\u201cEveryone in this room wants a maximum temperature bylaw,\u201d said Coun. Shelley Carroll at a council meeting in mid-May. \u201c[But] we have to follow the path we\u2019re on for the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody always pays,\u201d added Coun. Stephen Holyday during the same debate. \u201cDo you think the landlords are going to print some money in the basement, make it happen? It’s going to trickle back to the people who live in those units.\u201d<\/p>\n
The discussion at council came shortly after the city\u2019s first heat warning of the year over Victoria Day weekend \u2014 and just days before a news conference by city officials cautioning Torontonians to stay safe during extreme high temperatures this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risk of heat illness for vulnerable individuals increases when the indoor temperature in their living space stays above 26 C for prolonged periods of time,\u201d said Toronto\u2019s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Michelle Murti.<\/p>\n
A 2023 CBC investigation placed temperature sensors in 50 rental apartments<\/a> without air conditioning in five Canadian cities, including Toronto. It found that more than half of the units were either at or above the 26 C threshold for at least half of the time during which data was being recorded.<\/p>\n \u2018Every year\u2026 another reason\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n For Coun. Josh Matlow, one of the biggest advocates of a bylaw, it\u2019s been a frustrating conversation to participate in.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year, city staff have found another reason why [a maximum temperature bylaw] isn\u2019t possible to do, even though it is reality in many jurisdictions around the world,\u201d said Matlow. He first proposed a bylaw like this in 2012.<\/p>\n Matlow says the council\u2019s concern about landlords using above-guideline rent increases (AGIs)\u00a0 to pass on the costs of new cooling systems to their tenants ignores the fact that \u201cmany landlords already max out their allowance\u201d for AGIs on other capital improvements anyway.<\/p>\n ‘If you’re a landlord, you need to make sure that your tenants are healthy and safe,’ said Coun. Josh Matlow. (Paul Borkwood\/CBC)<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I’m arguing is that if we keep waiting to do something until we figure out all the problems, we’re never going to do anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a position shared by Jacqueline Wilson, a lawyer at the Canadian Environmental Law Association which, along with legal aid clinics, tenants rights groups and environmental organizations, has been pushing for the maximum temperature bylaw under the name the Toronto Heat Safety Coalition.<\/p>\n \u201cI appreciate the [cost] concern,\u201d said Wilson.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way to deal with it is to get the safety standard in place, and then do whatever is possible at the city level and make requests to other levels of government\u2026 to mitigate the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n City looks to province, feds<\/p>\n City council, however, has indicated that it wants to address the cost issue at the same time as it considers how to craft the new bylaw.<\/p>\n Along with asking for the bylaw framework from the head of Municipal Licensing and Standards, council also requested that city staff make another push on all pre-existing municipal requests to other levels of government.<\/p>\n The hope is that previously requested tenant supports or landlord incentives could soften the financial impact of the new rules.<\/p>\n Among those requests: that the province update the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), including by blocking landlords from using AGIs to fund general property maintenance and repair.<\/p>\n CBC Toronto asked the province it is considering further updates to the act, but did not receive a response by publication time.<\/p>\n Despite a 2022 push by the Ontario Human Rights Commission<\/a> to alter the RTA, the act currently classifies heat \u2014 but not cooling \u2014 as a vital service, meaning there\u2019s no provincial rule requiring landlords to provide air conditioning to tenants. As of July 1st, an update to the RTA that was passed in 2023 will come into force<\/a>, and will largely prevent landlords from prohibiting tenants from installing their own A\/C units.<\/p>\n New cooling efforts for summer 2026<\/p>\n Though a bylaw still remains several steps down the road, the city of Toronto has rolled out some new cooling initiatives this season to complement the city\u2019s annual heat relief strategy.<\/p>\n After launching a pilot program giving out free air conditioners to low-income seniors last year, Toronto expanded its reach for 2026.<\/p>\n The plan is to deliver more than 2,400 units by the end of June to \u201cseniors with health-related needs, families with infants, and pregnant individuals,\u201d said Joanna Beaven-Desjardins, executive director of Toronto Emergency Management.<\/p>\n The city is also introducing a new requirement for many Toronto apartment buildings starting on June 1.<\/p>\n It says that in buildings that don\u2019t provide air conditioning, any pre-existing amenity spaces (for example, a party room) have to be cooled below 26 C so tenants can get a break from the heat in their homes.<\/p>\n Wilson, of the Toronto Heat Safety Coalition, welcomes \u201cany additional public health interventions to address this issue,\u201d but says the cool rooms don\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s really needed is cooling in the apartments,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another Toronto summer is on its way with no bylaw in place laying out a maximum temperature for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[28646,28644,607,7283,28648,28647,4602,28645,48],"class_list":["post-68511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-advocacy-groups","tag-air-conditioning","tag-bylaw","tag-coun","tag-heat-illness","tag-jacqueline-wilson","tag-josh-matlow","tag-temperature-sensors","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Councillor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/c013e8a8d4892d4dee05636559095f15.jpeg\"\/)
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