-- JohnGilbert - 10 Mar 2006

Tenant Rights

The City of Toronto funds Toronto's ' Federation of Metro Tenants' Association ' (FMTA) which was started about 1974, and was helped get started by John Gilbert inaugural Chief Organizer of the Metro Tenants Association (MTA. The MTA definitely is not the current FMTA. As organizer of the MTA, I went against everyone's advice, not knowing about the self-interest habits of all left groups, in hindsight I mistakenly placed Norm Brudy into the MTA executive committee. Otherwise my planned departure from the MTA would have had the effect of leaving an MTA exec anti-union Libertarian accountant Alex W Eaglesham in charge of the MTA. Eaglesham later in 1980 ran federally for the Libertarian Party. To prepare for my departure I had no choice but to counter Eaglesham's influence. Brudy, who was the President of The Toronto Communist Party, was head of the only group who had shown any interest in having his members help me with MTA leafleting. The closest Norm Brudy ever came to pushing his political views on me was his comment: "Did you notice that the law says that you pay your landlord before you live in his place, but your boss gives you your paycheck after you work". Mr. Brudy was a noble humanitarian, merely on a different path. The FMTA is permanently controlled by Dan McIntyre a former unsuccessful NDP candidate from Ottawa. This self-appointed FMTA, 'tenants department' of the city of Toronto (who falsely claim to represent all Toronto tenants) of the city of Toronto has an annually exploding budget of $450,000.00. MORE about Dan McIntyre^? & the FMTA: http://www.quicktopic.com/share?s=cWB7

There are reputable sources to verify the early formation of the MTA and the FMTA, but many have passed on. The best source of the history of the formation of the MTA and it's company union successor but unrelated FMTA is probably retired prof. Mel Watkins of The Waffle. (famous in the sixties with Jim Laxer for the left-leaning Waffle challenge to the DavidLewis NDP leadership.) Mel was John's keynote speaker at the inaugural meeting of the MTA, years before the formation of the FMTA.

Of course the neo-left and neo-anarchist elements in Toronto have never allied with the FMTA, nor would the FMTA and their elite political class allies want any connections to any militant strategies such as the tried and true tactic MARCH ON CITY HALL OR THE LEGISLATURE TO SCARE THE POLITICIANS, which won the MTA The 1971 Landlord Tenant Act. One has to experience Toronto's interlocking bureacrats politicians and NGOs to understand the Herbert Hoover mentality where this groupthink crowd protects the FMTA and at the same time try to create the illusion of being pressure groups. ...more about these grantsmanship gurus and poverty pimps: talk to Bob Levitt who has the best website for Ontario tenants: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/