5 minute read
Editor’s note
from CPM/GTA October 2021
by MediaEdge
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
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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
contents
For more information, call 416.449.4100 TRIVESTDEV.COM
Focus: Risk Management
8 Personal Environmental Liability: Individuals are increasingly being named in civil proceedings and regulatory orders and prosecutions. 12 Vaccination Attestations: Major tenants are asking commercial landlords to vouch for the status of their workforces and contracted service providers. 16 Inspection Organizer: Digital tracking can streamline compliance administration. 20 Multi-residential fire safety: Evolving technologies and societal habits have altered the risk profile since the 1980s.
Articles:
6 Advancing Accessibility: Removing barriers in buildings expected to improve opportunities for commercial real estate. 26 Post-CERS Relief: Two new 28-week programs are geared to a smaller cohort of businesses still struggling with pandemic-related revenue loss. 28 Parity Progress: Public real estate companies above average for women’s representation on boards and in executive offices. 31 Climate Action Dividends: CREST Awards in sync with UNEP strategies. 33 Energy Briefs: Ontario to open up Green Button access and demonstrate community net metering. 34 Pandemic Recovery Support: Toronto introduces two new grant programs for upgrades to street front commercial properties.
Departments
3 Editor’s note
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