VOL. 36 NO.4
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
Editor-in-Chief Barbara Carss barbc@mediaedge.ca Publisher Sean Foley seanf@mediaedge.ca Contributors Marty Ahrens, Paul Amendola, Laura Gurr, Jennifer Jeffrey, Kristin Ley, Andrew MacDougall, Birgitte Messerschmidt, John Valley Art Director Annette Carlucci annettec@mediaedge.ca Graphic Designer
Thuy Huynh
Web Designer Rick Evangelista rickr@mediaedge.ca Production Manager Rachel Selbie rachels@mediaedge.ca National Sales Bryan Chong bryanc@mediaedge.ca Digital Media Director Steven Chester stevenc@mediaedge.ca Circulation circulation@mediaedge.ca Alberta & B.C Sales Dan Gnocato dang@mediaedge.ca
President Kevin Brown kevinb@mediaedge.ca Group Publisher Sean Foley seanf@mediaedge.ca Accounting Anna Kantor annak@mediaedge.ca TEL: (416) 512-8186 • FAX: (416) 512-8344 Published and printed six times yearly as follows: March, April/May, June, Aug/Sept, Oct/Nov, Dec by MediaEdge Communications Inc. 2001 Sheppard Avenue East, Suite 500 Toronto, Ontario M2J 4Z8 (416) 512-8186 Fax: (416) 512-8344 e-mail: circulation@mediaedge.ca Subscription Rates: Canada: 1 year, $60*; 2 years, $110* Single Copy Sales: Canada: $12* Outside Canada: US 1 year, $85 International $110 *Plus applicable taxes Reprints: Requests for permission to reprint any portion of this magazine should be sent to info@mediaedge.ca. Copyright 2021 Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40063056 ISSN 0834-3357 Authors: Canadian Property Management Magazine accepts unsolicited query letters and article suggestions. Manufacturers: Those wishing to have their products reviewed should contact the publisher or send information to the attention of the editor. Sworn Statement of Circulation: Available from the publisher upon written request. Although Canadian Property Management makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information published, we cannot be held liable for any errors or omissions, however caused. Printed in Canada
editor’snote DURING MY FIRST reporting job, my editor (a.k.a. boss) smoked in the darkroom while making prints. Answers to the inevitable questions — What’s a darkroom? What’s making prints? and What...you could smoke in the workplace?? — are: Obsolete space; A bygone ritual of newspaper production; and, Yes. Although certainly not so long ago that people were unaware of the health and ignition perils of smoking, it was an era before entrenched social consensus that the freedom to enjoy a legal lifestyle habit does not supersede the right to avoid hazardous and unnecessary exposure to risk. Today, even the majority of smokers accept that premise. As Birgitte Messerschmidt and Marty Ahrens report in their recent comprehensive overview of fire safety trends since the 1980s, there are far fewer smokers now and a significant percentage of them choose to go outside before they light up. That has been influential in the evolving tableau of fire risks in multiresidential buildings. We summarize some of Messerschmidt and Ahrens’ findings in this issue. Risk abatement in general relies on the same kind of social buy-in that has made indoor smoking prohibitions the unquestioned status quo. It also depends on a large measure of good faith on the part of those expected to comply with rules and conditions for keeping people safe and the environment unharmed. In a vast number of situations, inspectors or enforcement agents don’t arrive on the scene until after something bad has happened. Like so much else over the past 20 months, COVID-19 brings a timely focus to those intertwined aspects of acknowledgement of risk, willingness to modify behaviour in the interest of others and fulfillment of often unpoliced obligations. Commercial tenants’ demands for vaccination attestations now put landlords in the uneasy position of certifying that their employees and their contractors’ employees have done all of the above, but it’s not necessarily a radical add-on to the sweeping responsibility they already legally carry under an occupier’s duty of care. Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) may have somewhat more imposing clout to set conditions for landlords providing space for federal government employees, but companies big and small are making similar requests. In Ottawa, where dozens of members of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) accommodate federal government departments, foreign consulate offices and/or one of the host of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) headquartered in the city, they’re approaching it as another due diligence exercise. “It’s just another piece of paperwork that they didn’t have to do before March 2020, but they do have to do now, and they are working within those new parameters,” observes Dean Karakasis, Executive Director of BOMA Ottawa. We look at those efforts in this issue, and also explore more longstanding due diligence exercises related to life safety and environmental liability. Barbara Carss barbc@mediaedge.ca @BarbaraCarss
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