In 2025, we joined the 2023 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholars, Mentors, and invited guests in Toronto for a dynamic and interdisciplinary workshop focused on health systems transformation. The day brought together diverse perspectives — from public health professionals and community organizers to researchers and policymakers — all committed to reshaping how health systems function and serve people across Canada and beyond.
While our work spans a wide range of health and systems issues, several key themes emerged throughout the day. These common threads point to both shared challenges and collective possibilities for the future of health systems.
Common Challenges, Shared Insights
One of the most prominent takeaways was the recognition that many of us, regardless of our specific focus areas, encounter similar roadblocks. These include:
The “Pilot Project” Trap: Too often, promising initiatives remain stuck in small-scale, temporary phases, without the support or momentum to scale into long-term system change.
Centralized Responses: While centralized systems can be efficient in some contexts, they often lack the flexibility to respond effectively to local needs and lived realities.
Funding Constraints: Inconsistent or limited funding remains a significant barrier, especially when working toward innovative or community-driven approaches.
These patterns suggest a deeper need to rethink how systems are structured and who they are designed to serve.
The Power of Community-Led Transformation
A resounding message throughout the workshop was the importance of enabling communities to take the lead in transforming health systems. Scholars, practitioners, and institutional leaders must be prepared to follow the lead of those with lived experience, cultural knowledge, and community-rooted expertise.
This means embracing:
Radical ways of knowing and doing, including Indigenous and non-Western knowledge systems;
Shifts in discourse, where language, values, and narratives better reflect community realities;
New approaches to change, starting from the grassroots rather than being imposed top-down.
Transformation does not come from replication alone—it comes from reimagination.
Storytelling as a Tool and a Responsibility
The day also highlighted the power of storytelling in advancing change. Personal stories can bring systems issues to life, challenge dominant narratives, and mobilize communities. However, there is also an ethical imperative to protect both the storytellers and the knowledge they share.
Participants emphasized the importance of:
Seeking consent and honoring the intent behind shared experiences;
Avoiding the extraction or commodification of stories;
Ensuring that stories are not only heard but acted upon in meaningful ways.
Looking Ahead
The Poverty Task Force continues this journey, we remain committed to fostering collaboration, challenging norms, and co-creating more equitable and responsive health systems.
We are excited about our upcoming RentSafe Owen Sound Collaboration gathering which will center the grounded expertise of our Community Voices and the work in collaboration with the Community Impact Lab and RentSafe Ontario on Climate Resilience in Low-Income Rental Housing.
On July 27th, Owen Sound City Council approved a new Vital Services By-law and updates to the Property Standards By-law addressing mould and pests.
For those involved with RentSafe Owen Sound, this is an important milestone in work underway for several years to better understand rental housing conditions and find collaborative solutions that support healthy, safe and affordable housing.
The Vital Services By-law establishes clearer responsibilities for landlords to ensure tenants have essential services, including heat, hot and cold water, electricity, gas and, where required under a lease, air conditioning. It also gives the City tools to investigate complaints and to take action when the loss of a vital service creates a health or safety concern.
The surveys provided an important opportunity to hear from both sides of the rental housing relationship. 545 tenants responded to the tenant survey, representing an estimated 28% of rental units in Owen Sound. The landlord survey included 36 landlords/property managers responsible for nearly 800 units, estimated at approximately 40% of the local rental market.
What we heard demonstrated that housing quality is a shared concern.
RentSafe tenant survey respondents identified significant concerns with temperature, pests, water leaks, mould and indoor air quality.
Among tenant respondents, 73% reported pests/insects other than bedbugs, 71% reported their unit being too hot or too cold, 62% reported water leaks and 47% reported mould. Sixty percent reported anxiety related to the physical condition of their unit.
Landlords also identified challenges maintaining rental properties, including finding contractors, gaining access to units for repairs, maintenance costs and communication with tenants.
Importantly, tenants and landlords identified many of the same housing quality concerns, including temperature control, windows, plumbing and water leaks, pests and bedbugs, and mould. Read the full report here.
We Are All Neighbours
One of the strongest messages from the research was that tenants can feel trapped while landlords can feel stuck.
For tenants, rising rents and limited housing options can make it difficult to leave unhealthy housing. For landlords, maintaining Owen Sound’s older rental housing stock can involve significant costs and challenges.
This is why RentSafe’s work focuses on bringing people together rather than placing responsibility for our housing challenges on one group.
RentSafe seeks solutions that recognize the experiences of tenants and landlords while protecting Owen Sound’s existing affordable rental housing.
What Did RentSafe Recommend?
In 2024, RentSafe presented 3 immediate recommendations to the City.
1. Better rental housing data. We recommended collecting information on habitability issues identified through by-law and fire inspections—including mould, pests, water leaks and broken windows—to better understand conditions in Owen Sound’s older rental housing stock.
2. Clearer standards for mould. We recommended incorporating Ontario’s model mould by-law language into Owen Sound’s Property Standards By-law. The City’s new updates addressing mould and pests represent important progress on an issue identified through the RentSafe research.
3. Support landlords and tenants. We invited the City to be part of solutions that help landlords maintain healthy rental properties while improving effective landlord-tenant relationships. During a housing crisis, we need new affordable housing—but we also need to protect and improve the affordable rental housing we already have.
The Next Question: Extreme Heat
During Council’s July 27th discussion, the question of a “right to cooling” and maximum indoor temperatures was raised. This connects directly with the RentSafe findings: 71% of tenant respondents reported their unit being too hot or too cold.
Under Owen Sound’s new Vital Services By-law, landlords must provide a minimum temperature of 20°C from September 15th to May 31st. Under Section 11-C of the prepared by-law a maximum indoor temperature of 26C is in place, if the lease indicates an air-conditioner and landlords are required to ensure suitable cool air in a unit. Bylaw can charge the landlord if they don’t repair an existing air conditioner and/or if they remove it.
There is a new provision in the Residential Tenancy Act effective July 1st, 2026, regarding air conditioning, maintenance and repairs as well as utility charges. Tenants are permitted to install a window or portable air conditioner, even where a lease prohibits it, as long as it meets the prescribed conditions and notifies the landlord in writing. Seasonal rent increases may be applied by landlords to cover electrical costs.
There are currently no by-laws in Ontario, that require all units to have permanent cooling systems. This would require a retrofit or renovations of buildings which would impact the availability and affordability of rental units in the City. The cities of Toronto and Hamilton are currently researching a Maximum Heat By-Law and the City of Owen Sound will monitor these initiatives.
This opens an important next conversation for RentSafe.
Healthy Housing Is Also a Climate Issue
Extreme heat increasingly intersects with the issues RentSafe has been working on for years: housing quality, affordability, health and equity.
Older rental buildings can be particularly challenging. Aging windows, inadequate ventilation and limited cooling can increase exposure to extreme temperatures. At the same time, major retrofits can be expensive.
The challenge is finding solutions that improve tenant health and climate resilience without contributing to displacement or the loss of affordable rental housing.
The 2024 RentSafe Owen Sound work identified three interconnected challenges: unit quality concerns, lack of trust and communication, and lack of satisfaction with the rental housing system. It also pointed toward longer-term opportunities, including proactive inspections, stronger community involvement and measures to preserve affordable rental housing.
The adoption of stronger mould, pest and Vital Services standards demonstrates how local research, community collaboration and municipal leadership can translate into action.
As we build on this work, our next question is:
What does healthy, safe, affordable and climate-resilient rental housing look like for Owen Sound?
The Poverty Task Force and our RentSafe partners will continue working with tenants, landlords, the City and community partners to explore this question. Together with RentSafe Ontario we will come together next on September 29th to discuss climate resiliency and rental housing.
On October 25th, the government introduced Bill 23 which according to Minister Clark is intended to contribute to the province’s plan to build 1.5 million homes by 2031. The broad range of initiatives rolled into the bill include tax incentives and measures to deregulate and streamline development and planning processes.
A number of serious concerns with Bill 23 have been identified including:
that the Bill gives the Minister the power to cancel rental housing protection programs that ensure that when apartment buildings are redeveloped, the affordable units are replaced at affordable prices;
it proposes to cap the number of affordable units municipalities can request to be built as part of new developments at 5%;
it proposes to set a limit to how long these units can be rented out at below-market rents of 25 years;
that the Bill lacks specific initiatives to incentivize the construction of affordable rental housing, and in particular “deeply affordable” rental housing;
that the Bill does not commit the Ontario government to any direct investment in the creation of deeply affordable public and non-profit housing;
the Bill will override the Planning Act of Ontario with impunity and no right to appeal by municipalities or citizens;
the Bill will decrease the preservation of and access to greenspace;
by reducing affordable rental housing, decreasing preservation of and access to greenspace, and changing policies related to land use planning, the built environment, and climate-resiliency, Bill 23 impacts disportionately on people affected by poverty and socio-economic marginalization.
Grey County Planning Department submitted its concerns to the Province and the associated consultations posted on the Environmental Registry and Ontario Regulatory Registry. Read the full report here.
Grey Bruce Climate Action Network members have been working with local councils and staff in recent years to build resilience to climate impacts. They have written about the need for a “complete community” that protects “its wetlands and natural areas to reduce flooding, improve biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emission through energy efficiency, high density mixed housing and easy access to services.
Beaver Valley Community Group: sought to speak with MPP Rick Byers at his office during a protest.
Other Action
Canadian Environmental Law Association: urges the provincial government in their submission to pause the passage of Bill 23 to allow full consideration of all the public input and advice that is received.
Consultation opportunities: There are multiple ways to comment directly on changes to legislation and regulations via Bill 23 — for example, the Planning Act, A Place to Grow and the Provincial Policy Statement are all facing changes proposed in Bill 23. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) has created a helpful list of all the dates for the numerous consultation deadlines in November and December 2022.
Vital Conversation on Housing in Grey Bruce
We welcome you to register and join us to learn and share your perspective on affordable and attainable housing in Grey Bruce. The Community Foundation Grey Bruce will be hosting an online interactive Vital Conversation on December 1, 2022 from 4 to 6 pm. Register at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/vital-conversation-on-housing-tickets-469185134367
Housing is a basic need and is internationally recognized as a human right. Housing forms the foundation for our homes, neighbourhoods and communities.
Housing provides shelter, security, a space in which family life can happen and where children grow up and thrive. Yet, for many people, their housing jeopardizes their health and well-being.
The unfit conditions in housing, disproportionately experienced by people living in low income or other marginalizing circumstances negatively affect people’s physical and mental health. Multiple chronic diseases and acute effects, including asthma, respiratory conditions, allergies, chemical sensitivities, as well as cardiovascular disease and its numerous risk factors can be exacerbated or, in some cases caused, by poverty, stress, and living in unhealthy conditions.
