Outbursts, the blaring of loud music and the appearance of sexually explicit images and messages has beset online hearings at the Ontario tribunal designed to resolve disputes between tenants and landlords.
During a Feb. 7 Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) hearing broadcast over the Zoom digital platform, a Barrie paralegal who signed in to follow cases for clients found a troubling video depicting what he believed to be child pornography appearing on his computer screen. That same day, he said, there were disruptions in two other “rooms,” but not nearly as disturbing.
Users of the online platform say problems that plagued the LTB prior to the pandemic have become more complicated as the adjudicative tribunal moved to an online platform. They describe an increased backlog and longer wait times with the digital world ushering in a new level of concern.
Erli Bregu was shocked in February when, while logged into a remote Landlord and Tenant Board hearing, disturbing images appeared on the screen. Someone claiming to be a board member got full access to the Zoom hearing, he said, and then flashed an image displaying inappropriate material on the broadcast.
“It disturbed me,” he said. “I don’t understand what possesses somebody to do it.”
Cassandra Weatherston, another Barrie paralegal, was running two computers monitoring two hearing rooms at the same time that day when she saw a flurry of messages in the chat room about a video. When the adjudicator managed to kick the offender out of that room, she said there was then some disruption in the second room she was signed in on. The previous week, she added, there were inappropriate sounds and messaging during another hearing.
One tactic she described seeing since the tribunal has taken hearings online involved people accessing the hearing and then replacing their name with an inappropriate message, sometimes threatening in nature. Another involved someone posing as a moderator, gaining co-hosting abilities, allowing them to take control of the hearing room, blocking out participants and accessing breakout rooms.
There have been interruptions on and off since the provincial tribunal first began conducting video-conference hearings in the fall of 2020, wrote Community Legal Clinic – Simcoe, Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes executive director Michael Hefferon in an email.
“These disruptions have varied from members of the public interrupting proceedings verbally, posting threats against parties in the chat functions, impersonating landlord and tenant representatives or impersonating Zoom moderators to gain control of the hearing block, displaying inappropriate content when turning their cameras on, all the way to recording hearings and posting them on Twitter,” he said.
Chat functions in the hearing rooms have since been disabled, as has the ability for individuals to change their display names once they have logged in to a hearing room after identifying themselves.
Tribunals Ontario has confirmed there were breaches, but did not specify what they were and was not clear on whether or not there is an internal or police investigation.
“The Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) heard from a client in a Zoom hearing that they thought they saw something inappropriate being displayed,” Tribunals Ontario spokesperson Janet Deline wrote in an emailed response to BarrieToday.
“The LTB reached out to justice-sector security officials who suggested local police be contacted. When police were contacted, they confirmed that the witness to the incident would need to report it to their local police. In this case, the LTB reached out to the client and explained that they would need to contact their local police service. As they resided in a rural area, they would need to contact the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)," Deline added.
Without knowing the geographic location, the OPP was not able to say whether or not there has been an investigation.
Despite the problems, Weatherston said adopting the Zoom system can allow better access to justice for people, providing users can access a phone.
“The issue is just with the very, very high number of cases and how the board is holding the scheduling of cases,” she said.
A hearing day could have 60 cases scheduled during a two- or three-hour block. Priority is given to those with agreements, withdrawals, adjournments and uncontested matters. By the time they get to the contested matters involving disputes, she figures there is only enough time to hear one or two and the rest are bumped to another date.
Dania Majid, a staff lawyer and director of tenant duty counsel program with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, said the February disruption caused problems with negotiations and legal services provided in the break out rooms abruptly coming to an end. Participants then had trouble logging back in and attempting to go back to the hearing or break-out room.
Majid said those problems are reflective of more deeply rooted concerns in the backlogged system which she believes are reducing access to justice for tenants since moving to digital hearings. She describes a slow and inefficient process that can lead to long delays for all involved. Tenants, she added, could wait an hour or more to get into a hearing room before they’re signed in.
The process to match duty counsel with tenants, Majid noted, is also bogged down by delays.
“We have tenant duty counsel putting in twice the number of hours that they did pre-pandemic, but only seeing half the number of tenants, which is really concerning because these tenants just really need this legal advice before they go into their hearing and they are not getting it,” she said.
Add to that the technical difficulties: “This is run-of-the-day chaos,” said Majid.
Deline said the Zoom hearings are open to the public and when disruptions occur they impact all the others waiting for their matters to be heard. She said there are mechanisms in place to contain and report them and adjudicators, dispute resolution officers (DRO) and moderators are trained in how to address and mitigate them. That includes identifying the disruptors, disabling their audio and video and issuing a warning or removing them from the hearing.
“Following the incident in February, we supplemented our operating protocols with enhanced Zoom guides so that adjudicators, DROs and moderators are aware of the steps they must take to manage these disruptions, and the tools available in Zoom to help in this regard,” she wrote.
“The LTB is doing everything it can to limit these incidents and provide safe and respectful spaces for its users. The health, safety and well-being of staff, adjudicators and those who access our services are a top priority.”
