Dear Mayor and Councillors,

Victoria Tenants Union members were encouraged by council’s unanimous decision on May 14 to investigate creating maximum temperature regulations for rental units in Victoria.

The 2021 heat dome killed 619 people across British Columbia, including 24 in Greater Victoria, a disproportionate number of whom were struggling with mental health challenges and poverty. It is only a matter of time before a similar crisis occurs and a maximum temperature bylaw is a simple action that would protect some of the city’s most vulnerable community members.

The staff report that will be discussed by council this week recommends a bylaw allowing tenants to install cooling devices at their own expense, with little else to be done by the city at this time but to “continue to monitor other jurisdictions to monitor and consider implications of required cooling”.

Victoria Tenants Union members are deeply concerned and disappointed with this tack in direction.

Saddling renters with all of the responsibility for keeping their homes at livable temperatures would be a completely inadequate response to public health threat caused by extreme heat events. The province has already set maximum temperature requirements for new buildings and the City of New Westminster showed responsible leadership by creating similar rules for existing rental units.

City staff’s concern that tenants might face eviction if city regulations push landlords too hard to keep their units at a livable temperature. Victoria Tenants Union members do not take the threat of eviction lightly in any circumstance, however we believe city staff’s framing presents a false choice to council and the public.

Private landlords are in the business of renting out suites for a profit - regulations to ensure that tenants do not fall ill or die in these suites as a result of extreme indoor temperatures is not merely a consumer protection, it is a matter of public health. The possibility of eviction is, frankly, a moot point if the alternative outcome is that a tenant dies in their own home. These are the real stakes tenants are facing, and that is the choice council should consider.

Building owners and governments have a responsibility to ensure that tenants’ homes are not death traps. This is why we have building standards and maintenance bylaws, and that is why those bylaws must be updated to reflect the current reality of extreme heat and climate change.

Victoria Tenants Union members urge council to push for more than just “removing barriers” for tenants and enforce new requirements for building owners to keep rental units at livable temperatures.

Sincerely,

Victoria Tenants Union