Mayor and Councillors I am Saleh Waziruddin, president of the Park Towers Tenants Association. I live in one of the larger buildings in St. Catharines owned by a REIT, a corporation, that owns four other buildings in the city.
One of the options staff is proposing is to stop enforcing other by-laws to fund the enforcement of the vacant building by-law, alternative 2. Specifically one of the by-laws proposed to take out of enforcement is the vital services by-law, which is supposed to protect tenants like me.
When the vital services by-law was adopted in 2022 it was because a tenant had no heat and it took three months to get their heat back under the Property Standards by-law. The vital services by-law was brought in to get these fixed within 24 hours, either by the landlord or directly by the City with the bill passed on to the landlord, because no one should be without heat in the winer. The City CAN take action to protect tenants and then get the costs covered by the landlords.
The manager of by-law enforcement went on the radio, the Tom McConnell show on 610 CKTB, to talk about how great it is that the city will now have a vital services by-law to protect tenants much faster.
But the next year when a tenant from a building across the street from me, under the same corporate landlord, tried to get the by-law enforced for hallway heat, this Council voted, closely, to remove hallway heat from the vital services by-law instead of enforcing it. You can’t say to the public we have this great by-law but when it comes time to enforce it you decide to favor the corporate landlords by stripping protections away.
Now one of the options before you tonight is to do effectively away with the vital services by-law altogether by not enforcing it at all. This is going backwards to where we were five years ago, where it took three months to get the heat back on in the winter.
When hallway heat was taken away the manager of by-law enforcement said there were many more cases than expected, about 60 that year. I did a freedom of information request and the City’s own data shows since 2022 there have been 381 calls to have the vital services by-law enforced. This means heat, hot water, hydro. Some of these were commercial units but most were tenants like me.
Of these, 273 had to do with heat or gas, almost ¾. Of these 50 were in buildings with more than 20 units, and 22 were in REITs, corporations that sell shares on the stock market.
But these are just the tip of the iceberg. Most people don’t even know to call the City to enforce this protection, or even when they do they are too scared of the landlord. In my own building at least two seniors in the tenants association don’t have heat in the winter but didn’t want to complain, they are not included in the City’s stats. But what would be the point of them complaining if the City won’t even enforce it’s own by-laws?
The City should be going in the further with vital services, not effectively scrapping them. Vital services by-law enforcement should be beefed up to meet the demands, and it should be publicized to capture more complaints where people don’t have the basic necessities to live. This is an area where it is in the City’s jurisdiction, not some other level of government.
The rest of Ontario and the world is going in the opposite direction, they are moving forward. When I was here three years ago to speak against removing hallways heat from the vital services by-law, Councillor Townsend asked if there were other protections that weren’t covered by the by-law. I told him there were, the opposite problem in the summer: protection from the heat, which kills people and causes injuries.
Toronto is looking to make cooling part of their vital services by-law, and this is already done by so many other places around the world.
Our tenants association couldn’t even have a potluck this summer because the common areas are too hot.
But it’s not just the bigger cities. The same year you decided to remove hallway heat from protection instead of enforcing the by-law, Aurora added a vital service by-law and they have half the population of St. Catharines. Last year Caledon added it as well, again half the population.
Just on Friday Owen Sound started the process of adding a vital services by-law, and they have fewer people than Thorold.
Staff has said St. Catharines is the only municipality in Niagara to have a vital services by-law, but that’s because Niagara is behind the rest of the province and country on so many things. That’s nothing to be proud of, St. Catharines should be leading the way.
There are other by-laws staff is proposing to stop enforcing to fund enforcing the vacant building by-law. The sign and graffiti by-laws are important because of white supremacist groups postering and tagging on public property here.
They are promoting mass deportations which they are trying to re-brand as “remigration.” The don’t just mean deporting migrants but also citizens including those born in Canada, they don’t consider people like me to be Canadian. We’ve seen how in other places this movement has escalated to violence, like in Northern Ireland.
These groups are committing crimes in violating the sign and graffiti by-laws, the City has a legal obligation to hold them accountable. I know of at least one
pro-Palestine poster removed by the City on private property. It would be wrong to stop enforcing these by-laws on white supremacist groups postering and graffitiing just to fund enforcement against vacant buildings.
Please do not choose alternative #2, but instead you should be funding more enforcement of the vital services by-law and publicizing this protection to all tenants in the City, because we know it’s badly needed.
Thank you
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