In April 2026, the Toronto Tenant Union was launched as a city-wide organization bringing together housing rights groups, neighbourhood associations, and climate activists under a common banner. A renters rights movement is growing and refusing to accept rising costs and poorer living conditions. This has also led to movement leaders hoping to push for electoral change, as 2025 Jack Layton Progress Prize recipient Chiara Padovani, former co-chair of the York-South Weston Tenants Union in Toronto, runs for City Council in upcoming elections in Fall 2026. To organize bigger, neighbourhood tenant unions are expanding city-wide, teaming up with other social movements, and finding new paths to power to change the livelihoods of renters.
Perspectives Journal contributor James Adair spoke with Toronto Tenant Union organizers Bruno Dobrusin and Sama Nanayakkara about building tenant power, the connection between housing and climate justice, and their vision for a movement capable of challenging landlords and reshaping housing politics.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
James Adair: For those that may be unfamiliar with kinds of organizing, what is a tenant union and how is it similar or different from a labour union?
Bruno Dobrusin: Simply put, a tenant union is an organization of tenants. The logic behind it is similar to the logic of a labour union. We have to organize where the capitalists are making their profits, and increasingly that means in apartments and in our homes.
JA: How did the Toronto Tenant Union form?
BD: The TTU officially formed on April 18th, 2026, but it was only born out of a long history of tenant struggles across Toronto that led to the Union. Formally, it is a merger between the York South-Weston Tenant Union and Climate Justice Toronto, but many smaller groups, associations, and committees that were organizing in the city have joined as well.
There was a growing recognition that tenants needed a coordinated strategy and a shared political project. We started the York South-Weston Tenant Union six years ago, and since then, housing has become one of the defining issues in people’s lives. Rent takes up a huge portion of people’s income, and we’ve seen organizing emerge in communities that have often been difficult to mobilize around other issues.
What’s been remarkable is seeing tenants come together in a class-conscious fight against landlords and the real estate industry. The growing power of the landlord lobby has also made it clear that tenants need stronger organizations of their own.
JA: Climate Justice Toronto was one of the organizations that merged into the Toronto Tenant Union. Some people have been curious about why a climate justice organization would make that move. What was the thinking behind it?
Sama Nanayakkara: We started asking ourselves: what is climate justice fundamentally about? It’s about addressing this double inequality where those who contribute the most to cause climate change are impacted the least. And on the other side, those who contribute the least are impacted the most. We see that in our neighborhoods, we see that between tenants and landlords. We saw tenants without access to A/C, but who had above guideline rent increases (AGIs) in the name of climate action and making their apartments more ‘green.’ That isn’t climate action.
There is another element: tenants who are fighting for better housing are increasing their adaptive capacity towards climate change. It’s directly putting money back in their pockets.
Climate Justice Toronto had been working closely with York South-Weston Tenant Union for years, and we’ve always had the same vision. So at a certain point, we were learning from them and organizing in our own buildings, organizing across Toronto. Eventually we realized we should just merge.
When landlords realize they’re not dealing with one building but with a city-wide organization, they’re often much more willing to negotiate.
JA: What was the rationale for building a city-wide tenant union?
BD: The basic idea is that we need to scale up the organizing that’s already happening building by building.
The forces we’re up against aren’t local. Real estate is one of the most powerful sectors of the Canadian economy. If tenants are going to successfully challenge landlords and developers, we need organizations with comparable scale.
Our long-term vision is a city where tenant union membership is as normal as union membership in a workplace. Imagine if 30 percent of Toronto tenants were organized. That would fundamentally change the political conversation around housing.
For years, tenant organizing has often been fragmented. You might have one strong tenant association in one building and another across the city, but they’re isolated from each other. A city-wide union allows us to coordinate struggles, share resources, and become a political force capable of influencing decisions at city hall and beyond.
We’ve already seen the difference. When landlords realize they’re not dealing with one building but with a city-wide organization, they’re often much more willing to negotiate.
JA: What does it mean in practice for tenants to have a union in their building?
SN: One of the biggest advantages is that tenants stop fighting alone.
For example, in York South-Weston we connected tenants in different buildings that appeared to have different landlords but were actually owned by the same landlord group through various numbered companies. Instead of fighting separate battles, they were able to coordinate a common campaign.
That creates a stronger public narrative, but it also creates solidarity. Tenants realize that the problems they’re facing aren’t unique to their building. Their neighbours across the city are dealing with the same issues.
An example is a landlord named Michael Klein. He’s a well-known landlord who has repeatedly attempted what tenants would call renovictions. The basic argument is: “We need to renovate your units, so everyone has to move out.” In theory, tenants are supposed to have the right to return once the work is completed, but in practice that often doesn’t happen.
We started organizing in one of his buildings, where many long-term tenants had received renovation notices. Through the tenant union, we then connected tenants in other buildings owned by the same landlord. We discovered not only that the same thing was happening elsewhere, but that the landlord was often using the exact same justifications for the renovations.
Tenants in different buildings were being told that specific walls needed to be removed or major structural work had to be done. Yet when tenants compared notes, some of those explanations didn’t even make sense given the layouts of the different buildings and apartments. One said “Oh, this wall has to go” but there was no wall where they were referring to, for example. It was copy-pasted.
By connecting tenants in different buildings, we were able to build much stronger resistance. The landlord had to disclose information about renovation plans across multiple properties, and tenants were able to challenge inconsistencies in those claims. That’s exactly the kind of coordinated organizing we want to reproduce across the city: tenants sharing information, supporting one another, and confronting landlords collectively rather than building by building.
JA: One thing that stood out to me in the Toronto Tenant Union’s constitution is that it moves beyond advocacy toward a more militant model of organizing. That seems especially evident in the way you think about relationships with elected officials. They are almost seen as extensions of the movement with a level of reciprocity and accountability not really seen in Canada.
BD: That was actually one of the more controversial parts of the constitution because it’s not common in Canada. But it’s quite common in left movements elsewhere.
We don’t think elected officials emerge on their own. They’re supported by movements and organizations. Ideally, we want to endorse our own people and eventually help elect organizers who come out of the tenant movement itself.
We want to run our own people in elections that we can win, and see them make a difference because they have been part of our movement, allowing us to keep that organic relationship with those elected officials. We want our people advancing the fight in city hall, taking on landlords there; not alone, but as part of something bigger than themselves.
The goal is to have people in city hall advancing tenant struggles, but doing so as part of a larger movement rather than as isolated individuals.
If you’re eventually going to ask someone to take a serious risk — like withholding rent during a rent strike — there has to be trust.
JA: Something that I’ve seen in the York South-Weston Tenant Union is that it often becomes a part of the social life of its membership. Can you talk about how you build that identification with the tenant union?
BD: That’s a really important part of what we do.
If your first interaction with someone is telling them they should fight their landlord, many people won’t be ready for that. Not because they don’t care, but because people are often isolated and disconnected from collective political activity.
If you’re eventually going to ask someone to take a serious risk — like withholding rent during a rent strike — there has to be trust. A lot of the tenants who have participated in rent strikes with us had never been politically active before.
That’s why social events matter.
SN: For example, we host Easter egg hunts where the kids are running around looking for eggs, and in the meantime we’re talking with parents, having coffee, and hearing about what’s going on in their buildings and in their lives.
BD: If we organized a workshop on Organizing 101 from a Marxist perspective, maybe 30 people would show up. An Easter egg hunt might bring out 300.
If you’re eventually going to ask someone to take a serious risk—like withholding rent during a rent strike—there has to be trust.
That’s why we put a lot of energy into community events. We’ve hosted large iftar dinners, organized holiday celebrations, and even entered a Santa Claus parade with a Frozen-themed float carrying the slogan, “Elsa, will you freeze my rent?” Those kinds of events are fun, but they’re also organizing opportunities.
SN: We’re not just tenants. We’re whole people with families, friendships and interests. We want to build a movement where people genuinely enjoy spending time together.
Sometimes the social events are political actions, and sometimes they’re just opportunities to connect. Often they’re both at the same time. I remember one action where we went Christmas carolling outside Michael Klein’s home. It was funny, it was creative, and it was also a political action. That’s the kind of organizing culture we’re trying to build.
It was so fun. We were just being silly. We were just coming together during Christmas time.
We’re not inventing something entirely new. Tenant organizing is growing across Canada. I think there is a sense that this tenant movement is growing.
JA: Looking ahead five years, what would success look like for the Toronto Tenant Union?
SN: I want every tenant in Toronto to recognize the union and see themselves in it. I want people to know that if they need community, support or collective action, there’s a place for them.
Most importantly, I want landlords to know you can’t mess with tenants.
BD: Yeah, I endorse Sama’s beautiful way of putting it.
In the longer term, I’d like to see tenants win rights that are currently unimaginable in Canada. I’d like to see collective bargaining for tenants. I’d like to see rent strikes recognized and protected rather than immediately treated as grounds for eviction proceedings.
The right to strike transformed the labour movement. I think tenants deserve similar tools.
JA: Any final thoughts?
BD: And even if you’re not in Toronto, organize where you are. We’re already working with tenant organizers across the country, including groups in Vancouver, Montreal and other cities.
We’re not inventing something entirely new. Tenant organizing is growing across Canada. I think there is a sense that this tenant movement is growing. If people want to start organizing in their own communities, we’re happy to help however we can, and connect you with the network of tenant organizers.
SN: Join the union! Find out more at tenantunion.ca!
Sama Nanayakkara is a member of the Don-Valley Scarborough branch of the Toronto Tenant Union, previously Climate Justice Toronto, where she has been helping tenants organize since 2023. In addition to tenant organizing, Sama is a member organizer in her labour union CAPE.
Bruno Dobrusin is one of the co-chairs of the Toronto Tenant Union. He is a tenant in York South-Weston, in North-West Toronto, where, together with a group of neighbours started the YSW Tenant Union in 2018, which has now merged into the Toronto Tenant Union.
