Landlords aren't being paid. Tenants are feeling squeezed. And the system that's supposed to help is broken

Raj Salwan says he is living in a financial nightmare.

Every month, he is slipping deeper and deeper into debt, covering the costs of a condo he owns that's occupied by a tenant who isn't paying and will not leave. 

Salwan said his tenant is in arrears of over $34,000. He has had to take out a loan against his own home to cover the mounting costs of the mortgage and utilities. 

"I cannot explain the mental agony my family is going through," he said. 

Salwan is considered a "small landlord" with just one rental property — a one-bedroom condo in Toronto he purchased as an investment property several years ago to prepare for his retirement. His tenant paid rent for the first year, then stopped in February 2021.  

Salwan is in a crisis. But so is the provincial tribunal that's meant to help people like him.

Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), the only tribunal responsible for governing disputes between landlords and tenants, has had a backlog that stretches back several years. 

An ombudsman report released in May revealed the LTB had over 38,000 unheard cases, with nearly 90 per cent of the complaints coming from landlords. It stated that tens of thousands of Ontarians were being denied justice because of "excruciatingly long" delays. The board, it said, was "fundamentally failing." 

Salwan filed a complaint in April 2021 and received his first hearing date in February 2022. But the tribunal ran out of time that day and his case was adjourned. He received his next hearing in August 2023, but his case was thrown out due to a mistake made in the filing. Now he's starting the process all over.

Several years ago, a case like Salwan's would have been in front of an adjudicator at the LTB within a matter of weeks. 

The delays had started prior to COVID-19 but then a five-month moratorium on eviction hearings during the pandemic, worsened things considerably. 

Pandemic measures to protect tenants from eviction — many of whom had seen their incomes drastically cut — were put in place across most of Canada. 

While Ontario's delays are the longest, wait times have been "exploding" across the country since the pandemic, said David Wachsmuth, a McGill University associate professor and Canada Research Chair in urban governance.

He pointed to particularly challenging situations in both British Columbia and Quebec.