BBetween 2021 and 2024, Dominic’s landlord performed renovations on his building that included roof fixing, a change in the hot water tank, and other exterior work. Dominic only became aware that his landlord, Paramount, applied for a 7.4 percent rent increase in June 2025 for work they had undertaken in his building, Arcadia Apartments.
“We got served the application a month before the Case Management Hearing,” said Dominic to The Leveller. The Case Management Hearing (CMH) has two purposes as outlined by the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB): to provide all parties with the opportunity to explore a settlement with a Dispute Resolution Officer present, and if that cannot be reached to facilitate plans for a Merits Hearing.
In that same conversation, Dominic also noted that “the exterior works done on the building were not even done properly, and our units have issues of mold and heating problems.”
Dominic’s building is not an isolated case. Since 2024, organizers with the Neighbourhood Organizing Center have observed that an increasing number of tenants have received rent increases above Ontario’s guidelines from their landlords despite unaddressed maintenance issues. This tactic has been used by landlords across Ottawa as seen for instance with the Heron Gate tenants, as documented by The Leveller in 2018.
The organizers noticed this through door-knocking with tenants like Dominic in different buildings across Sandy Hill, Centretown, Lowertown, and Vanier.
Ontario ACORN reported that Ottawa saw an “average rent jump by 81 percent” in the years between 2001 and 2021. Philip Zigman, a tenant organizer in Toronto, and Martine August, Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo also reported that the number of applications for Above Guidance Increases has increased by 250 percent from 2012-13 to 2019-20.
What is an AGI & Who is Responsible?
Above Guideline Increases (AGIs) are rent increases that landlords apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) for rent increases that are above the guideline set by the Ontario Province. A single AGI application by the landlord can increase tenants’ rent by 9 percent over the course of three years above the guideline.
“We are getting priced out of our neighbourhoods because of the greed of developers, investors, and landlords… The use of AGIs is just another way to make rent unaffordable for long term tenants… Together, we have the power to change our conditions.”
The figure below demonstrates the extra revenue landlords make through a single application of an AGI in the first three years and after 10 years on a single hypothetical unit (the minimum expiration period for approved AGIs).
These rent increases accumulate over time and do not revert to the baseline after the three years. In 10 years, a successful AGI application can yield a yearly increase equivalent to a month’s rent per unit. According to Zigman and August, financial firms have clearly stated that they use AGIs as a “revenue generation” strategy to increase profits for investors.
In the Residential Tenancies Act, Section 126, there are three reasons a landlord may apply for an AGI: increased municipal taxes and fees, capital expenditures, and operating costs related to security.
Capital expenditure, which includes work done to balconies, elevators, safety elements like cameras, and accessibility elements, is the most common reason cited by landlords for AGI applications. Landlords may not apply for AGIs for cosmetic changes (such as paint jobs).
Ricardo Tranjan and Paulina Vargatoth, researchers with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, noted that AGIs were first introduced by the Ontario government in 1992 under the leadership of Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party. The purpose of the AGIs were to incentivize landlords to keep rental properties in prime conditions.
In practice, AGIs have just been another tool used by landlords to further drive up rent. When AGIs were first implemented, the rules allowed landlords “to apply for additional rent increases to recover 50 percent of new capital expenses,” stated Tranjan and Vargatoth. However, after Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government took over in 2006, they changed the rules to allow landlords to transfer the entire cost of capital expenditures to tenants.
As outlined by Zigman and August, the AGI process on tenants involves landlords notifying tenants through an N1 form at least 90 days in advance of an increase in rent. Although the N1 form is a tool used to inform tenants of the “proposed rent increase” that landlords are imposing, an AGI must be authorized through an order by the LTB for it to come into effect. The whole process could take years.
After tenants receive their N1, they will then receive a Case Management Hearing (CMH) date. At this CMH, tenants will have the chance to negotiate and settle with their landlord. If either party refuses to negotiate and settle, a Merits Hearing would be set whereby both sides would submit written submissions to the Adjudicator, who makes a final decision.
Ottawa Tenants Face Pressures & Organize to Fight
Tenant organizers noticed that the LTB process of an AGI application is skewed in favour of landlords. Zigman and August also state that the LTB “rubber stamps” these applications as long as the landlord’s documents are in order. Landlords can afford to simply hire lawyers that can devote time to ensure these applications are done effectively.
On the other hand, ignored maintenance requests, evidence of neglect by the landlord, and evidence that the work done was unnecessary are difficult to submit to the LTB as evidence for tenants to resist the AGI application.
The complexity of this process, as well as its unfairness, led these organizers to put on an educational workshop titled Above Guideline Rent Increases (AGIs): What Are They and How to Fight Back! at the Bronson Center on November 22, 2025.
The event was attended by 30 tenants and comprised of three parts: the LTB process of the AGI, tenant organizers that fought AGIs outside the LTB, and finally a roundtable discussion of tenants in attendance to discuss strategies to organize outside the LTB.
During the second part of the event, the Neighbourhood Organizing Centre members invited tenants of Thorncliffe Park and members of Off the Defensive Toronto, a Canadian organization dedicated to class struggle through neighbourhood organizing, to speak of their experience organizing against AGIs outside of the LTB.
These tenants emphasized actions to connect with their neighbours through door-knocking and building meetings with the aim of fighting the AGIs.
“The most important thing is to stay united, stick together, build trust and get more people to join you each time.”
Organizing the writing of a collective demand letter to drop the AGIs was a common first step. This was then followed by different escalatory actions to put pressure on the respective landlords by disrupting their businesses.
An organizer with Thorncliffe Tenants explained how 120 Toronto tenants organized a rent strike against the landlord Starlight and PSP investments.
When the demand letter went unheard, and, a year later, tenants received another AGI, they decided to organize a rent strike. An organizer involved in this fight noted that the landlord worked hard to break the strike for over 2 and a half years before the tenants and the landlords came to an agreement in the summer of 2025, scoring a notable victory.
Since the end of the strike, the organizer added that the conditions in the building have continued to improve and that there have been no new AGI applications since.
A tenant of Thorncliffe Park, the site of this victory, emphasized that the most important tool at the tenants’ disposal is door-knocking.
“The most important thing is to stay united, stick together, build trust and get more people to join you each time,” he said.
This emphasis on focusing organizing energy on building solidarity and community was echoed by a member of Off the Defensive Toronto and East Scarborough Tenants Union. They noted that “spending time focused on the LTB process is a waste of tenants’ time. There is no way to win at the LTB.”
The tenants of 25 Cougar Court, who also faced an AGI application in Toronto, focused their efforts on social media campaigns and direct actions to draw attention to the predatory behaviour of their landlord, Starlight, and the property management company, Metcap. This resulted in a negotiation with the landlord outside of the LTB and a 50 percent reduction of their AGIs.
Finally, another member of Off the Defensive Toronto and East York Tenants Union, noted that their fight in two buildings at 50 & 72 Gamble St. began with a town hall where the AGIs and the LTB process were discussed. At the town hall, tenants decided to focus their actions on organizing direct action outside the LTB.
“AGIs are fully legal but they should be illegal,” the organizer said.
Tenants, together with the tenant union of East York, took actions such as phone zaps, postering, flyering, and rallies to build momentum to garner media attention towards the tenants struggle. At the end, the tenants of both buildings received a 30 percent reduction in their AGIs.
“These were gains that were only made because we pressured the landlord outside the LTB,” she said.
Tenants in Ottawa Fight AGIs
In the third part of the event, tenants had a roundtable discussion where they shared their current status and efforts to organize their respective buildings.
Dominic, tenant of Arcadia Apartments for 5 years, shared his experience during the Case Management Hearing (CMH) and efforts he took leading up to the hearing that occurred in July 2025. He noted that prior to the hearing, together with other tenant organizers in the city, he door-knocked his building and had collected 50 tenant signatures on a petition that agreed Dominic would be their representative and together they would fight the AGI at the LTB. However, on the day itself of the CMH, Dominic shared how tenants were pressured by the Dispute Resolution Officer (the mediator) to negotiate and settle with their landlord, Paramount.
“I felt the mediator tricked the tenants,” shared Dominic with The Leveller. “The mediator expressed a lot of sympathy to us tenants about the issues that have been compounding. But at the end, he still said it is best if we [the tenants] settle now because Paramount has lawyers and we don’t.”
Dominic told The Leveller that “the whole mediation process was 2 hours and 45 minutes long that by the end everyone [the tenants] were so fatigued that when the mediator kept bringing up negotiating the others in the [zoom] room just felt ‘okay, we need to take it. It’s only going to get worse.’”
At the AGI educational workshop in November 2025, Dominic shared that accepting the offer brought forth by the mediator only led to a reduction of their overall AGI application from 7.4 percent to 7.2 percent.
“The 0.2 percent reduction was pressured and forced upon us by the mediator because he made us feel like we had to accept crumbs,” said Dominic to The Leveller.
Dominic noted that although he was technically representing 50 tenants who wanted to fight the AGI, Dominic was one of the few tenants that could even make it to the CMH. The other tenants that appeared on the day were not tenants that had signed the petition.
“Overall, there were 20 tenants in the [zoom] room, and then there was the mediator. Paramount’s lawyer was in another room. Out of 20 of us, only 6 of us were talking. So I would say, I am representing 50 tenants and we don’t agree to settle and we want to move to a Merits hearing, but I would be ignored. The mediator would want to go around the room and hear everyone’s opinions. By the end, these 5 tenants were fighting with me because they wanted to settle, but I was representing all these other tenants who didn’t want to settle that the mediator did not care about. It was very frustrating. It just felt like the whole hearing and mediation was rigged against us,” said Dominic to The Leveller.
It was at this same AGI educational workshop that Wentworth Plaza tenants met one another and decided to fight their landlord, Taggart, on their AGI application.
Prior to their CMH that recently occurred in April 2026, tenants of Wentworth Plaza door-knocked and went into the CMH as a unified front. They appointed Victoria, a tenant at Wentworth Plaza for over 10 years, as the spokesperson for the tenants at their CMH.
As the tenants took the time to get to know one another, they learned that tenants in the building received differing amounts of AGIs. Victoria received 1.4 percent over the period from March 2, 2023 to September 2, 2024 for work done for water efficient fixtures, oil tank removal, and sanitary line repairs.
But Scott, also a tenant of Wentworth Plaza for 14 years, received an AGI for 3.9 percent that he was notified of in November 2024.
When asked by The Leveller about Victoria’s thoughts about the LTB process, she noted, “The CMH was very clearly titled towards the landlord.”
However, Victoria said that the tenants knew they could not “win” a 0 percent AGI because “none of the tenants disputed that the work was necessary, [but] there were deep apprehensions of carrying the cost of neglect leading to dilapidated conditions. Moreover, the group were vehemently opposed to paying for Taggart’s patchwork fixes and ‘upgrades’ to try to flip the building into ‘luxury’ apartments while trying to drive out tenants who are rent controlled to the extent of rental guidelines.”
Victoria’s experience of the Dispute Resolution Officer (DRO) also differed significantly from Dominic’s. According to Victoria, “the DRO in our hearing was impartial and provided constructive guidance. The DRO was transparent in his instructions, background information, and supporting guidance. He was an honest and trustworthy facilitator of the hearing.”
Victoria shared that initially the tenants were prepared to go to the Merits hearing. At the CMH, they decided to negotiate instead. “After the proceedings made it clear that the odds were stacked against us, we chose to negotiate. We started the negotiation at 0.75 percent AGI increase. The landlord returned with 1.2 percent. We countered with 1 percent, and they said 1.1 percent. We felt it was clear they were not negotiating in good faith. Our final proposal was 1 percent, to which they agreed.”
The Tenant Unions in Ottawa
Since the AGI educational event, the three tenant unions in the city: Lowertown Tenant Union, Tenants of Sandy Hill, and Centretown Tenant Power (CTP) have been organizing building committees to collectively resist increasingly frequent AGI applications.
Under Doug Ford’s Conservative government, the end of rent control for buildings built and occupied after November 15, 2018 has begun the domino effect of tenants losing tenant legal protection in Ontario. Since then, the predatory Bill 60 has been passed in Ontario. This bill has paved the way for landlords to evict tenants more easily. For instance, the bill reduced the grace period to pay rent arrears from 14 days to 7 days. Now, once tenants are served with an N4, they only have 7 days to pay their arrears before their landlord can file an application for eviction with the LTB.
As Julie, a member of CTP and the Bank Block Tenants, said at the May Day march, “It is important that tenants in Ottawa organize… More than 300,000 thousand people in Ottawa rent… We are getting priced out of our neighbourhoods because of the greed of developers, investors, and landlords… The use of AGIs is just another way to make rent unaffordable for long term tenants… Together, we have the power to change our conditions.”
When asked what advice should be given to tenants that have received AGIs, Scott said that every tenant should organize and fight.
“Landlords will keep applying for AGIs. If more people organize and fight, landlords will stop applying for them,” he said. It is important to door knock your neighbours, get to know them, and hold a tenant meeting. Don’t be discouraged if people seem hesitant to want to organize, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Victoria, on the other hand, emphasized the power of numbers and the strength in reaching out to unions such as Centretown Tenant Power. Moreover, Victoria noted that organizing has been beneficial to the overall community of the building.
“Being able to work together towards a common objective through the process gave me less anxiety about it all. Building more of a community within the property has been a blessing in and of itself,” she said.
Editor’s Note: The author was on the organizing committee for the November 22, 2025 workshop.
