On September 14, 2026, Cole Webber and Phillip Zigman discussed their latest work, Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City, at the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s Ottawa office. The event was organized by Josh Hawley, a tenant organizer in the city, and moderated by Andrew Crosby, author of Resisting Eviction: Domicide and the Financialization of Rental Housing.
Renoviction, published earlier this year by Between the Lines, emphasizes the necessity of working-class organizing as the only path toward defeating “renovictions” — a portmanteau of “renovation” and “eviction.” Renovictions occur in Ontario when “A Notice to End Tenancy,” or an N13, is given to tenants under the conditions that the landlord of the property either wants to demolish the rental unit, repair it, or convert the unit into another use.
However in Renoviction, Webber and Zigman argue a good-faith renovation does not exist. Once a landlord has served a tenant with an N13 with the claimed purpose of renovating to improve the unit, the landlord is, in effect, kicking the existing tenant out of their unit to increase the rent of said unit. At the book discussion, Webber explained that often “renovations” are deemed legal forms of evictions, whereas “renovictions” are illegal and illegitimate actions used to prevent tenants from returning to their units. However, to Webber this distinction is irrelevant, as “renovations” are “renovictions” used by landlords to ultimately displace tenants from their homes.
City Hall and the Ontario LTB are not tools that work for tenants, because these are avenues for landlords to legitimize and enforce demovictions and renovictions in order to hike rental rates.
In a review of Renoviction by Josh Hawley, he summarized two key points he drew from Webber and Zigman’s book. The first is that “we should abandon the notion of a ‘good-faith’ renovation,” because landlords do not undertake expensive renovations of their properties so that tenants can move back in at the same rental rates.
The second point is that “rental renovation license by-laws” which have been marketed as “renoviction by-laws” are in direct response to tenant organizing. Hawley writes that these by-laws have the added effect of “further bureaucrati[zing] the eviction process, creating more opportunities for landlords to obtain official approval for their evictions.”
During the book discussion event, when prompted by Crosby, both authors agreed that governments play a major role in facilitating evictions to close the rent gap. Webber briefly explained that the rent gap here is theorized as the current rental income from a property and the potential rent that could be achieved from the property.
Therefore, both Webber and Zigman argue that government policies, including reformist policies are nothing but distractions away from tenant organizing. These include renoviction by-laws as well as government services like the Landlord Tenant Board (LTB), which The Leveller identified as an “eviction factory” during the COVID-19 public health crisis. According to the authors, landlords want tenants focused at the LTB because landlords know they can win the fight at the LTB. As previously discussed in The Leveller regarding Above Guideline Rent Increases (AGIs), the LTB often sides with the landlord and “rubber stamps” landlords applications when they have been filed correctly.
Zigman was quick to point out that the LTB’s authority is also limited. For instance, the LTB does not have the power to remove a new tenant from a renovated home to allow the previous tenant to move back in. It is not within the LTB’s authority to approve such an action.
It was also during the book discussion event that Zigman insisted that independent tenant organizing is the only solution against these strategic, targeted renoviction attempts by landlords. Zigman used the example of 2419 Keele St, a successful tenant organizing case study that the authors included in Renoviction.
2419 Keele St. is a low-rise twelve unit apartment building in the North York neighbourhood of Toronto where tenants managed to successfully defeat two renovictions attempts. The Maple reported in 2021 that the building was purchased by Riley Real Estate Ventures, directed by Brendan Riley. Instead of buckling under pressure to move out of their homes, tenants had a building meeting where they committed to staying and collectively fighting to have their N13 evictions withdrawn.
The tactics that the 2419 Keele St. tenants used involved sending a demand letter to Riley Real Estate Ventures, flyering and postering areas around the company’s office. Without the landlord’s withdrawal of the N13s, the tenants crashed an open house event held by the company, protested outside Riley’s home, and flyered patrons outside of Riley’s wife’s clinic with information of her own involvement in the tenants’ eviction.
Zigman noted that the goal of organizing is about raising the financial, reputational, and emotional cost for the landlord to force them to change their plans. As Webber said, “it is all about creating tension in relationships, including marriages,” not about shaming the landlord. In fact, feeling ashamed or even “bad” does not make landlords change their plans. To Zigman, as tenants we must instead think of these actions as applying pressure against the landlord, adding stressors to their lives, making them put in more management work, and escalate actions until demands are met.
The pressure put on by tenants of 2419 Keele St. ultimately resulted in a successful campaign where Riley Real Estate Ventures dropped the N13 notices.
Perhaps the most crucial insight Webber and Zigman left with attendees was thinking of renovictions and by extension evictions as “dynamic.” A landlord’s plan to evict a tenant is “not set in stone,” and that it can change. In the meantime, tenants have the power to collectively change their landlord’s plan.
Organizing in Ottawa
Book launch attendees brought up how the points made in Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City resonate here in Ottawa. Tenant unions such as the Bank Block Tenants (BBT) have adopted similar strategies to 2419 Keele St. tenants. BBT consisted of a group of tenants who, from 2023-2025, were fighting a demoviction notice when Smart Living Properties (SLP) bought their building in 2022.
The Leveller has covered several actions taken by BBT over the years. This includes the action taken by tenants to march to SLP’s office to serve them a demand letter to drop the N13s. The Leveller has also covered an extensive timeline detailing how the city council paved the way toward evicting tenants from their homes.
Although the tenants in Bank Block were evicted in August 2025, the fight in Centretown is far from over. Centretown Tenant Power (CTP) is a neighbourhood tenant union that has come out of the struggle from BBT. Tenants from across Centretown are working collectively to resist corporate landlords.
For instance, tenants in CTP are currently fighting AGIs given by Taggart Realty Management. The Taggart Group of Companies under which Taggart Realty Management falls under is a large family owned corporation that began in the 1940s in Ottawa’s West End. In 2021, The Leveller investigated the Taggart group’s financial contribution to municipal elections that led city council to approve the controversial expansion of the urban boundary. Tenants in Taggart’s Regency Towers have been organizing collectively to put pressure on their landlord to drop the AGIs.
Webber and Zigman’s arguments in Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City should resonate with tenants in Ottawa. City Hall and the Ontario LTB are not tools that work for tenants, because these are avenues for landlords to legitimize and enforce demovictions and renovictions in order to hike rental rates.
Editor’s Note: The September 14, 2026 event was co-sponsored by The Leveller. Andy Crosby is a member of The Leveller.
