New State of Emergency Declared in Ontario

The Province of Ontario announced on Tuesday that it was declaring a second provincial state of emergency to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We are back at square one with respect to the COVID-19 situation in the province, with the current restrictions being as stringent, if not more so, than those seen at the height of the first wave of infection last spring.

This new state of emergency will have further impacts on condominium business, including construction activities.

As part of this state of emergency the government has issued a stay-at-home order effective Thursday, January 14, 2021 requiring everyone to remain at home with exceptions for certain essential purposes. There will also be further restrictions on gatherings, retail store hours, and construction.

While property management services may be exempted and managers may be permitted to attend at their on-site offices, we recommend that managers work from home if it is at all possible to do so. This is in line with the government’s order that all businesses must ensure that any employee who can work from home, does work from home.

The state of emergency also requires that no residential construction projects take place except where the project involves renovations to residential properties and construction work was started before January 12, 2021. This means that ongoing renovations can proceed, but projects which have not yet been started will need to be put on hold unless they are necessary to ensure health and safety or to make a unit habitable. We would suggest that, even though renovations that were in progress on January 12th are permitted to continue, each board will have to determine if they should be finished. For the health and safety of residents it might be better to discontinue these projects unless they are required for safety or security or to make the unit habitable.

Given this new state of emergency Boards will once more be tasked with making difficult decisions regarding closure of fitness facilities and swimming pools and restrictions on visitors, deliveries, etc. Given the rising tide of infections any reasonable restrictions will likely fall under a Board’s powers under section 117 of the Condominium Act, 1998 to take steps to secure the safety of the residents.

We expect that further details regarding the declaration of emergency will be released shortly and we will provide more updates when available.

For additional information please see the government’s press release.

The stay-at-home order can be read here.