Is This Legal To Repair Elevator For 2 Months

Waiting 45 minutes for an lift, getting stuck in one or having to walk down 16 floors — this is the reality for Myra Piat, who says there's rarely a full complement of elevators at her 26-flooring building near St. Clair and Spadina.

A building managing director is pictured in an elevator pit in a downtown Toronto office edifice. In 2015 firefighters in Ontario responded to 4,461 calls to extricate people stuck in elevators -- more than a dozen a day. (Chris Immature/Canadian Press)

Waiting 45 minutes for an elevator, getting stuck in one or having to walk downwardly 16 floors — this is the reality for Myra Piat, who says there's rarely a total complement of elevators at her 26-floor building near St. Clair and Spadina.

"There are three elevators and sometimes at that place aren't whatever that are working, sometimes in that location is 1," she says. "It'southward a chronic problem."

Relief for those issues could before long be on the way with the Reliable Elevators Human action, a private members neb introduced by Trinity-Spadina MPP Han Dong.

Here's what the proposed legislation encompasses:

elevators in residential buildings would take to be fixed within 14 days
elevators in seniors' homes and long-term care facilities would have to be fixed inside 7 days
applications for new building permits would have to include an elevator traffic analysis

Currently, any building over vii storeys is only required to have i elevator. There are also no regulations or bylaws in place to make sure elevators are repaired in a timely manner.

Under the proposed legislation, lift contractors could be penalized for non completing repairs on time. (CBC News)

Dong conducted months of consultations with residents in his riding, which he said is undergoing "unprecedented growth."

"One resident told me that when the elevator goes out of service, seniors in his building, who cannot utilise the stairs, get trapped in their flat. They cannot get out for groceries and they sometimes take to requite up their medical appointments," he said.

Ontario nib aims to concord elevator contractors responsible for fixing outages

Piat has besides witnessed this in her edifice, and said the problem is about more than than only convenience.

"It creates a lot of stress for people and I retrieve information technology's a real safety issue for elderly people, for care going in," she said.

Piat believes the bill's idea is good in principle, but the 14 and 7-day timeframes should exist shorter.

"Nosotros've gone weekends without elevators," she said, arguing 24 hours would be a more reasonable timeframe for repairs.

Dong agrees with Piat's sentiment, saying "two weeks is a long time for whatever condo owner to suffer" but adds that he came up with the timeframes after consulting with industry experts.

How the legislation would work

The bill would ameliorate the definition of a consumer under the Consumer Protection Act, effectively making the building owner a consumer and the contractor a service provider.

The approach would subject contractors to a wide range of castigating measures — such equally black-listing, public shaming, or prosecution — that exist under the Consumer Protection Act and which the Consumer Services Ministry already enforces. They could also face fines ranging from $50,000 to $250,000.

The current form of the proposed legislation merely covers residential buildings, long-term care facilities and seniors' homes but Dong believes it will "start a chain of change that will ultimately touch commercial buildings as well."