Tuesday July 13, 2021 | VICTORIA, BC [Note: as of 10:15 pm there was no formal media session announcement regarding the ‘heat wave management reveal’ as indicated by the Premier for July 14 | UPDATE July 14 – the media session will be at 2 pm July 14 on the usual BC Government livestream platforms]
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Editor | Island Social Trends
A joint statement on public health and emergency response initiatives having to do with heat extremes in BC will be made tomorrow July 14 by Health Minister Adrian Dix and Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry, said Premier John Horgan in a media session this morning.
They could be looking at — hopefully — stricter regulations for landlords who rent out units that have no air conditioning or proper ventilation. There might hopefully be some guidelines to property managers and strata buildings to check on “independent seniors age 65 to 75” which is a group that Dr Henry identified last week as being at-risk during intense weather events that involve higher temperatures (and now also smoky air, which will see people wanting to keep their windows closed).
Municipal responsibilities for air cooling:
Last week, Island Social Trends asked the Attorney General’s office (also responsible for Housing under Attorney General David Eby), as to how aware the Province is about the wide range of building standards amongst municipalities. And further, will there now be some standardization of expectations for air cooling?
The Attorney General’s reply looks at standards for new and existing buildings, but does not address any social responsibility for at-risk groups in the meantime (such as checking on the well-being of elderly persons in rental or strata units during a heat emergency). To put it another way — at present — ‘well, if the unit is substandard, that’s not our problem’.
The Landlord & Tenants regulations do require a landlord to consider a reasonable request for installation of an air conditioning unit if a tenant requests that, but the cost is that of the tenant. BC Housing states that the landlord is to “keep the rental unit in a condition of repair that complies with health, housing and safety standards”. One might think that a heat emergency (and providing adequate ventilation, if not cooling) is to comply with health, housing and safety standards.
As many as 777 people died during the recent heat-dome heat-wave in BC (in the last week of June), about three to four times the usual number of deaths for that period, according to the BC Chief Coroner.
There was a warning period by weather forecasters for several days leading up to the heat-dome event. Health authorities were charged with getting the word out (and Island Health was proactive on June 25 in that regard). Yet emergency responders (ambulance) were hours behind in responding to calls, and there was little to no province-wide public messaging about the dangers of extreme heat despite that responsibility falling to Emergency Management BC (though it also seems like it was very much a public health emergency).
Most of the untimely heat-related deaths were among “independent seniors living alone, age 65 to 75”, said Dr Henry last week. Previous to that, Premier John Horgan suggested that most seniors were ‘attached’ or known to supportive networks, but that is clearly not the case; as seniors now remain healthy and active well into their 70s and even 80s, they are not automatically or necessary connected with social services of some kind.
Yet the BC Landlords & Tenants regulations list “safety” as only addressing ‘changing the locks’; there is no mention of health risk. In our property-ownership-driven society, there was likely no consideration of having to be in any way responsible for the well-being of tenants during the heat. Tenants dying in the overheated units perhaps just fell under the statement that the Premier said after the Coroner’s death-count was announced: “Death is part of life”. This from a government that prides itself on caring for people.
In summary on Twitter:
Island Social Trends did Tweet on July 10 that “it’s important that landlords be required to ensure proper ventilation and air conditioning in all rentals, that new construction firmly require it, and that homeowners be incentivized to renovate for air cooling and ventilation (including smoky air protection)”.
That was in response to a Tweet by a frontline health-care worker who summarized well the tone-deaf response to the heat-wave, even though there was fair and detailed warning from weather experts.
Even though politicians and public health said this was an unprecedented heat event (as if COVID wasn’t an unprecedented health emergency?) as if that excused it, really only speaks to their admitted jubilance over announcing the lifting of COVID pandemic restrictions (to which the Premier and Dr Henry admitted), the day before the heat wave started ramping up. Frankly, there’s no excuse — as the death count clearly indicates.
It’s truly strange that there aren’t any lawsuits against building owners or landlords for allowing people to overheat and suffocate in unbearably hot living spaces. Are we seeing evidence of income inequity or elderly abandonment? Why is there the assumption that they was essentially just ‘bad luck’, a sudden unexpected event, that ‘death is part of life’? Something has still not been set right in this picture. Indeed, our government leaders must be exhausted at the non-stop pandemic of the last 18 months of pandemic in BC, but that barely ranks as an excuse.
Even immunization progress was impacted:
Despite that larger venues in municipalities around Greater Victoria and in other communities on Vancouver Island are municipally owned and/or managed, many of the arenas and communities centres had insufficient air cooling to support the BC COVID Immunization Clinics that were operating in them. Some immunizations clinics had to close for a day or two, as a way to protect the vaccine supply itself, as well as for the comfort and well-being of health-care staff and people coming to get their COVID shots.
In the big picture, a day or two of delay for COVID vaccination appointments is perhaps not a big deal. However, the race is on to try and achieve herd (community) immunity against the nasty COVID virus, especially as the back-to-school and fall respiratory season are just around the corner. Every day counts.
On July 8, the Attorney General’s office provided this reply to Island Social Trends:
“All new buildings in British Columbia are required to satisfy the BC Building Code, which ensures a minimum level of health, safety, accessibility, and energy efficiency for building occupants. This applies across nearly all communities in the Province and Treaty First Nations that have adopted the BC Building Code.
Since 2019, the Province has been working with technical experts, including the National Research Council of Canada, to assess the risk of overheating in buildings and possible strategies to address this risk. At this time, the model National Building Code of Canada, which the BC Building Code is based on, does not require cooling. However, the Province and our partners in industry and the research community are working to develop standardized requirements for consideration in future National Building Code of Canada codes for new construction. Once standardized, these requirements would then be adopted in B.C. as part of the BC Building Code.
Through the CleanBC and mandate letter commitments to addressing energy efficiency in existing buildings, the Province has been developing a broader Existing Building Renewal Strategy to adjust our expectations for buildings as our climate changes. The Existing Buildings Renewal Strategy will examine opportunities to address climate resilience, including heat waves, wildfires, water conservation and floods. More information on the strategy can be found here: https://bit.ly/3wqIx6W.”
===== GOVERNMENT LINKS:
Existing buildings renewal strategy (BC Government), including an ‘alterations code’ for existing buildings.
Quick Tips for Landlords & Tenants (BC Housing)
===== ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS articles:
Protecting yourself from wildfire smoke & heat (July 6, 2021)
Heat wave deaths at least 103 in BC, and counting (June 29, 2021)
Island Health on municipal building standards: helping people adapt during extreme heat (June 27, 2021)
LANGFORD: Eagle Ridge June 28 COVID immunization appointments being rebooked (June 27, 2021)
