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John Gerretsen named ‘Lord of the Slums’

Slums Unlimited Tour Shows Tourists the Other Toronto

Toronto, Feb. 2- The delayed world premiere of Lord of the Rings the Musical didn’t hold up the Parkdale Tenant Association’s premiere of its Slums Unlimited bus tour. Instead, the PTA offered disappointed theatergoers a free ticket on the bus and, with more than 40 tourists, housing advocates and members of the media in tow, the bus left on schedule from Nathan Phillips Square to show visitors the other side of Toronto.

You can see 155 wonderful photos of the event taken by professional photographer John Bonar who joined the tour. There was also media coverage from The Toronto Sun and The Toronto Star.

One of the tourists on the slum tour, Phyllis Bailey of Montreal, wrote an account of the day’s events:

“The blockbuster musical, Lord of the Rings, was to open for its world premiere here in Toronto (a great coup .for Toronto since Broadway and the West End were hoping to get it). The opening has been postponed for two days but to commemorate the event, The Parkdale Tenants Association sponsored the Lord of the Slums Tour.

Billed as Toronto, World Class City-World Class Slums,the tour was designed to highlight the shame of the dreadful housing conditions many people in this city have to put up with. Whether city-owned or privately owned, buildings are often allowed to deteriorate and the powers that be are not doing what they need to do to rectify the situation. One privately-owned highrise had water leaking from the roof. A large drum placed in the corridor to catch the drippings was so full it was overflowing and the water was leaking to the floor below. It appears to be only a matter of time before the whole building rots through and possibly collapses into the nearby ravine. And speaking of ravines, the building has a playground at the edge of the ravine with no fence to protect children from taking a header down the ravine. The landlord was cited for 40 violations many years ago but as of this date, there are still 32 outstanding violations. The city has done little to crack down on this dangerous situation.

The event was well-covered by the media and we are all waiting to see what appears on the news tonight.

The three candidates for Lord of the Slums award were John Gerretsen, Provincial Housing Minister, Derek Ballantyne, CEO of Toronto Community Housing Corporation(TCHC), the largest provider of Social Housing in Canada and David Miller, Mayor of Toronto. "Gandalf" announced that the winner of Toronto's Lord of the Slums Competition was John Gerretsen:

   "For his failure to provide funds to TCHC for much
   needed repairs to their buildings;

   "For his failure to freeze the rents of all landlords
   who violate municipal standards;

   "For his failure to abolish the Ontario Rental Housing
   Tribunal, better known as the Eviction Machine;

   "For his failure to enact a new tenant law and bring
   back real rent control."

I have worked in slums in Great Britain and the United States and have toured slums in Brazil and South Africa so what I saw today did not surprise me. What all these slums have in common is a failure by government and the private sector to respect the rights of the poor to decent housing, self-respect, dignity and pride in their community.

I hope that all cities in Canada put on a Lord of the Slums tour to raise the consciousness of the government and the public to the disgraceful conditions that still exist in our much-blessed andprosperous nation.