Ontario law to tackle elevator breakdowns

‘IT’S A NECESSITY’

COLIN PERKEL TORONTO • Ontario aims to become a global leader in tackling the growing issue of elevator entrapments and breakdowns as it acts on a report that recommends beefing up maintenance enforcement and setting timelines to get out-of-service devices working again, the province’s consumer services minister said Thursday.

Tracy MacCharles, who has difficulty walking unaided, said the government would introduce legislation in the coming months that would recognize the importance of functioning elevators in an increasingly multistorey world.

“Having access to an adequate number of working elevators is neither a convenience nor a luxury,” MacCharles said. “It’s a necessity. In some instances, it’s an absolute lifeline.”

In a 57-page report released Thursday, retired Superior Court justice Douglas Cunningham found Ontario has no minimum preventive maintenance standards. The report also found only one in five elevators are in compliance with safety standards, a fact Cunningham chalked up to poor preventive maintenance which he said was the key cause of breakdowns.

Among his 19 recommendations — the government said it would act on all of them — are to force contractors to report outages over 48 hours or when half the elevators in a building are out of service — 80 per cent of buildings have only one or two lifts — and to have a defined plan to restore service.

MacCharles said the government’s plans include making information about elevator downtimes publicly available.

“Prospective residents can make better-informed decisions before they rent or buy a home in a multi-storey building,” the minister said.

Planned building code changes would ensure new high-rises have enough elevator capacity to properly serve residents, while proposed amendments would give the province’s elevator safety regulator, the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, the ability to impose administrative fines.

Cunningham’s report also identified a shortage of elevator mechanics, something the government said it intends to tackle.

Ontario has about 20,000 passenger elevators in residential buildings, long-term care and retirement homes. Cunningham said office elevators, where many people encounter the devices, were outside of his mandate.

Latest figures obtained by The Canadian Press show firefighters in Ontario responded to 4,577 calls by people trapped in elevators in 2016.

Liberal backbencher Han Dong, who introduced a private member’s bill last year aimed at improving elevator availability, said if 26 entrapments took place every day on public transit, it would be considered a crisis.

He said the government’s planned actions are huge.