Background
Effective July 1, 2022, mandatory reporting on elevators out of service more than 48 hours is in effect. ONTARIO REGULATION 290/21 was amended because of one of the recommendations in a study completed by retired Superior Court Justice Douglas Cunningham, with support from Deloitte’s Public Sector Strategy team.
As stated in the report, the purpose of this study was to assess the state of elevator availability in Ontario, identify key drivers of issues with elevator availability, and propose a series of solutions (both regulatory and non-regulatory) to inform policy discussions.
The report noted that there is no jurisdiction in the world that currently enforces elevator availability. The absence of legislation could be due to complex factors affecting this issue. Another factor considered with the broad set of stakeholders was that robust data on elevator availability is either not shared across stakeholders or not available at all.
What’s New
With the direction from the Ontario government to improve elevator safety and availability, to help ensure that elevators are well-maintained and safe, an amendment in the Act was completed and will be in effect as of July 1, 2022.
The amendment includes requirements such as:
- Impacts long-term care homes and residential occupancies only.
- Establishes standards of elevator availability, including repair standards and timeline.
- Specifying who is responsible for ensuring compliance.
- Owner reporting to TSSA of all “outages”.
- Defines outages as an elevator out of service for more than 48 hours.
- Specifies information that must be included in the reporting.
- Requiring a database of related outage information, and for it to be accessible to the public.
The amendment addresses elevators being out of service for many reasons such as:
- Waiting for parts
- Payment delays
- Shortage of mechanics and scheduling of work
- Obsolete parts
- Elevator’s age and operating beyond expected lifespan
Availability of data and communication across organizations and individuals in the sector is relatively weak. While TSSA does have safety data, information on elevator’s availability is lacking. Gathering data and making it available is crucial to assisting in making the correct decision and becoming the first in the world to establish standards for elevator repair times.
Next Steps
At GUNN Consultants we strongly believe in the importance of having accurate data and will support our clients in reporting elevators out of service, complying with the requirements. Our online GUNN Client Portal is capable of tracking the information required by this amendment.
Do not hesitate to contact our Toronto office for further explanation on how this amendment may affect you, and how we may be able to assist.