlord. Like employee unions, tenants need to be able to bargain with their landlord and go on strike if an agreement can’t be reached. This framework would allow the tenants to act collectively to make demands of their landlords, including demanding and bargaining their leases. Once a majority of tenants wish to bargain, the landlord would be obliged to engage in the bargaining in good faith. The bargaining process would aim to achieve tenant security, ensure landlords perform their obligations, eliminate unreasonable terms in tenancy agreements, and give tenants a say in the decision of the rent rate. As is the case with labour unions, when a tenant union forms, the landlord will be obligated to open their books about the financial situation of the building to the union so that the tenants can make decisions if collective action needs to be initiated.

Doesn’t the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) already provide protection for tenants? 

The RTB is empowered to resolve tenant-landlord disputes and ensure that tenancy laws are upheld. However, unlike judges, RTB arbitrators are not bound by precedent, which makes decision-making inconsistent and outcomes difficult to predict. Arbitrations assume that those involved will have full capacity to legally represent themselves, something that is not always the case for tenants who are under great amounts of stress and pressure.

Will the legislation of tenant unions mean that landlords would have unions too? 

Landlords already have well-funded associations, such as LandlordBC, which advocate for their interests. Landlords have capital and land ownership on their side which means they already have more power to leverage against their tenants, even without the help of landlord associations. 

Would tenant unions lead to less supply?

Owning land and renting it to tenants will still be a profitable field. Just like labour unions did not put employers out of business, neither will tenants put landlords out of property ownership. More market supply is not the panacea to the rent crisis. The more market supply we have, the more we need tenants to be able to bargain and advocate for affordable rents and adequate living conditions.

What's been done so far

In the early 1970s, tenant organizing in which COPE activists such as Bruce Yorke played a key role, led to the commission of the BC Tenancy Law Reform Commission in 1973. The Commission was tasked with considering whether collective-bargaining rights should be extended to tenants. Tenants and tenant groups formed only 10% of the submissions received and were in favour of collective-bargaining rights. The hearing process was dominated by submissions from landlords. The Commission’s final report recommended rent control measures but not collective bargaining rights.

Elsewhere in Canada, steps have already been taken to legislate the rights of tenant unions. Ontario prohibits evictions that are in response to a tenant attempting to defend their legal rights or organizing in tenant associations, and makes illegal the harassment of those attempting to organize or participating in tenant associations. Manitoba’s Residential Tenancies Regulation states that landlords cannot prevent the formation of tenant associations, stop associations from gathering in the building, or impose unreasonable conditions on the functioning of the associations.

The Vancouver model of a tenant union by-law can closely resemble the model recently passed in San Francisco. The municipal by-law recognizes the tenant right to organize, requires large corporate landlords to attend at least four tenant meetings per year, and obligates the landlords to bargain with tenant unions “in good faith”. 

Feasibility

In the absence of amendments to the provincial Residential Tenancy Act, the municipal government can use the landlord business license to legally enforce the rights of tenants to organize and to collectively bargain. 

Several options for collecting tenant union dues exist, if dues are deemed necessary, and further consultation is necessary to determine the method which is most appropriate for Vancouver’s tenants. One possible method is to require landlords to use the interest collected on damage deposits to be used towards funding the tenant unions and potentially other renter support initiatives, such as the Renter Services Centre. 

COPE has a long history of working alongside tenant unions, associations, and advocacy groups in Vancouver. Groups such as the Vancouver Tenants Union, Downtown Eastside SRO Collaborative, ACORN BC, and RentStrikeBargain have worked tirelessly to protect, empower, educate, and lead the way in this movement for tenant power.