Rod: I bet you missed that, Sean, eh?
Sean:Absolutely. I'd forgotten that.
Rod: Hello everybody. My name is Rod Escayola and I'm your condominium lawyer with Gowling WLG and welcome back to the third season of the CondoAdviser webinars. Can't believe that it's the third season. So today we have an exciting line up. We had an agenda. We prepared for the agenda. We talked about it yesterday and then, following tradition, Doug Ford scheduled a press conference today that will send everybody scrambling. So we need to sort of readjust, a bit, the topics today because vaccination passports have arrived in Ontario. You've got about 22 days to get ready for that. So we'll talk about that of course. I'm super pumped that our usual speakers have accepted to sit on our panel of condo geeks tonight. Sucker for punishment, I guess, considering some of the bad news we have for everybody today. Let's introduce them again.
This time I'm going to ask them this question. If you could take a road trip where would you go? I invite everybody at home to type it into the chat, where would you go if you could take a road trip or if you took a road trip this summer. Let me start in Alphabetical order with Sean Cornish, of Apollo Property Management. Sean, welcome back. Where would you go if you could take a road trip?
Sean:Great question. When you first asked that I felt bad because I actually did take a road trip. A little earlier this summer I went up to Quebec City and very much enjoyed a week off in July. But the other answer I had was, anywhere.
Rod: Nice.
Sean:I'd love to just hit the road again. I'll tell you that much.
Rod: Nice. Okay, well welcome back. Josee Deslongchamps, of DES Services, and Josee's also on the Manager Advisory panel for CCI. Welcome back, Josee. Where would you go if you could take a road trip?
Josee: Well, much like Sean I did actually take a very short road trip this summer. I was quite happy to have about 4 hours off on a Saturday and drove down to Wilno and had cabbage rolls and beer. It was wonderful.
Rod: Nice. Thank you. Welcome back on the panel. Jason Reid, our National Life Safety Group guru, where would you take a road trip?
Jason: Hi Rod. I did actually take a road trip. I went out to Quebec over the summer holidays and enjoyed Montreal, Knowlton, the Northern townships, Quebec's a beautiful place.
Rod: Nice. Great. Great to have you back. Thanks so much. And, of course, your two condo twins. Today they opted not to wear the condo twin uniform, I guess. They have a different colour. One of them was in court, I think, today. That's why. So we have Graeme MacPherson, of Gowling WLG. Graeme, where would you take your road trip?
Graeme: Hi everybody. I think following, on the very clearly Francophile theme I'm seeing here, I would have loved to go to the Gaspe Bay Peninsula in Northern Quebec. I guess it's never too late but that probably would have been mine.
Rod: Okay. So instead you went and you had hotdogs in the Ottawa Valley. Graeme's a big fan of this delicatessen. So, David Plotkin, the second twin with Gowling WLG. Where did you take your road trip?
David:I would love to take a road trip to Prince Edward County. Ontario's best kept secret. It's a real gem of a spot that my wife hid from me for so many years.
Rod: Nice. Okay. Perfect. So here we are. Folks, you know how to use the chat channel. Feel free to share your thoughts. Make sure that when you chat you click on panelists and all attendees if you want everybody to benefit from your views and comments. Hopefully we have our usual allies on line that can help answer some of the questions and before we dive in we'll go through the usual housekeeping and disclaimers. So first keep in mind that whenever we refer to legislation we're referring to Ontario legislation here, and those listening from elsewhere, you'll have to maybe seek some advice that applies to you. Keep in mind that today, the broadcast is recorded on September 1, and so the information we provide you today is as accurate as we can have it as of it today. If you watch this next week you may need to update your information. Keep in mind that the information we provide today is general in nature. It doesn't necessarily apply to you. You may need to get advice from someone who knows the very specific situation you're in. This webinar's being recorded. As soon as we get to it we'll up load it on the CondoAdviser website and you will be able to watch it over and over again, on demand. So here we are. Before I forget, before we dive in, there is an amazing event coming up very soon. It's CAIs second yearly condo conference. It's going to be virtual. It's over two afternoons so that's amazing. You're able to live your life, go to work, do what you got to do, you just need to take a little break in the afternoons to accommodate the West Coast, mainly. The keynote speaker is the author of the book 'Why Buildings Fall Down'. So if that's not something that entices you to login and to listen I don't know what would be. Great panels, great speakers, great experts so it's I think, Denise, you told me it's only $25.00 for members, CAI members, and $75.00 for non-members.
Denise:That's correct.
Rod: Maybe you want to become a member. Still time to register, eh, Denise?
Denise:Yes. There's lots of availability and it's virtual so I don't think there's any limit. Really interesting speakers including yourself, Rod, and Jason. Lots of interesting topics and the topics of vaccinations. So, it's not over after tonight.
Rod: Okay, perfect. I think maybe, Graeme, if you are able in the chat, maybe you can put the link for registration. If you're able to figure this out that would be great. I should also, when I have minute, make you co-host in case I fall off the earth. Okay, folks, let's start, well you can't do it right now, Graeme, because you're first.
Graeme: Yeah, I've only got two arms.
Rod: Okay. So what about this. We're going to get a COVID update and before we dive into the update how about you launch a poll, Graeme, to get us going.
Graeme: Okay. You know what, Rod? I don't think I can. I don't think have that level of power.
Rod: Okay. So, I'm going to make you co-host but how about if you start maybe with an ... When I figure out the poll I'll launch it.
Graeme: Okay.
Rod: Maybe you can update us on Step 3 which is the step we entered on July 16. What does that mean?
Graeme: Alright. So since our last webinar, as many of you will know, the Provincial Government has changed it's tune again of how we're ranking the levels of COVID severity. It used to be, as many people will know, a colour coded system based on each Regional Health Unit and it's since changed to a Provincial 3 plus 1 Step method of determining how severe the restrictions are. We'll talk about this a little more later too. But suffice it to say for now, there are 3 Steps and a Road Map Exit Step. Each as you continue along becoming less and less restrictive. We're currently in Step 3. I won't take you through in too great detail what that means. But in general it means that in indoor common areas masks are still required. Indoor gatherings are limited to 25 people and outdoor gatherings are limited to 100 people, generally. There are some exceptions which don't apply to condos. Your fitness amenities, your gyms, your pools, your change rooms, they can open with certain restrictions. Like making sure that people are 2 meters apart, certain screening protocols and things like that. Condos will need to make sure that they continue to have safety plans available for everyone to review that describes their COVID protocol and how they're keeping everyone safe. The corporation staff and employees must continue to wear masks. Short term leasing is another big hot topic for condos. It is available. As some of you may know, in the past it was restricted to only those who need to be doing it for reasons that they may be in town, or working as health care providers and they're in town for a short amount of time. No such restrictions are in place anymore. The great debate with what services are essential and what services are not, that's not really something that's an issue anymore in Step 3. There's no determining whether or not a service can be open only if it's essential.
Rod: Okay, thank you for that. You're out of time. Sorry about this.
Graeme: I was going to quickly say if anyone wants more detail, because I know I had to rush through that, you can very easily go on the CondoAdviser website. There's a little thing at the top that says COVID. If you click that you've got four pretty boxes, each named Step 1, 2, 3 and Exit Road Map, where you can click them and get all of the details in much greater depth.
Rod: I can't complain about that, eh? Okay, so there it is. Let me launch the poll. Let me see if that works. The poll is this. What is the status of your condo amenities at home? Have you reopened them as part of Step 3? Did you reopen them a long time ago? Are they still closed? And where they maybe never closed? While this goes on, Sean, tell us what you see on the ground. Are people reopening? What do you see?
Sean:It's a bit of a mix. Interesting to have had about 6 weeks at the same Step and give everybody an opportunity to kind of catch up. Some boards were right on top of it. Day 1, they wanted to get the pools opened, the ... opened and they've kept them open ever since moving to Step 3. Others have been more cautious and had concerns about potential fourth wave and what that would mean and wanted to see how things played out in September with people going back to school, more people going to the office, theoretically, and whether that would shut things down again. They don't want to do the open and close, open and close so they were playing a bit more wait and see. So it's a bit of a mix on the ground.
Rod: Okay. So, Josee, for those amenities that have opened what are the kind of protocols or precautions that you see?
Josee: We're seeing a lot of what was in place before when we reopened originally. There are still distancing requirements, masking requirements where possible. Not necessarily in pools and gyms. A requirement to book in advance. In many facilities there's a restriction on how long you may spend in the facility to allow other units to use the facility. In some buildings some of the facilities are restricted to a single unit use at a time. We have in some facilities, gyms and reading nooks, that kind of area, where we've installed additional filtration devices where we didn't feel there was enough air exchange. So we're filtering air better than we were before. So a number of restrictions. Still very much an honour system. People having to book in advance and trying not to jam up the facilities with repeating bookings, preventing other people from using the facilities.
Rod: Let me share the result of this poll. So as you can see about 69% have reopened as part of Step 3 and only 4% had opened a long time ago and 26% still not opened. So there it is. That's for that.
Graeme: One probably never closed.
Rod: I know, yeah. So do we still see, is this blocking the screen? I'm not too sure. Can we see the slides?
Josee: Yeah.
Rod: Yeah. Okay. Sean, very quickly about booking, what do you see? A paper booking, online booking? What do you see for booking amenities?
Sean:Yeah, we do see a bit of a mix here. There were a lot of options available for off the shelf product for electronic booking. People who have communication software or property management software were able to use that for their bookings and it's worked very well. Allowing the screening process, reservations, putting limits in on how many times you can book in one day and how many people can book at one time. So quite sophisticated and really perfectly suited for this kind of situation. But not all properties have the resources to use those electronic systems. So some do rely on the paper systems, and as Josee said, in those cases usually you're not looking at a staffed facility so you're relying very much on the honour system.
Rod: Okay. Perfect. Believe it or not we're kind of back on time now. So don't get excited. The next topic is going to be a big topic. We're going to talk about masks and whether or not it still applies. Do you want to launch a poll, Graeme?
Graeme: Yeah, absolutely.
Rod: If you're able.
Graeme: This is a poll where we're trying to get a sense of everybody in the crowd's temperature here. So you should be able to see it on your screens now.
Rod: The question is what should condos do? Not what they've done. Not what they're doing. What should they do? Should they follow the Province or the Cities, the Municipalities lead? Should they continue to require masks? Should we just stop this insanity? I'm going to say this. This is going to be my mood swing of the evening. Masks are regulated at three levels. Either by the Province, either by the Municipalities or by the condos. I got to tell you, folks, I really never expected such resistance with respect to masks. I did not expect that to become a political issue. I mean masks are the most basic least intrusive steps that one could take towards another. To me I compare this to same level of imposition as if I was asking you to wear clean underwear. Or if I was asking you not to use the tablecloth to blow your nose, but apparently, there's some ideological crusaders out there who found a donkey to ride into the sunset, and so here we are today having to manage masks. In a couple of minutes we're going to talk about managing vaccines. So if you thought the ride was exciting, just wait, wait for the next one. So what do we got, Graeme, on the poll?
Graeme: I'll end the poll here. We got a lot of response out of that. So I'll share the results and as everyone should be able to see now, you know what? I thought we would get a lot more stop this insanity. There's a surprise. Then 42% of respondents indicated that in their view corporations should continue to require masks and 55% of respondents indicated that corporations should follow the Province and City's lead. That may actually be a good segue into our next topic which is the Municipal Mask Bylaw, I believe.
Rod: Right. Exactly. David, do you want to walk us through what Municipalities are doing and where thing stand now. Sure. This is another topic we blogged about recently so you can get into great detail on our CondoAdviser website. But just a bit of a brief overview. As Rod said there's the three levels of regulation on that and at the Municipal level a number of Cities have continued to renew their existing Municipal Masking Bylaws. Some of them have since expired and have not been renewed, like the Ottawa one, but again the Provincial mask mandate is still in effect. From a condo perspective there's still a lot of policies in effect. So it's really just kind of just who's responsible for enforcing is really the question here. If you head onto our blog, if you move into your specific Municipality, click on the links and see when is your local Bylaw up for renewal or not and, if so, it's another tool for condos to call on for Bylaw enforcement. Even though anecdotally we know Bylaw enforcement through the City has kind of taken more of a backseat lately on that front.
Rod: Okay. Perfect. As you indicated that's what the Municipalities do but the Provincial mask requirements continue to apply. They can be found under the regulations adopted under the Reopening Ontario Act. Right now we're under Step 3 and the next Step will be the Road Map Exit Step. I think Graeme will talk about that. So right now, regardless of what your City provides for, masks are still required while on interior common elements. There's the usual exceptions. Age, disability, medical conditions, human rights issues. At the Provincial level there doesn't appear to be a real requirement to provide evidence that you, in fact, fall under one of these exceptions. Courts have limited the mobility of some of unmasked users. There's a ... case where courts said, "Sure, okay, so you don't have to wear a mask but you are limited to coming in and leaving your unit by the most direct route." and it applies to interior common elements unless the condo corporation is able to ensure that people can maintain 2 meters distance. You can't really ensure that, I assume, and so I think the safe approach is to assume that masks are required on common elements at the Provincial level. But we said there were three levels of regulations and we're going to turn to Denise. Maybe you can tell us where we stand on condo mask policies.
Denise:Yeah, well, very interesting topic and I agree with you, Rod. I don't know why people fight this mask wearing. I always say let's be more cautious and it's always best to be more restrictive. When we do have these Bylaws that expire though, what corporations should be doing is looking at your mask policies. I think most of our clients already have these mask policies but at the time that we drafted them it was based on the Municipalities Bylaws so there's reference to those Bylaws. So the policies have to be amended. Our suggestion is you want to keep the mask policies in place as long as possible. I would keep them in place until Public Health says that masks are no longer needed. I just don't understand why you just don't want to retain a mask policy in your corporation. Of course there's signage. I think some of the signage refers to the Municipalities Bylaws so you may have to revise those as well. I just wanted to say a cautionary tale. I've been in touch with colleagues in the US and in Chicago now, because of the Delta variant, by the way they're in Phase 5 whatever that means. I think you need on your blog, you're going to have to start talking about the US and their different Phases, but the City of Chicago is now mandating a new mask policy for all common areas and shared space and possibly outdoor space. So even if you've had a vaccine you're still required to wear a mask and possibly on exterior common elements. Be careful here. We just don't want to go back there. So you want to be more cautious as we move forward.
Rod: Yeah. Okay, I agree. I'm going to turn to management now. Either Josee or Sean, I'm not sure who's going to take the lead on this one, but what do you see on the ground mask wise and how are you handing that? Is there a lot of pushback? Josee, maybe you want to start?
Josee: Sure. I think the fact that the City of Ottawa did not renew their mask Bylaw in August kind of went through quietly. No one seemed to realize. We're just now in the process of updating the signage at all the entrances. Most of our boards do have mask policies. Those who did not and who were relying on the City Bylaw are now being asked to draft a policy or are going to simply rely on the Provincial Bylaw that is in place. It's interesting, if you go to the City of Ottawa website and you look at why they did not renew the mask Bylaw, they state that at the time that they passed their Bylaw the Province had not yet mandated mask wear, and that since the Province has stepped up and now is mandating it they didn't feel that they needed to do so. The problem, of course, is the wording of both Bylaws are somewhat different and the masking requirement at the Provincial level is less restrictive. It allows for a mask to be removed when you're in the gym and you're exercising. That kind of stuff. We didn't get into that with the Municipal Bylaw so if we're relying only on theProvincial guidance, then it probably is important to understand what that Provincial guidance does say about masks because many boards might be surprised that there are things that if you want to enforce in your building you're going to have pass your own policy now. You can't just rely on the City's wording.
Rod: Okay. Perfect. Sean, I don't know if there's anything left for you to add on this.
Sean:Not at all. No, it's my thoughts exactly. The only think I would say is I was disappointed in the City of Ottawa not renewing it. I understand that the concept of duplication but I think masking is so important that it's worth it to have that reiteration of the requirements and have that point to it. So it was a little disappointing but we are recommending as well that you continue as if it was still enforced.
Rod: Okay. Now what have we got? Maybe the next one I'm going to turn to you, Graeme, to shed some light about what comes after Step 3. But a good question that came up and, Denise, I wonder if you want to try answering that one. Since we have the Provincial requirement, what's the benefit of having our own mask policy at the condo level?
Denise:Well, the policy as you know has more details as to enforcement. So, just like any other regulation, you need to beef it up. Right? You need to contain the details as to how you're going to enforce mask policy.
Rod: Right. I think so too. It also sort of walks hand in hand with the corporations duty to take reasonable steps to ensure the reasonable safety and their duty to control, administer and manager the common elements. So even if what you do is reiterate the Provincial requirement, that's just part of what condo corporations have to. It's the object of the corporation is to manage, control and administer the common element. The other good question was does that apply to party rooms? Well, it's an interior common element I think it would apply. Keeping in mind that obviously it doesn't apply to single units or single families and I'm not sure to what extent you'd want to regulate that if someone access the party room for a private function. Maybe a question to ask your favourite condo lawyer. Okay, Graeme, let's go to you. What happens after Step 3?
Graeme: Right. So the plan initially, back at the beginning of the summer was to kind of move through the Steps and they had a bit of a schedule to do that. But with COVID numbers doing what they're doing around the world, on August 17 it was announced that this would be suspended for the time being. We don't know when we will enter the next Step, which is called the Road Map Exit Step, but when we do get there it's going to mean that mask requirements are going to continue to apply in indoor common spaces. So even when we do get out of Step 3 there is still going to be masking requirements. There's going to be no more restriction, however, on the size of organized public events or gatherings. That's going to maybe open up the possibility of some in person AGMs again and really, really open up the possibility to enforce us to really confront how hybrid AGMs are going to work because I think we can all say that there's been a lot of benefits from the online AGMs that we've all felt. Screening at entrances is no longer going to be required for anyone coming into the condo like workers or staff, however, you will still need to have signs up that informs people how they can self-screen. Likewise more kind of lifted restrictions will involve the gyms, pools and amenities. There's going to be no more capacity limits that are prescribed by law. The screening requirements are going to be lifted.You'll still have to engage in tracing, to make sure that if there is an outbreak that can be traced back to the people who were using the gym, but I think this is a good opportunity to repeat our mantra that just because you can doesn't necessarily mean you should. It is the corporation's obligation and duty to maintain and manage the common elements so, just because the Provincial Government may not require things like capacity limits or screening anymore, the corporations still may want to consider implementing such measures to keep everyone safe. Go ahead, Rod. You were going to say something?
Rod: No. Go ahead. I was just about to cut you off.
Graeme: Ha! Allow me to continue. The last big piece is going to be, it was announced quite recently actually, on August 24 the Provincial Government amended its regulations that explained what this Road Map Exit Step is going to look like. It indicated that businesses and organizations, which include condos, are going to need to implement and comply with COVID-19 vaccination policies. Those have to be based on the advice, recommendations and instructions of Public Health Officials. So, this is going to be a brand new world of policy making and potentially enforcement in condominiums. I don't want to gas myself up too much here but I'm getting really good at these segues, because it actually leads quite well into our next topic, which I'd like to kick with a poll again. We'd like to get your views on in your view should corporations be adopting vaccination policies? I'm going to launch a poll there and we'll give everyone a minute or two just to answer that.
Rod: So, the options are only for employees or contractors. Second option, yes, and it should also apply to residents. Somebody says absolutely not and somebody says stop this insanity. I think the last two options are kind of the same but one is just louder, I think. Stop the insanity. Okay, while the votes are coming in let me add this, because that's going to be the next topic here. The next topic is about vaccination and of course, today, there was an announcement that was made. It kind of changed the landscape. I mean we kind of knew it was coming down the pike, and so I think the landscape has changed today, with the announcement that Doug Ford made that implements what some people call the vaccine passport. So let's talk about that. You may recall that way back in January we talked about vaccination in condos and at the time it was like straight out of science fiction and people were kind of giggly when we're talking about it. It was like kind of all fun and games talking about this but a lot has changed since January. The first thing that has changed is the vaccination rate. In January we barely had a vaccine and now in Ontario about 73% of the population has one dose and 67% has two doses. The accessibility and the availability of vaccines changes the discussion as to whether or not requiring vaccination in a condo makes sense or not. Something else that has changed since January is that numerous jurisdictions are adopting proof of vaccination or vaccination passports. Lots of public and private entities are adopting that. Universities. Ottawa U was the first one out of the gate. Really proud of them and then at the Federal level, if you're going to board a plane or a train, you need to be vaccinated. Federally regulated sectors, their employees need to be vaccinated and various public health units were starting to adopt a patchwork of sort of policies. Toronto was leading the charge. That's pretty good. That's impressive. So this is what has changed. I mean the landscape is changing, and then of course today, Doug Ford announced that there will be a vaccination passport that Ontarians will be required to show vaccination in certain cases. There it is. As of September 22, Ontarians will have to provide proof of vaccination to enter certain facilities and settings.
Graeme: Rod, before you go any further do you mind if I share the results of the poll?
Rod: Oh yeah, go right ahead.
Graeme: So there we go. Just before we get any further into this, there you have it, folks. There's the results of the poll. 33% of our respondents indicated that in their view vaccination policies should only apply to employees and contractors. 55%, the biggest answer, was that yes these policies should also apply to residents. We have 11% saying absolutely not and 1% pleading to stop the insanity.
Rod: Okay. Perfect. Those are good answers actually. I'm a bit surprised by some of the answers. There's more acceptance, I think, but you know what? At the end of the day it's no longer a debate of whether we want it or we like it. I've held back blogging about vaccination in condos because I kind of wanted to see what would take place. What kind of direction would we get from the top down. I think that's where we are now. That the benefits of today's announcement is that it clarifies the situation for everybody as opposed to just pushing the puck down to the corporations, condo corporations, sort it yourself. Good luck with that. Now we have a clear direction at the Provincial level. The regulations aren't out yet. The devil will be in the details but basically, as of September 22, Ontarians will be required to provide vaccination proof to enter certain businesses and facilities and settings. Those words come out of the press release. It's limited to indoor and I think it's going to have an impact on meeting space indoor and it's going to have an impact on gym, fitness and recreational facilities. Again, I'm not inventing that. This is coming from the press release. We'll have to see whether or not it applies to gyms in condos, but if we look at how masks were regulated in condominiums I kind of suspect that it may very well apply to gyms in condos, but we'll have to see. It will not apply outdoor amenities such as patios. It will not apply to youth who can't be vaccinated yet. There will be medical exemptions but this time around evidence will be required. A medical note will be required and that, I think, sort of takes a very uncomfortable element out of the equation. Whereas someone would say, "Well, I don't have to wear a mask and you just have to take my word for it." and there was no supporting documents or evidence being provided. At least now we see that, I think, the Province is approaching it a bit differently. What else would we got? There it is. So that is what we know following today's announcement. Let me just see, so that's at the Provincial level. David do you sort of want to cover what in the meantime Public Health Units have adopted? You have to keep in mind that the Public Health Units were kind of trying to implement what they felt was required and today the Province finally sort of showed their cards. A lot of overlapping here but, David, can you shed some light on what Public Health Units are doing?
David:Yeah, it's been interesting to watch from a political standpoint. The gentle nudging and the encouragement coming from the Public Health Units that eventually make their way up to the Provincial Government. So we have a number of different Public Health Units that have had policies passed for re-vaccination and they kind of vary in the strength of their language. There's just two examples here and there's many more of them on our website. But in Ottawa, on August 25, there was a special statement put out by the Public Health Unit welcoming the adoption of vaccine policies by organizations and workplaces. So that was one approach. Toronto took an even stronger approach where they strongly recommended that local employers institute a workplace vaccination policy to protect employees, and the public, and recommending specifically, at minimum, that workers have to provide proof of their vaccination; that unvaccinated employees provide written proof of a medical reason why they cannot be vaccinated, and whether that medical exemption is limited in time or not or if it's just permanent, and that unvaccinated workers complete a vaccination education course on the risks of being unvaccinated in the workplace. So from this we kind of took the message from those Public Health Units that if your condo has staff or employees on site, specifically within the Toronto Public Health Unit, you must adopt a vaccination policy. With all the signals we're getting, and especially with the Provincial announcement of the incoming vaccine passport, I mean having a stop gap at the very least vaccination policies, is something that should definitely be considered by condos for employees and we'll talk about in more detail about who else that can cover and how we can go about doing that in the next segments.
Rod: Okay. Denise, lot of heavy lifting for you because you're going to lead the charge on the kind of vaccination policies that have been adopted by some condo corps. Keeping in mind, folks at home, that I think you have to ask yourself this question. Well first you have to keep your eyes on the ball, see what the Province does adopt and how it trickles down, but there's also something else to keep in mind. Are you adopting a policy for your contractors? Are you adopting a policy for your employees? Or are you adopting a policy for your residents? So turning to you, Denise, maybe you can tell us a bit more about the kind of policies you've seen that were adopted, and in the meantime just so you know, Denise, I've prepared the slide on the screen which basically lists key elements of a good vaccination policy and it comes straight out of the Toronto Public Health Unit's book. Those are kind of the key components but what have you done? What have you seen so far?
Denise:I was going to go through sort of the basics of what a policy should contain, but just to mention, I've been so distracted with the chat, what's going on there about AGMs and meetings. So a whole other topic but there's a lot of activity going on there. But something that somebody mentioned, and I think it's important for us to sort of talk about before we get started on the policy, is why are we not doing these as rules? Why are we doing these as policies? I think the difference here is when we're dealing with health and safety concerns, and especially with COVID-19, they're changing all the time. When we see it's changing daily you do not do a rule. You do not try to pass a rule and wait 30 days. So this is different than cannabis. This is a health and safety issue which is a policy, and policies can be enforced and there's case decisions, but I think what's a good idea for corporations when they're doing the rules, to make sure you do a general rule about the enforcement of policies. Just to make that comment before we get started on the policies.
So, Rod, you're absolutely right. What we've done, and I think that Josh blogged about vaccination policies and there was a lot of activity, what we started to do and what we have been doing over the past couple of weeks, are vaccination policies dealing with contractors and employees. Because there is an obligation under the Occupational Health and Safety, we know that, that we need to do these policies to protect the residents and the corporation. Workers that are doing work in the corporation including management. They don't have to be direct employees. It could be contractors that are doing work. They could be management personnel. The superintendents. So we are doing these policies and you've got the headings there as to what the policy should have. We worked on what the definition should be, so something that's important to think about is you're going to say that individuals have to be vaccinated, well what does that mean? What is an approved vaccine? So you go into that great detail. Also fully vaccinated, the term. Not double vaccinated. So these are really important and that's why legal counsel is doing these policies. Make sure that you prepare these properly and then, of course, who does a policy apply to? We are going to be working on policies affecting residents and I think when we were talking about vaccine policies is dealing with the amenities. What do you need in order to use amenity? Do you need your proof of vaccines? We haven't developed that yet but as we speak Josh is doing one right now. People are concerned about the use of a gym and what proof they should provide. That will be coming but not yet.
So how do you apply the policy? Well there's a different treatment for contractors versus employees. With contractors we're insisting that they have to be fully vaccinated. Any agents, any employees of contractors are required to be vaccinated. If they're not then the corporation, and this is in our policy, requires that 24 hours before their attendance they provide to their employer, or to the contractor, a rapid negative test. So they have to provide proof there's a negative test and what we want to see, and what we make sure in these policies, is the contractor is responsible for ensuring their agents comply and are vaccinated and provide them with proof. They don't provide this information to the corporation. Now that's different than employees. With employees you will require that proof be provided. That should be kept in separate, and we talked about this Rod, where do you keep this material? The proof of vaccination is one thing, and then the privacy and the confidentiality of this information, so that the policies also contain that. Then what are the consequences for not being vaccinated? Well, you know, it's a little bit tricky with employees and I'm sure we'll see the courts getting involved in this down the road, but right now what do you do if an employee won't get vaccinated? You can accommodate them to a certain extent, but someone like a super, they can't really work offsite. So what do you do about it? Do you terminate them? Do you require them to wear PPE? Provide negative test results? These are things that we have put into the policy and then also think about entering into new agreements now with your contractors, even management companies, requiring that their agents, their employees be fully vaccinated and indemnification if they're unvaccinated. So those two points are important for entering into future agreements.
Rod: Very well. I think, just as we did initially with masks, people at home you should first have a look at what is required. What is required? What will the Province implement? You need to meet at least that. Then you need to look at what's required at the Municipal level. If you're in Toronto now, and if you have employees or contractors, you must adopt a vaccination policy. That's just it, right? So you must meet at least this minimal requirement. But I mean it's a domino effect. There's a bit of the wave coming in, and we kind of see what's coming down the pike, and that brings us to what Denise was discussing now which is what about at the condo level? What kind of policy do we want to have in place? Keeping in mind that in some cases you have to have a policy. Toronto employees, etcetera. Dealing with contractors is kind of the easiest one. Just require it. That's easy and let the contracting entity deal with policy, info gathering and all of that good stuff. For employees, unless it's required such as is the case in Toronto and other Public Health Units, with employees I think you would ask yourself this question: is there a bonafide requirement for this person to be vaccinated or is that person working in a dungeon somewhere offsite, never to see anybody at the corporation? That maybe a different requirement. But if there's a bonafide requirement to require vaccination then ask yourself, as a secondary question, is there an alternative accommodation that can be made? Right? Maybe, maybe not. Of course a question, and I think you touched upon that, Denise, in all cases you need to turn your minds to the accommodations that may be required for bonafide medical conditions. Or other human rights reason. So there it is. Everything we've seen so far, both today at the press conference and last week with Toronto, it seems that there needs to be an actual documented medical requirement if you are going to seek to be exempt. I think that takes away some of the discomfort that we had initially with people not really wanting to wear a mask, some for valid reasons, others for less valid reasons. What about occupants and owners? Much to my surprise I think I'm the one covering that. Did I write anything about that? No I don't think I wrote anything. Okay, well there it is.
With respect to occupants and owners, we'll wait and see what the Province will push down with respect to gyms and with respect to meeting spaces but I'm going to say this, the way I envision it now is there could be a requirement to show proof of vaccination for a non-essential amenity. The gym, the pool, the meeting room, games room, whatever you've got. I can't see, at this stage anyways unless something changes drastically, I can't see at this stage requiring proof of vaccination for essential amenities. The elevator, the lobby, the mailroom and certainly I can't foresee that there'd be a requirement to own or occupy a unit. I just don't see that. I think the requirement to show proof of vaccination will cover more areas where there's a higher risk, a gym. Where there's more people gathering. Now I know that some of my colleagues, on Twitter and elsewhere, there was a hesitation. Like are we crossing the Rubicon now? Are we in fact going to move into vaccination and requiring proof? They're asking, basically, what has changed? Think back when we closed the amenities. We closed the amenities because there was a heightened risk and because we wanted to take reasonable steps to ensure the reasonable safety of those using these amenities. What has changed since we closed the amenities? Vaccines are available. But vaccines only help those who are vaccinated. Those who are not vaccinated are exactly in the same position they were last January. So if we closed the amenities last January to minimize the risk of transmission, well it's only logic that the same would continue to apply to those who don't benefit from the protection of vaccine. That's how I explain it and justify it. But at the end of the day what's really most important, I think, is for all of you to consult your advisors and have a look at what the Province requires, what your Public Health requires and that's going to be the beginning of a discussion. Sean, I think you accepted to speak about a condo that has a policy in place for occupants as well. And, again, keep in mind that this policy was adopted before today's announcement, so it may change a bit, but what can you tell us about that? How have corporations approached it when dealing with vaccination for owners, occupants?
Sean:Absolutely. It's a bit of the responsiveness to the pandemic. Our role in dealing with it has been kind of waiting for people to act and levels of government to take action. We knew something had to come on the vaccine front. We saw it in Quebec. We saw it in BC. Then we were waiting for that direction in Ontario but there was that void. The concept of applying a vaccine requirement to residents in their units is very scary to me and to the boards that I deal with. But one of the things that keeps popping up, whenever we talk about the vaccines is, is what's essential and what's not. The amenities, fitness rooms, guest suites, even party rooms those are not essential to living in a condo or a building. The fitness rooms, as you mentioned Rod, where there's a very elevated risk of passing on the virus so we do have a couple of boards who have dived into it, as it were, and implemented their own vaccination policy in regards to these amenities. Specifically that to use the fitness room, in which more than one unrelated person can use the equipment while maintaining physical distance, you are required to have both vaccines, of an approved vaccine in Canada, and as well that it must be 2 weeks since your second dose before you're eligible to use the amenities. Now, very impressive to have put that in place. The mechanism for enforcing it is still a little light in that it relies on the honour system. There's nobody scanning vaccination proofs or anything at the door to make sure that they're legitimate. It's a question as part of the COVID screening. Do you have any of these symptoms? No, no, no, no, no and then the final question is have you received both doses of an approved vaccine and has it been at least 2 weeks since this was done. If you answer no your reservation request is not approved. If you answer yes then your eligible to use the facilities within the other sections ...
Rod: Okay. I think we're all kind of learning as we go on this one. So there's going to be a lot of changes coming down and so consult with your advisors, read a lot of blogs. Denise did mention Josh Milgrom from her firm has an amazing blog. That's one of the blog posts I wish I had written. When I read his I decided not to blog. I had nothing else to add and you can tell Josh that, Denise. I'm going to skip over the accommodation because we talked about it, and I'm going to instead turn to David and ask him to talk about privacy, because it is front and center. A lot of people are concerned about the privacy and the information that we're going to gather. So we're getting some guidance from the courts already. What can you tell us?
David:Yes. There was a really interesting case or reasons that came out recently. It's actually in the criminal law context. It was relating to juries and jurors having to be physically present. They're not doing jury trials by Zoom. They're actually doing jury trials in person. So there was a big discussion about can we include a juror who isn't vaccinated? Justice Phillips from the Superior Court basically put out a decision for everyone to see, and I think it applies really across all sectors of law and of society, where he kind of weighed the different elements of what is private information and what's kind of the sliding scale. So the big takeaway from this is asking the question whether someone is vaccinated and getting a yes or no answer is very different from asking someone the follow up, if they say no, and saying well, why not? Because the why not is potentially getting into a very gray area of are you probing into their medical exemption? Are you probing into their human rights reasons? You don't really need to know the reason why. If someone is seeking an exemption for accommodation reasons there's a certain burden on them to prove their exemption, but if you're simply enforcing a vaccination policy, a no or a yes should suffice for those purposes. There's a quote here but I mean I pretty much summed it up there. It's really asking the right question can get you the right answer and you don't need to go farther than that.
Rod: Right. Something interesting that Justice Phillips actually raised is this, he says, "Let's just settle down on how private is that information." People were being vaccinated in arenas and gyms, and you could walk in and you could see at any given time 100 people being vaccinated at once and you could see 200 people waiting in line, there's no privacy element to that. You would never see that otherwise if it was any other medical procedure. You wouldn't know who's behind door number one, having their throat checked, or whatever it is they're having checked. So Justice Phillips is kind of looking at that and says, "If you limit the question for good reasons to whether or not are you vaccinated or not that is sufficient." He kind of says that's on the very low end of the reasonable expectation of privacy.
David:I think he even took judicial notice, I love this, this millennial ethic, judicial notice of people taking selfies when they get their vaccine and posting it on Facebook as evidence for it not really having the expectation of privacy.
Rod: Right. No, that's true. That's absolutely true. But still you need to turn your minds to what do with this information when and if you get that information. Make sure you don't get more information than you need, and make sure that the information is preserved and somewhere safe and secure, and make sure that people don't have access to that information. A question that I keep seeing on the chat and in the question is what if we start preventing people from using the amenities based on vaccination, if we get to that point? These people are paying for their common expenses, etcetera, etcetera. Condo fees, common expenses are not a gym membership. If you don't have access to your gym, well you don't pay gym membership, but that doesn't apply to common expenses or to condo fees. The other thing that you have to keep in mind is that the Condo Act specifically provides that fees are payable whether or not you use a certain amenity. So you'll have to turn your mind to that but people need to disassociate the association they have in their minds between I'm paying fees and therefore I'm allowed to use a gym. Perhaps, but you're not allowed to put people in danger and you're not allowed to exercise a right that the Province is now regulating, if in fact the Province gets to regulate vaccination in gyms. I know some condo managers that will tell you loud and clear that, you know what? They can't be a doctor and a nurse and a legal advisor and, again, at one point that's enough. They were enforcing mask policies. Now we're going to ask them to enforce vaccination policies and some of them are just finding it just a bit too much. I think, based on that, having a good policy may help you sort of give clear guidance to everybody. What are the rules? Anyways, we're running out of time. Denise, a very interesting question that you raised had to do with vaccination and AGMs.
Denise:Yeah, it's very interesting because I am doing my first hybrid meeting. I'm Chairing the meeting, but I actually won't be there, and what we will be doing is requiring owners who want to attend in person to RSVP and they must be fully vaccinated. So that will be on the notice and that if owners are not vaccinated they can attend virtually.
Rod: Okay. We'll talk about that next month. See how it went. What else do we got? Graeme, are you able in about 40 seconds to cover your election piece?
Graeme: Yeah. Okay, let's do it. So it is election time. We didn't forget and the question often gets asked to us, can owners present or hang signs for their preferred candidate? The other question we often get is what can corporations do about canvassers coming in? I'll start with that one first actually. The Condominium Act tells us that condos cannot restrict reasonable access to the property by candidates for election. Then the Canada Election Act goes a little bit further and says that no one control of a condo can prevent a candidate, or their representative, from canvassing between 9:00 and 9:00. All of this to say you do not need to let canvassers in. They must be reasonable. They can't be banging on doors and causing a ruckus and putting people in danger or making them uncomfortable but they do have to be let in and failing to do that, as we'll get to in a moment, can yield some fines and potentially even jail time. So don't mess with the election canvassers. Now, there is an exception to this general rule. The exception is that multi-residence buildings whose resident's physical or emotional well-being could be harmed as a result of allowing canvassing. Then you don't necessarily have to let them in. Now this was interesting, and it's not something that we ever really thought about until COVID-19, because this exception that physical or emotional well-being has to be safeguarded and if it's put at risk then the canvassers aren't necessarily allowed in. That was drafted before COVID-19 so it wasn't drafted with a pandemic in mind. But it begs the question if that doesn't apply here, where does it apply? Rod, do you have any thoughts on that?
Rod: No. Well, I think maybe when it was drafted it would apply maybe to group homes or institutions where you have people that are more vulnerable by virtue of either age or an illness. So I mean I can see tons of places where it wouldn't be a good idea to start canvassing.
Graeme: I don't say my two cents on it but if we're allowing contractors to come into the building, and guests to come into the building, and that's not causing physical or emotional harm, then I would lean on the side of caution and probably not prevent reasonable access to canvassers.
Rod: Right. No, I agree with that. The difference though with someone visiting is that person goes to one unit. The canvassers going to go to every unit.
Graeme: Yes.
Rod: I think we can leave it to owners to decide whether or not to open their doors and maybe if you send out a good communication to the owners ahead of time, listen there's a campaign. You may get canvassers. It's really up to you to decide whether you want to open your door. I think there's a way to educate the owners. We're running out of time, Graeme, so that's it. That's all you've got.
Graeme: Okay.
Rod: With respects to the signs you can regulate the size, maybe. You can regulate where signs will go but we're out of time to go in greater detail. We have a good blog post on this on CondoAdviser, and now I'm going to go around the table to thank all of our speakers, because it's already 6 o'clock and I can hear pots and pans in my kitchen here and I'm in charge of cooking part of that. So I'm going to have to let you guys go. But let's go around the table very quickly. Looking for words of wisdom in under 15 seconds, Sean Cornish, of Apollo Property Management, big thanks for joining us on Season 3. Any words of wisdom before we go?
Sean:Certainly I haven't gained anymore wisdom since the last time I was here but I am very happy to be back. Lots happening in the next few weeks that we'll need to be staying on top of. So keep your ears open and tune into the blogs from the lawyers you see on this panel. That's about it.
Rod: Thanks so much, Sean. Big thanks to Josee Deslongchamps, from DES services. Any parting words?
Josee: My usual parting words, try to be reasonable with one another. Listen to one another. Be kind. Keep a sense of humour if you can. I felt seen when you were talking about managers about saying I'm not being part of this nonsense with the vaccines. I fully support the vaccines but I really don't understand how we're going to implement all this. But I'm sure that as the weeks progress we'll get guidance from the legal community.
Rod: I love how candid you are about that and it's so true. I mean there's so much on your plates already. Denise Lash, from Lash Condo Law and also speaking on behalf of CAI Canada, any words of wisdom?
Denise:Well, I'm just going to say for those who are attending here, want to be educated, come to the CAI conference. It's caicanada.com, because they're such great topics and we're going to need this at vaccinations, where you're going to learn a lot more information because we'll be 3 weeks from now. So don't forget and attend.
Rod: Nice. We'll post that link on our blog if you want to go back and see this webinar again. We'll have the URL, the link. Jason Reid, with the biggest possible apology to you because you had a big piece tonight and, again, you had to take the backseat because of today's conference. So, Jason Reid, from the National Life Safety Group, thank you so much. Any words of wisdom?
Jason: Yeah, listen, thank you very much for having me. I look forward to the next one but, remember, the employer has a responsibility to always protect the employees. Whether there's a mask policy in place, Provincially, Municipally or Federally. So always follow your Occupational Health And Safety Act and your employers, or your condo corporation's health and safety policy and procedures. Most condos just have a policy but they've never given their employees, or their direct reports, procedures to follow to work safe, to remove those hazards. So that's really important.
Rod: Yeah. And in fact, Jason, all of your good slides, jam packed with information, I'm going to keep them in the PowerPoint presentation and that's going to be uploaded on the CondoAdviser. You'll be able, folks, to have a look at what would have been discussed today and hopefully we can bring it back next time around. Twin number one, Graeme MacPherson, from Gowling WLG, any words of wisdom before we part?
Graeme: I'll change the theme up and keep it short and sweet. Everybody remember to register to vote and vote at the Federal election. It's important that we all do that.
Rod: Wonderful. Thanks so much. David Plotkin, from Gowling WLG, any piece of advice before we part?
David:Yeah, I know we're all tired and the news keeps changing and the rules keep changing. We all just got to keep up, keep reading, keep updating the policies and rules as required. The second they get stale you're going to have that one owner who has their 'Aha' moment and says, "Ah, it no longer applies!" so you got to keep on top of that stuff. We're all there to help you do that.
Rod: Okay. Thank you so much. Folks, that's it for us. Our next webinar is going to be on the 6 of October. You'll need to register again. We'll post information on the CondoAdviser. It's 'e'. Like end with an 'e'. It's adviser with an 'e'. So on the CondoAdviser website, you click on the webinar tab and it will bring you to registration and to our past webinars that you can view on demand for free. So that's it for us, folks. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us today and for being here with us on season number 3. Looking forward to hearing from you. Feel free to send us a text, an email, whatever it is. Your comments are really appreciated and that's it. Don't forget to vote. Don't forget to wear a mask and keep your eyes out for more vaccination information. Thanks, everybody. Have a great month of September.