Provincial

Environmental mishaps can herald personal liability

Environmental mishaps herald personal liability

Personal liability is a mounting possibility for directors, officers and supervisors of organizations that run afoul of environmental regulators or are on the losing side of civil litigation.
healthcare facilities 

Guidelines inform resilient healthcare facilities 

Newly released guidelines offer a standard for approaching the planning and designing of healthcare facilities from a resiliency perspective.
Vancouver

Digitizing fire protection for facility inspections

With fire equipment, the biggest culprit for non-compliance issues usually involves obstructions blocking fire extinguishers and hoses from view.
Ontario's civic building inventory scrutinized for asset condition

Civic building inventory lags on capital repair

Ontario’s civic building inventory has fallen the farthest behind on capital repair among seven categories of municipal infrastructure assets scrutinized in a newly released report from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario.
inclusive

A path to fully inclusive community hubs

The idea of creating inclusive community hubs—where people of all ages and abilities can gather together—is gaining significant momentum.
Residential energy use re-emerges in Ontario's CDM plans

Heat is on for electricity demand projections

Electricity demand projections through the vaccination rollout period should take two contradictory factors into account, energy management specialists affirm.
Commercial customer's grapple with Ontario's electricity cost allocation

Parsing Ontario’s electricity cost allocation

After a year of operational upheaval and more modifications to electricity pricing policies, BOMA Toronto’s annual workshop to address the complexities of the global adjustment had a lot of ground to cover.
Light industrial set for a heavy property tax hit

Light industrial set for heavy property tax hit

Economic fallout from COVID-19 is shifting more of the tax burden to this flourishing group of assets via the mill rate, while also driving up the tax rate, for a double-whammy of consequences in jurisdictions that update valuations annually.
FM

Pandemic intensifies evolving role of FM

Facility managers are no longer viewed as a back-office function, but rather “a strategic instrument to attract and retain talent and create a great experience,”
toxic chemicals

What toxic chemicals are lurking in our buildings?

In the age of COVID, it's also important to consider how chemical exposures influence our ability to fight disease.
employment

Top employment law issues during COVID-19

Employees may refuse vaccines for reasons such as religious belief or medical reasons, and requiring these employees to undergo inoculation would be a human rights violation.
Ontario endorses competitive mechanisms to trim the price-point of energy efficiency spending

Ontario to stretch energy efficiency spending

A new slate of conservation and demand management (CDM) programs allocates $456 million for commercial, institutional and industrial consumers over the four-year period from 2021-24.
Fire code updates demand ongoing vigilance

Fire code updates demand steady upkeep

Although they increasingly rely on professional service providers to keep up with the complexities of compliance, owners/managers ultimately carry the responsibility for life safety and bear the brunt of enforcement.
2020 scorecard provides impetus for interprovincial energy efficiency rivalry

Scorecard stokes energy efficiency rivalry

Efficiency Canada’s second annual provincial scorecard takes a detailed look at commitment, outcomes and potential related to 42 energy efficiency indicators, and charts progress, or backsliding, against last year’s results.
condo security 

Historic property tax disparity dismantled

As announced in the provincial budget, the Ontario government plans to equalize the business education tax (BET) rate at 0.88 per cent for 2021, equating to a $450-million tax cut province-wide.
Office attendance rates flout employer decrees

Working at home full time undesirable for most

The office remains a preferable environment for the majority of workers who find working from home every day an unfavourable option.
COVID-19 repercussions driving up global adjustment costs for commercial electricity customers

COVID-19 incubates global adjustment 2021-22

For Class A consumers, cost-saving potential will be diminished even if they successfully curtail demand during the five peak hours since those peaks are expected to be lower than usual.