Editor’s note: This letter from reader Mike Ouellette was originally sent to the Technical Standards and Safety Authority about the situation at Bonik Tower in New Sudbury, where broken elevators have stranded residents, many of them seniors. The letter is reprinted here with permission.
I am inquiring about an elevator outage at my mother’s apartment building. Her address is at 1016 Arthur Street, Sudbury, and operated by Bocan Enterprises Inc. She is 98 years old, and confined to a wheelchair in her unit on the fifth floor of a 16-storey building.
I understand from our city bylaw department that the issue has been brought to your office’s attention.
I was looking through your website and the public reporting provisions for elevator outages. In this case, one elevator has been out of service for about a year and the other one has been out for two weeks (as of the writing of the letter. The second elevator has been out of service since April 28).
I was surprised that I could not find either elevator outage in your Residential Elevator Availability Portal, as I went through the 75 pages of public outage reports you have on file.
From TSSA website: “Ontario Regulation 209/01: Elevating Devices Section 38.1 requires owners to report elevator outages to TSSA. As of Summer 2022, owners are required to report elevator outages lasting 48 hours or longer within 30 days of the elevator being returned to service.”
This was a predictable outcome in my opinion, the crisis of today is in part due to a combination of lack of repair, planning and oversight. If the first one had been worked on in a timely manner, then we would have a backup to the second elevator going down and putting us in the situation we now find ourselves in.
I worry for not only my mother, but for many of the seniors that live in this 16-storey building. Access for emergency responders and their equipment is impacted in no small way with the elevators being out of service. Transporting a patient down the stairs in the case of a medical emergency negatively affects patient care.
I am trying to get information on the history of the outages at 1016 Arthur St. I’d like to understand if the building owner reported the outages as required by the regulation and if he didn’t, then I’d like to know TSSA’s explanation for the lack of reporting.
If a 48-hour elevator outage is the trigger for mandatory reporting according to the regulation, then how does a one-year outage not qualify for public reporting. If this information is available to me in the form of a report(s) through your customer portal, I will purchase it (them) if you can direct me towards the type of report that could provide me with outage dates for each elevator at this building.
I believe that TSSA needs to play a lead role in this situation and that if it is found that the owner neglected his responsibilities, then use the regulations that apply to help resolve it. The lack of attention to the longstanding first elevator outage precipitated the current crisis we find ourselves in today.
Mike Ouellette
Sudbury