By Lina Khouri
City of Ottawa fire inspectors may have full access to regularly inspect both federal and city buildings for the first time in 20 years if a pilot project is approved.
After a woman in a wheelchair was trapped in a downtown building last January, the two governments started to work together.
City of Ottawa Fire Services along with Public Works and Government Services of Canada are joining forces to inspect federal government buildings in the city.
Currently, city fire inspectors are not allowed full access to federal office buildings, even if they are shared with private businesses.
Federal inspectors are in charge of assessing these buildings and the city can only inspect the small stores inside them.
Federal inspectors visit less frequently than Ottawa inspectors.
“Here’s our concern, the labour branch of HRSDC have seven staff for the whole country in charge of all the inspections we’re talking about. I’m not criticizing, all I’m saying is that’s why we got involved in this in the first place,” says Bruce Montone, the city’s deputy fire chief.
“This contract will give us the authority to enter in the building and check if they’re keeping up to standards,” he said.
There are 2,600 federal government buildings in Ottawa, sharing space with several restaurants, clothing stores and shops.
Because of the hierarchy of government bodies, city staff is not allowed full access to inspect. This limits the frequency of checks as well as efficiency of enforcing that owners comply with recommendations made by inspectors.
In the pilot project, a selected 361 federal buildings in Ottawa are listed in need of inspection.
The city fire department is working with Public Works, under the Treasury Board of Canada, to possibly use city staff to inspect these buildings, instead of federal inspectors.
So far, three have been chosen from this list – one in Tunney’s Pasture, one on Bank Street and the Sir Charles Tupper building on Riverside Drive.
The city inspectors have handed in their assessments to Public Works.
Montone says they went well and saw the need for small repairs, but nothing too drastic.
The two government branches will meet in early December to discuss whether to expand the program to the rest of the 358 buildings on the list.
L’Esplanade Laurier building on Laurier Avenue, where the January fire happened, was checked just last week by an inspector, says Bill Thompson, owner of Don Thompson Jewellers.
Thompson has owned this business for the past 30 years and he says he’s seen inspectors come in about twice a year.
That doesn’t seem to be the case for Daher Afaf, manager of Manhattans Restaurant and Deli down the street at the Narono Building. She doesn’t remember seeing a fire inspector. She hires her own city.
“Insurance won’t cover you if you’re not up to code. I have an inspector come every six months,” she says.
“If something happens to you or your things, (insurance companies) are going to find many reasons not to cover you,” she added.
Each inspection costs Afaf about $100.
When informed about the prospect that the city would now be able to check the building more often, Afaf was interested as long as “it doesn’t cost the city extra money. If they are going to hire all new people and they’re going to come and ask for more money, then what’s the point?”
If the new plan between Public Works and the city is adopted, the federal government would pay the municipal fire inspectors to inspect the buildings.
An exact figure has not yet been determined, Montone says.
Afaf says as long as the building gets inspected at least twice a year, she wouldn’t feel the need to hire someone herself.
The federal government and the city fire department have a tier system to determine which buildings have inspection priority.
“High-risk, high-value, life- exposure buildings are to be done once a year, whereas the low-value, low-risk, smaller buildings will be inspected once every five years. If they are totally unoccupied buildings it would totally depend whether the department responsible for it would request fire inspections or not,” explains Eugene Marotta, director of fire protection services for the labour program of the Human Resource and Skills Development Canada.
For the city, priority goes to the people who would have the hardest time escaping a fire.
This means hospitals; nursing homes and day-care centres are checked more frequently than high rise apartments.