Verdict "raises the bar"

The conviction of the Nipissing District Housing Corporation has raised the bar for private-sector landlords, corporation chairwoman Maureen Boldt says.

Justice of the Peace Michael Kitlar convicted the corporation Thursday on three Ontario Fire Code charges: unlawfully failing to maintain doors and fire separations to make sure they properly closed and latched; unlawfully failing to inspect doors and fire separations monthly; and unlawfully failing to ensure every door and fire separation was equipped with a self-closing device.

Jackie Deschamps, a 58-year-old tenant at the time, died in the fire, which broke out Aug. 22/’03, in the Edgewater apartment building, at 365 Lakeshore Drive.

Send a message
Following a one-day trial held Wednesday, Kitlar fined the corporation $15,000 plus a $1,250 victim surtax charge.

He said he wanted to “send a message” with his verdict.

“I want to ensure this never happens again,” Kitlar stated.

Very high
Corporation chairwoman Maureen Boldt believes Kitlar’s message will resonate city-wide and raise the bar for private-sector landlords.

“I think the bar for social housing is higher than the average landlord and I think this is going to send a message across our community to private sector landlords,” Boldt said during an interview following the verdict.

“As social housing providers we already have a high standard for safety that the private sector can’t match at this point. The bar is very high for us already because we are in social housing, and it’s now been raised.”

Rectify this
During the trial the court heard that three units in the Edgewater had had self-closing devices removed from their entrance doors, while the device in unit 414, where the fire started, had had its arm disengaged.

The corporation would not have been aware this had happened, defence lawyer Ian McLean argued, unless it was able to inspect the apartments.

That would have meant following the provisions of the Ontario Tenants Protection Act, McLean said, and providing 24-hour written notice to the tenants.

“They rectify this before we walk in the door,” Conrad testified Wednesday.

X-ray eyes
Kitlar said that the Act acted as a “hurdle” to giving landlords access to units for such inspections. He also said the Act and the Ontario Fire Code were not “in synch.”

Boldt said the corporation was being asked to have “X-ray eyes” to be able to see through doors.

“And I don’t think that’s possible because the tenant protection act bars us from seeing through doors and from trespassing in their private residence,” Boldt said.

“So we’re going to have to figure out how to get around this and we have to record more diligently what it is we inspect, we have to record it.”

Primary concern
Boldt doesn’t believe the corporation did anything wrong.

“We just didn’t record that the door was looked at,” she said, “and if it’s not broken we can’t fix it.”

Conrad said safety has always been the primary concern of the corporation.

"And after the fire we did get many phone calls for copies of our fire safety plan, copies of our checklist, copies of everything that had to do with how we handle inspections and how we keep the place safe," Conrad said.

Inconsistent
McLean said JP Kitlar was also sending another message, that the Ontario Fire Code conflicts with the Tenants Protection Act, “which is nothing the Nipissing District Housing Corporation can deal with in any way shape or form to produce any kind of reasonable result.”

“What the learned justice has told us is that we should disregard the Tenant Protection Act, and if we ever did this we’d be up in front of another forum on another issue, so we really are in a Catch-22 situation,” McLean said, “and it’s unfortunate it’s here, probably it should have been at a coroner’s inquest where a jury could have made some recommendations to amend the legislation and bring some consistency to it because right now it’s inconsistent.”