Ottawa One of the highlights of the ACORN Canada conventions every two years is the Member Speakout. In the US, this was also one of my favorites. There, like in Canada, the leaders moderate the event, often in the US with the staff scurrying about in preparation for other events. In Canada, it comes after the first dinner in the same location. It’s less a random open mic, because for the most part it involves every office updating the full assembly on progress over the last two years and ongoing campaigns still being fought in earnest. This year with the growing footprint of the organization, ten reports were scheduled, moderated with huge enthusiasm by Alejandra Ruiz-Vargez, the chair of ACORN Canada, starting in the west with British Columbia and ending in the east at Halifax.
There were common themes to many of the reports, as different offices were standing on the shoulders of other parts of the organization to build on a victory in one place by extending it across the country. Given conservative control in many provinces, winning for the ACORN membership often means applying pressure locally to make change that is more difficult, if not impossible, at the higher levels.
The exception might be the great victory won in the last act of the Trudeau government agreeing to ACORN’s demand for a $10 maximum for overdrafts where non-sufficient fund or NSF charges had been astronomically at $38. ACORN and the government estimate the potential savings to lower income families at over $100 million from banks. Many credit unions have also applied the same limit on their transactions. Members brought up other financial institutions that also needed to cap their charges, so there is likely to be action on some of those fronts as well.
On the local level a number of cities reported progress in banning renovictions and demovictions. These are evictions of often long tenured tenants often for the claim that a landlord is renovating the units, which is simply an excuse to increase the rents, or demovictions which evict tenants wholesale in order to demolish a smaller building to erect a higher rise with more units. A motion moved forward in Ottawa. In Hamilton, where this was implemented in 2025, leaders reported there had been zero renovictions since that time. London’s renoviction bylaw went into effect, and in nearby Waterloo and Kitchner, the two cities almost seemed to race to see who could implement the renoviction bylaw more quickly. Efforts to win rent caps were rarer outside of New Brunswick. Many cities were trying to duplicate the progress Toronto has made with RentSafe, even as ACORN there has continued to push for and win steady improvements in notices and enforcement for tenants.
Another common campaign was meeting the challenge of climate change and involved getting cities to require landlords to protect tenants from heat extremes. New Westminster in British Columbia became the first city in the country recently to win a maximum heat bylaw mandating units had to include cooling mechanisms to keep temperatures below 26 degrees Celsius or roughly 79 degrees Fahrenheit between 8 PM and 8AM. The city is still studying the issue in Toronto, but members have won 3000 air conditioners for families in need in their AC for All Campaign. Hamilton won the first city study on heat, but is still pushing for a maximum heat bylaw. ACORN has also been able to recruit environmental groups as partners in many of these local campaigns. Canada usually joins India in leading ACORN’s Beat the Heat Campaign in the number of participating cities. There are many other campaigns and victories reported from taking on incinerators and data centers to fighting for affordable units in new developments in Ottawa and inclusionary zoning in other cities, as well as protecting welfare benefits.
For all the ambitions of the reports though some of the most moving stories come from the leaders who highlight tenants whose unfair eviction was blocked or progress with especially well-known multi-year campaigns against individual properties like 500 Dawes Road in Toronto. Often, they are brought to the stage or asked to stand up. They thank all of ACORN for keeping their family in their home. One leader talked about the problem of affordability in the Maritimes after having lived in a shelter for three years. A member who participated in the earlier grocery gouging workshop came up to read a poem about it.
The mixture of wide scale mass victories interspersed with individual testimonies from members epitomize the heart of ACORN as well as its muscle, and why it’s so important to its individual members, their communities, and the country. It’s hard not to walk away from a speakout without wishing you could bottle it up, share it widely, and take a taste every day to maintain and power the work onward.