Ontario government to mandate sprinklers in retirement homes

The Ontario government will release this Thursday changes to the province’s fire code designed to reduce fire risk in homes housing senior citizens and other vulnerable individuals.

A spokesperson for Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur said Monday the government does not plan to introduce new legislation but suggested the government will announce May 9 new regulations resulting from recommendations from a technical advisory committee.

The Co-operators Group Ltd. told Canadian Underwriter earlier it supports the changes proposed by the committee, initially announced in April 2012 and chaired by Bernie Silvestri, then the provincial deputy fire marshal.

In late 2012, the technical advisory committee submitted a report that advised the Ontario government to require installation of fire sprinklers in facilities housing vulnerable persons, including retirement homes, housing more than four occupants. Community Safety and Correctional Services Ministry staff earlier told Canadian Underwriter that the ministry had reviewed the recommendations and has been “in the process of making the necessary changes to the Fire Code.”

Before the committee submitted its report, a New Democratic Party Member of Provincial Parliament tabled a private member’s bill that would have required that sprinklers be installed in all retirement homes by 2018.

We’re making automatic sprinklers mandatory in residences for seniors, people with disabilities and other vulnerable citizens. #EPWeek

— Kathleen Wynne (@Kathleen_Wynne) May 6, 2013

Bill 54, the Fire Protection and Prevention Amendment Act (Retrofitting of Retirement Homes with Automatic Sprinklers), 2012, was introduced by Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MPP Paul Miller. It passed second reading in September but then-Premier Dalton McGuinty prorogued the legislature before Bill 54 could be passed into law.

Miller told Canadian Underwriter earlier there had been six deaths since he had introduced in 2010 Bill 92, the Mandating Sprinklers in All Ontario Retirement Homes Act. Like Bill 54 last fall, Bill 92 had also died on the order paper because it had not been passed into law before the election of October 2011.

On Monday, the Community Safety and Correctional Services spokesperson suggested the Liberal government does not plan to introduce new legislation requiring sprinklers in seniors’ homes because changes to the fire and building codes can be implemented through regulation.

The fire marshal’s technical advisory committee had recommended other mandatory retrofits, such as automatic door closers and also included recommendations on annual inspections and staff training. Although Bill 54 would have made it mandatory to retrofit all retirement homes (regardless of the number of occupants) with sprinklers, the technical advisory committee had recommended that new regulations also apply to long-term care facilities, group homes, supportive housing and hospitals.

The committee had recommended that mandatory sprinklers only apply to facilities with more than four occupants, which a Co-operators spokesperson had described as “step in the right direction.”

The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) earlier told Canadian Underwriter it does not take a position on sprinklers, and other other insurers contacted by CU did not specifically endorse any building code changes.

But Johnston, Rhode Island-based Factory Mutual Insurance Company (FM Global) has said fires at facilities without sprinklers “represent the greatest loss” for its clients, and FM Global recommends the installation of sprinklers even where building codes to not require them.

For its part, The Co-operators has called for regulators to make it mandatory to install sprinklers in senior citizens homes, and in all new homes. The carrier is only calling for mandatory sprinklers in new homes, rather than a requirement to retrofit existing homes with sprinklers.

Currently, the Ontario Building Code requires all new residential buildings four storeys or higher to have automated sprinklers but his consistent with the model National Building Code, which currently does not have sprinkler requirements for new houses.