Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board: the backlog, the funding response, and a data-integrity flag

Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board received a record influx of applications, built a genuine multi-year backlog with wait times stretching past a year for some case types, then received real staffing investment that measurably reduced the backlog — against an independent watchdog's finding that the tribunal's own official annual report had figures altered after public release, without disclosure.

The finding

The LTB received 84,090 new applications in 2023 alone, a 31% increase and the second-highest annual total in the Board's history [CL-90215]. Wait times stretched accordingly: an arrears-eviction application waited 342 days for an order, compared with 32 days over the same period in 2018 [CL-90206]; tenant applications averaged 427 days from filing to order, with some categories (such as maintenance orders) taking over two years [CL-90207]. By late 2024, category-specific wait times had improved for some case types — non-payment-of-rent applications down to roughly three months from a 2023 average of ten [CL-90209], with a broader breakdown showing urgent matters heard within 5-6 weeks and all other application types averaging longer waits still [CL-90217]. A Tribunals Ontario spokesperson confirmed the widely-cited "53,000 pending cases" figure was accurate as of the end of the 2022-23 fiscal year, not a current snapshot as of when it continued to be cited roughly a year later [CL-90213].

The province funded a real staffing response: $1.4 million announced in November 2022 and $6.5 million in April 2023 enabled 54 full-time and 35 part-time new adjudicators [CL-90216], with a further $6.5 million confirmed for 2023-24 specifically funding 40 new adjudicators and 5 new staff [CL-90210]. By March 2025, the LTB had 133 adjudicators (81 full-time, 52 part-time), up from 51 (44 full-time, 9 part-time) in 2018-19 — a 2.6-times increase, corrected here from a previously circulating "more than 3 times" figure this library's own research found unsupported CSRL2-351. Tribunal Watch Ontario's direct analysis of the official Tribunals Ontario 2024-25 Annual Report confirmed the backlog fell from 53,057 to 41,465 cases with that adjudicator complement in place — though more than 20 adjudicators left before their terms ended, a retention concern alongside the hiring CSRL2-459. The Board was on pace to resolve more than 100,000 cases in 2024, the highest annual total in its history, with 91,125 resolved between January and October alone [CL-90214].

Procedural changes accompanied the funding: a Fall 2024 Red Tape Reduction package empowered LTB staff to disregard minor application errors and gave executives authority to reassign cases to a new adjudicator [CL-90212]; the Board had already moved to "indefinite" digital-first hearings as of November 2020, with in-person hearings available only in limited circumstances [CL-90219], and its six former regional in-person service centres (Sudbury, London, Hamilton, Toronto, Mississauga, Ottawa) are no longer described as operating that way [CL-90239]. In 2025, Bill 60 listed "reducing delays at the Landlord and Tenant Board" as a stated policy goal [CL-90370] and amended the Residential Tenancies Act to require a decision-review request within 15 days, on Royal Assent [CL-90372]. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board's November 2024 "Breaking the Backlog" report made its own recommendations covering restored access to justice, among other reforms [CL-90208].

A separate, serious finding, reported plainly rather than folded into the progress narrative above: Tribunal Watch Ontario stated in a June 10, 2026 update that the Tribunals Ontario 2024-25 Annual Report — the same report tabled in the Ontario Legislature and released to the public, and the source for the 53,057-to-41,465 backlog figures above — had some of its data changed at a later date, with no disclosure of the change to the public or the Legislature CSRL2-460.

Why it matters

The backlog-reduction story and the data-integrity finding are both real and need to be held together, not traded off against each other: the funding and staffing increases are independently confirmed and the backlog decline is real, but an official tabled report having its own figures altered post-release without disclosure is a serious transparency concern regardless of which direction the underlying numbers moved. A body relying on Tribunals Ontario's own published statistics for LTB oversight needs to know both that real capacity was added and that the official report those capacity figures rest on has an unresolved, undisclosed-alteration flag attached to it.

What this page does not cover

This page does not establish what specifically was altered in the 2024-25 Annual Report or why, since Tribunal Watch Ontario's own June 2026 statement is the only source found describing the alteration in general terms. It does not verify whether the wait-time or backlog figures have changed materially since each source's own reporting date. It does not cover the LTB's substantive decision-making (individual case outcomes, precedent-setting rulings), only its operational backlog, funding, and procedural history. It does not carry a "case against" the funding increases or procedural reforms, since the sources reviewed largely corroborate each other on the underlying numbers; the one live tension surfaced here is specifically the data-integrity finding, reported as its own distinct concern.

Sources

• Tribunal Watch Ontario, analysis of the Tribunals Ontario 2024-25 Annual Report (RES-0099).
• Tribunal Watch Ontario, direct statement, June 10, 2026 (RES-0100).
• Sicotte Law, "Changes within the Landlord and Tenant Board" (RES-0662).
• Storeys, reporting on LTB backlog improvement (RES-0663).
• ACTO, analysis of the Cutting Red Tape, Building Ontario Act (RES-0668).
• Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Bill 60 (RES-0691).