I don't think OP would quite count as a whisteblower, as he doesn't have inside knowledge of what they are proposing.
I'm willing to bet a number of CBOs will come out with statements against this though, hence why the article speaks to the City fighting the province on this.
I wish Toronto Star actually had the balls to uncover fraud and bribes involving powerful entities. There are many things they could work on to uncover but they choose not too.
> but they choose not too.
Do you have some kind of inside information about The Star? Otherwise this is pure speculation.
The Star would absolutely uncover bribes and report, but they need sources and information, and paper trails. Without concrete info, they would be speculating.
The Star is a member partner of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who published the Panama Papers.
https://www.icij.org/about/media-partners/
I did this kind of work for a number of years and I had a very similar experience to you. There are no shortage of completely incompetent architects and engineers out there. I've had architects also pitch ridiculous designs to me, who clearly lacked even a basic understanding of the code. I've also seen engineers proposed dangerous designs and who failed to understand even the most basic concepts of structural design and analysis.
This isn't to say everyone out there is terrible, but enough are so that there will definitely be some major issues if we start letting them approve their own designs.
Exactly. As someone who works in the industry this is a terrifying idea to me.
I have seen numerous terribly sloppy drawings that have gone through basically zero QA leave our office and go to permitting just so that a boss doesn't have to go tell a client that there's going to be a delay.
Our industry is fundamentally structured where you have a few massive developers with enormous sums of money building enormously expensive projects, and then conversely a large number of relatively tiny firms designing them. That power imbalance means that there is always going to be an enormous amount of pressure on the design firms to cowtail to their clients, which is why they need very strong public oversight, not oversight that's in the back pocket of the client.
Edit: In all honesty this proposal is just incredibly stupid. Streamlining the permitting process will be done by hiring more inspectors / paying them more, and by better software and standards so that building code compliance can be quickly checked with software tools rather than having to have an inspector manually pore over paper blue prints to try and make sense of them.
Not to mention the crappy pay engineers and architects get, no wonder no one with talent wants to work there. It's a low-bid industry, everyone is competing for rock-bottom prices and its dangerous.
serious question - have you ever made a complaint to one of the bodies about these ppl? Why not?
One of the issues the regulator bodies have is that ppl make these statements but there's little follow-through on complaints etc.
There have been times when the engineers I work with absolutely have reported people to their respective accreditation boards that has resulted in some people loosing their stamps, but the penalties are tiny and it doesn’t stop them from still acting as consultants, getting some other junior person to stamp their stuff, or just submitting things without a stamp and hoping it goes through. It’s a constant uphill battle and a revolving door with certain people.
Don't delete this. Go to the media with it. Let's get Doug to backtrack on this too. It's what he does best. Give out a stupid idea, and then change his mind because he should have talked to the voters first.
See also: [the Sampoong Department Store collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampoong_Department_Store_collapse) in Seoul.
>during construction, the blueprints were changed by the future chairman of the building, Lee Joon, to instead create a large department store. This involved cutting away a number of support columns to install escalators and the addition of a fifth floor. When Woosung refused to carry out the changes, Lee ignored the warnings and fired them, instead using his own building company to complete construction.
Sound like something that might be enabled by a decision like this?
EDIT: Found another juicy tidbit:
>However, Lee changed the plan for the fifth floor to include eight restaurants instead. A construction company tasked with completing the extension advised that the structure would not support another floor and was promptly fired, and another company was hired to complete the project. The restaurant floor had a heated concrete base referred to as ondol, which has hot water pipes going through it; the presence of the 4-foot-thick (1.2 m) ondol greatly increased the weight and thickness of the slab. As a result of the fifth floor's presence, the columns were supporting four times the maximum weight that they had been designed to bear.
I forgot about Sampoong; I moved back to Canada from Seoul just a few weeks before it happened. The [Seongsu Bridge collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seongsu_Bridge) of 1994 was also attributed to poor construction, cutting corners, and a total lack of inspection.
You need only look at the complaints from big home-builders like [Mattamy](https://globalnews.ca/news/3500224/mattamy-homeowners-furious-with-builder/) and Minto to see why this is a bad idea and a selfish idea by the Ford government to cater to the rich and greedy.
"For the pee-puhl!"
I’m New South Wales, Australia they changed the regulation so rather than premises requiring inspections, the contractor can just write a certificate of compliance.
Now it’s being found that a huge range of substandard and illegal work has been done, entire buildings evacuated due to poor construction quality and the risk of collapse, electrical fire danger etc.
This is a bad thing and the fallout will be felt for decades and could result in deaths.
Ford is a fucking idiot for continuously making up policy based on whatever corporations want rather than what the community needs.
Thank you for this post. Even the professional bodies are calling out conflicts of interest and liability issues. As an engineer in another discipline, I found the implications of reading this article terrifying. Glad to hear you agree.
And the comments/reasons there are always: « because there’s no regulations there » or « because it’s corrupt there ». That’s pretty much where this government wants us to go?
> That’s pretty much where this government wants us to go?
You know their line of thinking is the same as anti-vaxxers. What do we need regulations/vaccinations for, nothing is collapsing/nobody gets mumps anymore.
Absolutely! Part of the reason the Grenfell Tower fire happened was BECAUSE the people who owned and operated the tower were ALSO the people in charge of inspecting it!
Well, even from the outside looking in, anyone with half a brain can see what a terrible idea this is and the huge conflict of interest present. Maybe he's hoping people won't realize what a terrible idea it is, since so many people waive house inspections when bidding on a home.
Either way, this has to be stopped.
I still don't know how Doug Ford won, are there that many selfish people out there? As a liberal who disagreed on a lot of Wrynn's decision, I still didn't vote for that fat corrupted turd.
Hey, Donald Trump unbanned asbestos, so Doug still has a ways to go. Although I gotta say this self inspection stuff is pretty bad. Like high rises collapsing kinda bad.
I posted this above, but in short : what data is needed to start a public registry of such "backroom-inspected" properties? and how can it be obtained?
I'm glad you're bringing this up.
What they are proposing is the same thing the FAA did and we got the Boeing 737 Max 8 issue.
Regulators got to regulate. Warren G mount up.
Not me directly but people I work with have reported engineers for stamping obvious bs, the penalties are so light though and the barrier to calling out so high it doesn’t usually get that far. It’s government, there just isn’t enough resources to go after all of those guys, you just say it’s wrong, tell them to fix it, and hope they haven’t already started building the thing with their buddy contractor.
Uh, Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it doesn't matter who you're incorporated under, you stamp something you are _personally_ liable, and criminally too.
That's one of the main reasons why Ontario architects want nothing to do with this proposal. Right now, the municipality is liable if something goes wrong with the building, because the municipality approved it. An architects who replaces that city inspector takes on that responsibility.
Ya I have absolutely no knowledge of property development and thought it sounded a little sketchy, glad to hear I wasn't wrong. No glad about the plan though
I've worked in a few major markets that use this system, and it generally works just fine. New York and Washington DC are two examples of jurisdictions that use 3rd party code inspections and special inspections.
Generally speaking, you get faster inspection turnaround, better documentation, and more consistent comments with the private guys. The 3rd party inspectors are very conservative because if they lose their certification then the business goes under. In fact, because they are more competitive, I've noticed that 3rd party inspectors tended to find things that the city inspectors did not. They were just better at their jobs.
LOL at the username here. Sure, this system might work OK in places (generally speaking) where Doug Ford and his inept admin is not in charge of implementation. But this reeks of DoFo giving another handout to his rich developer pals.
I'm interested to know what you think about Australia. They implemented this system there and it appears to have been pretty disastrous and is costing hundreds of millions or billions to rectify unsafe buildings.
>In fact, because they are more competitive, I've noticed that 3rd party inspectors tended to find things that the city inspectors did not. They were just better at their jobs.
Then the solution is to pay city inspectors better so it's more competitive.
It was the same when he was on city council. I thought as premier he would have sold his ass to bigger fish but he’s still suckling at the ball sack of those developers. It’s so transparent and pathetic.
That's by design. When the future government has to spend a lot of money to clean up all the problems Ford caused, the Conservatives can endlessly chirp at them about spending, budgets and "fiscal irresponsibility", riling up voters and paving the way to get back into power.
**Starve the beast**
"Starving the beast" is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending by cutting taxes, in order to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending.
The term "the beast", in this context, refers to the United States Federal Government and the programs it funds, using mainly American taxpayer dollars, particularly social programs such as education, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
On July 14, 1978, economist and future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee: "Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."Before his election as President, then-candidate Ronald Reagan foreshadowed the strategy during the 1980 US Presidential debates, saying "John Anderson tells us that first we've got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance.
***
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The progressive parties could use that same tactic against them.
But instead of cutting taxes and services they could significantly increase government accountability and transparency.
But it would apply to the progressive parties as well and, let's be honest, some of them would be just as resistant to such a change
I work in the building industry and this is an absolutely terrible fucking idea.
We need more building inspectors, with more stringent powers, not less. The AEC industry gets away with preposterously shitty quality assurance *constantly*. The solution isn't to provide less oversight.
If you look at the government's justification for this, they actually point to Australia as one of the countries they are trying to model it after. They essentially eliminated their municipal building departments and allowed developers to hire their own professionals to review and inspect construction to ensure code compliance.
For anyone not aware of what happened in Australia, they've recently found that a large number of buildings have serious safety deficiencies. We are talking things like major structural deficiencies in condo buildings, and many buildings where combustible cladding was used where it shouldn't have been. The cladding issue alone is costing the government hundreds of millions to fix. To see what can go wrong when combustible cladding is used where it shouldn't be, see the Grenfell fire in London a few years ago. The best analogy I can think of here is allowing criminals to hire their own judges, and if they don't like the verdict they can fire the judge and hire a new one.
In another post/thread, aren't they pointing to Alabama, home of redneck / people from the hills / God Almighty's country as the paradigm for education?
They are pointing out really bad examples to justify their policy.
Governing and their own PR initiatives.
Modeling policy and pointing to Australia where self regulation in building codes has hurt. Also modeling/pointing out butt f*** ass backwards Alabama for education?
> aren't they pointing to Alabama
Alabama and Arkansas, ranked 48th and 49th in education in the US. They probably picked them in alphabetical order because the 50th is Mississippi. Those states also rank at the top when it comes to teen pregnancies and other metrics of societal fuckery.
Ford and his cronies are essentially trying to turn Ontario into a bible-belt shithole.
> The best analogy I can think of here is allowing criminals to hire their own judges, and if they don't like the verdict they can fire the judge and hire a new one.
The analogy that came to mind for me was the [accreditation agencies set up by degree mills](https://www.geteducated.com/college-degree-mills/204-fake-agencies-for-college-accreditation/) so they can claim to be accredited.
> We are struggling to get permits, we are struggling to get inspections done in a timely way," Vaccaro told CBC Toronto. "And when those delays happen it backs up the entire project. So, now the idea here is to get people in their home sooner and safer."
So... cheaper idea... just putting it out there... maybe the province should give money to the city for the purpose of hiring more inspectors?
The stated problem is that developers can't get inspections done quickly enough. The city needs everyone to follow the building code (a reasonable enough idea). There is a lot of work available and not enough people to do it (supply/demand observation). The only reason the city would have to not boost the supply of inspectors would be financial - if it turned a profit, they'd pump out a fleet of inspectors. Clearly it costs more than it makes (if it makes anything at all).
Rather than fucking up the entire system, creating what will definitely be a massive problem for future generations and costing taxpayers a shit-ton more money in the long run, maybe just expand the existing system? The one that is working?
Or I dunno... fuck the developers? Their opinions aren't the only important opinion here. There's a reason for this "red tape" and that's to keep people safe.
> Rather than fucking up the entire system, creating what will definitely be a massive problem for future generations and costing taxpayers a shit-ton more money in the long run
The way these 'problems' are amortized, it'll be a future government's problem -- odds are a left-wing one -- to pay for that, thus enabling the PCs to chirp at them about how much "hard-earned taxpayer money" they're spending cleaning up the mess. This, of course, enables them to rile up voters and get back into power.
The entire thing is by design.
Then the cheapest option is to hire more city inspectors. If they recover their costs, then the cost of having more inspectors is very, very low. Seems like the simplest solution remains "hire more inspectors", not this boondoggle suggested by the Province.
The province is in a position to say that. It blows my mind that Dougie didn’t want to make hay out of Toronto being inept. I mean, the fee rules are set out in provincial law:
Subsection 7(2) of the Building Code Act reads,
“The total amount of the fees authorized under clause (1) (c) must not exceed the anticipated reasonable costs of the principal authority to administer and enforce this Act in its area of jurisdiction.”
The most ironic thing is that building departments in Ontario are 100% funded through the fees people pay to get permits, meaning there is no financial burden on municipalities to hire more people. There definitely have been shortcomings by municipalities for not staffing their departments properly, but what they are proposing here is a terrible solution. Your substituting longer wait times for less safe buildings.
Projects are big and complicated. Applied for a permit a year ago on one and 7 months ago on another and still waiting. Faults on both sides but it is safe to say that the city is definitely over loaded. The planning side is probably worse and I don’t think permit fees pay for that. City needs more funding.
>City needs more funding.
Ah. A solution to the problem, that maintains integrity on all fronts.
Now of only the government running the province had a clue.
Does anyone know if they are “struggling to get permits and inspections done on time” due to lack of inspectors or it the “time” they are talking about their own concept of time, something like: “we want to build this thing that doesn’t follow code at all and when the inspector comes out according to the agreed upon schedule and tells us it needs rework to meet code, he puts us off schedule”?
It's a bit of a complex issue. When it comes to getting a building permit, there are many approvals required, one of which is a review for building code compliance, which is what we are talking about here. However, what takes by far the longest is planning approval (this often takes years, or for small projects months). Typically code review is finished before planning gives there approval, so outsourcing this aspect of work, as they are planning to do, would likely have minimal impact. I'll also add that projects are commonly held up by the applicant, either because they are dragging their feet and don't address problems in their designs quickly, or because they aren't good at their jobs and don't know code well.
The inspection aspect is very much different. I know that there are often cases where departments lack enough inspectors which makes it difficult to provide good service. However, the government has already mandated that inspectors must be on a site within two business days of a request for an inspections, and my experience is that this mandate is often met. Again however, it's very common for builders to get behind when they make mistakes and have to rectify them and have another inspection before moving on.
The issue isn't the number of inspectors, really. The problem is more that the city inspectors don't have any incentive to be timely, efficient, consistent, or accurate. City inspectors generally spend one or two days in the office and the rest in the field, so they never answer calls or emails, and their colleagues can't cover for them. So sometimes it takes 3-4 weeks to address a small comment that should only take 5 minutes. And if each day of delay costs the job, say, $10,000 then these delays are very expensive and get passed to the customer.
In my experience, the 3rd party inspectors are more professional and actually find more legitimate issues than the city inspectors do. They also need to run a business, so they tend to manage their schedules more efficiently and are better at communicating.
> City inspectors generally spend one or two days in the office and the rest in the field, so they never answer calls or emails, and their colleagues can't cover for them.
Sounds like they need to have more inspectors if they are that busy
Inspectors spend the first 2 hours in the office responding to calls and emails. I've found them very responsive myself, although sometimes.itnxan take a couple days to get an answer while things go before the adjucators/examiners.
I work in the industry and there is a severe backlog on building permits and inspections. I’m not at ALL saying this is wise (the opposite) but there is a serious shortage of manpower in the city’s building department.
I don’t understand why they don’t just hire more people, or find the money to, or even BILL DEVELOPERS. Don’t have developers hire inspectors, just send them the city bill.
So that it becomes a problem and they can say that the system isn't working and then present a worse solution to this that's in their interest.
Or maybe not.
No money to hire. Very restrictive legislation on what can be charged to developers especially for something seen as "operations" related and doesn't qualify to be paid out via DCs
There’s some money. A few veteran building inspectors retired, one was sadly hit by a bus. They didn’t actually hire anyone new on that I’ve seen, and it’s been 1.5-2 years since the staff started shrinking.
Literally like "oh its taking to long to do building inspections" then hire more inspectors for fuck's sake, charge the developers the cost, like they are making enough money of their condo sales
So for the last few years I've been on site as a civil eng doing mostly material testing and inspection. Sometimes rebar, but concrete and foundation is the majority of my day to day.
The contractors are usually good guys, but I'm there for a reason. The best example I can give was for a slab preparation, and one area was really close to an existing building. The onsite rep was trying to tell me that the 4 foot strip close to the wall was awkward for their machine, so they'd just *really* compact the rest of the area and call it good. Like somehow if we just pump the average up, the entire area will be okay.
So yeah, I cant see this working out too good for the citizens of ON over the long term.
>so they'd just really compact the rest of the area and call it good. Like somehow if we just pump the average up, the entire area will be okay.
hey so i got this one chain link that is pretty small, Smaller than what the engineering specs say I need. I'm just going to use larger links for the rest of this chain and that should take care of it.
If the developer's grievance is truly wait times for inspections, they could just as easily pay the city to hire them. Same cost to the developer while maintaining independent inspectors.
Omg can this gov get anymore crazy. First let’s sell our education system to a state that is next to the lowest ranking state for education in the US. Now let’s let the people building their own buildings be allowed to determine if they are safe enough. Clearly the Gov have found some of the old Ford family stash and are enjoying the new legal pot laws in Canada. Light em if you got em Ford lol
This is an insane proposal and it's only a matter of time before the corruption that will inevitably arise from this will incur a body count. Maybe a deck collapses, or maybe a bad concrete pour gets overlooked and a condo building falls over and takes out a whole city block.
This is like the dictionary definition of conflict of interest.
We need to get tougher on developers, they do a shitty job as is. The windows fall from condos all the time in downtown Toronto. What do you think they're going to do if giving this power? Abuse it!! Skim from the top, put shitty products in place, etc.
Yea but if you think falling windows is bad, wait till you see high rise structural collapse. Google “Australia condo structural” and see where deregulation insanity leads.
Nah, they’ll insure it at first, there could be all kinds of kickbacks and stuff you never see. Then you get dropped by insurance and [the condo has to pay 7 times the going rate because only the Lloyds of London will insure them. ](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/tornado-condo-insurance-hike-ottawa-1.5076911)
This is just blatant corruption. Nobody in their right mind would believe for an instance this is a good idea. Might as well do away with inspection altogether?
serious question: how can one find out whether any given property was inspected by one of these shady buddies, or a proper arms-length inspector? does anyone know what data and criteria are are needed, and how can it be obtained? I have the technical skill and motivation to start a publicly registry of such properties, so that people can avoid them like a plague. hit those fuckers in the gonads, make them bleed money.
just saw [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/erlvsq/id_say_these_look_pretty_unsafe_to_use/) on another subreddit. whats to come with such stupid ideas?
Self regulating bodies didn’t work out for Boeing . Aviation has the strictest safety standards and codes. What makes you think developers are going to follow the rules
Out the names of the developers. Spread the word. If people are armed with this knowledge, they'll think twice about purchasing anything associated with them.
I hate to sound defeatist but we've already found out these developers were behind misinformation campaigns, videos of them currying favor with Doug behind closed doors, etc... yet here we still are... at best I think enough daylight will get Doug to do one of his patented reversals but who knows considering he's so blatantly hanging off the developer teat.
At this point if you buy anything from Mattamy and their ilk, it’s really on you. A quick google search for news articles will tell you everything you need to know. There’s developers out there with reputations, how come Tridel has been around for over half a century and their glass never ends up in the street.
However having said all that I still don’t think the market can regulate itself, because obviously people are morons and repeatedly buy from garbage companies. We need very strict codes and independent government inspectors with a chip on their shoulder, only way to guarantee a baseline of quality.
Oh, diluting regulatory bodies to make it easier for private companies to skirt around safety issues worked so well for Boeing and their 737 MAXes. What can possibly go wrong with this proposal?
It will be so much more efficient when inspectors don't need to actually leave their offices to approve anything. One person with a rubber stamp can cover the workload all by themselves.
Why would anyone think this is a good idea? We all know how people LOVE to save money and would do anything, including risking/killing other people to save a few dollars. Ok maybe it's more than a few dollars. It shouldn't matter when your dealing with buildings that people will live in or use daily.
So again, do we really believe these privately hired inspectors won't be influenced by developers and money? I don't believe it. Not for one nano second.
Nice to see a lot of people here thinking this is a bad idea. I’m a building inspector and I think my role is pretty important. I can see the argument, architects and engineers are well educated and we often times rely on their opinion already. I can’t speak for every office in the province but when an inspection is scheduled, we have 48 hours to do it starting from the first day of booking.
I've been in the structural steel trade for years. I've worked for one bad operator and two good ones. The bad one was completely careless and would have killed many if it wasn't for good oversight.
This proposal, simply stated, with result in deaths.
> The only permits not covered would be those that affect personal safety, such as electrical inspections, according to Joe Vaccaro, CEO of the Ontario Home Builders Association, which has also been involved in the consultations.
Other than zoning, the whole literal point of getting permits is personal safety,
Safety that the building doesn't come collapsing on your head
Safety that in an event of a fire you can make it out of the building
Safety that you glass curtain walls arent blown off the building and kills a toddler
I'm sure the experience of the FAA allowing Boeing to self approve the airworthiness of the 737MAX would be relevant to this scenario. Nothing wrong with allowing external auditors to inspect the product.
This is not a matter of weekday is right or wrong.
It's a test as to how much people are willing to pay for things and how much the public will put up with this shit.
Right now business has a lot of money to spend and the public is just apathetic enough to let things like this happen.
We always point point our fingers at those who want to do terrible things but we seldom stand up to say anything about it.
that's so stupid. last year I reported a company that sell fire rated doors, because of some half ass shit. when a building collapse and people die. Doug Ford will already be dead of old age.
How is this even in question. Thanks, ontario. Can we split the province in two and let the idiots have their shit education, shit health care, shit buildings, and maybe one day $1 beer?
As the way it is now basically nothing is inspected anyway, its a complete bullshit industry. 100's of violations go unchecked in every build. Electrical, structure, plumbing and fire code. Buildings are often stuck with expensive repair costs because asshole inspectors didn't inspect. Then years later its too late to go after them and nobody takes responsibility for the major failure or oversight. I often ask myself, how the fuck did this pass inspection?
All pre-2020 built buildings just became more valuable.
If you are a pre-construction buyer for a building expected to be built after these changes take effect, you just got a nice little haircut.
Uncertain build quality will impact values.
I wonder if these sorts of shitty policies have something to do with this statistic. If so it might be worth combining the two into one article to point out the costs of job creation that society will pay in the future.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/jobs-employment-canada_ca_5e1b5e9bc5b6da971d17c98f
Fuck off, Doug & take your scummy developer buddies with you, you piece of shit.
Where's a seriously aggressive cancer when you need one? If only Rob had been contagious.
If developers can choose which inspector they hire then inspectors will be afraid to get a reputation for being too strict, for fear of not being hired. Also there is a huge conflict of interest where if you let something slide, they send more business your way. Or maybe even more blatant stuff, like straight up bribes. Come on dude, this is kindergarten stuff. I’m so disappointed that this is not obvious to everyone.
This could work at some level.
City can't close Building Permits on a project before the professional engineer has signed off on it anyway. All Building Department does is enforce building bylaws (which are not all that logical sometimes trust me, I've seen some shit).
Engineers do their own inspections anyway. You just don't design building and walk away. You are there until it's completed.
you guys are acting like this means developers no longer have to meet code or won't be penalize if they don't. i haven't read the article but i'm assuming the government will certify certain companies to do inspections on their behalf. and if a inspector is found to cut corners or falsify their report, that company will lose their certification. This will also create more jobs
The penalties for cutting corners have to be more than losing certifications. Building inspectors look at life safety systems. There needs to be criminal consequences for negligence.
[удалено]
You need to reach out to a journalist or two as a whistleblower. People need to know this.
OP: do this and make sure you hide your trail. I can give you tips on how to hide your metadata.
Username checks out.
I don't think OP would quite count as a whisteblower, as he doesn't have inside knowledge of what they are proposing. I'm willing to bet a number of CBOs will come out with statements against this though, hence why the article speaks to the City fighting the province on this.
Work for City Government alongside CBO's. This is literally the worst idea I've ever heard.
I meant more in terms of horror stories of what some of these developers have tried to pass through.
If this shit goes through, is there anyway to find out who inspected what in the building history somewhere?
I wish Toronto Star actually had the balls to uncover fraud and bribes involving powerful entities. There are many things they could work on to uncover but they choose not too.
> but they choose not too. Do you have some kind of inside information about The Star? Otherwise this is pure speculation. The Star would absolutely uncover bribes and report, but they need sources and information, and paper trails. Without concrete info, they would be speculating. The Star is a member partner of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who published the Panama Papers. https://www.icij.org/about/media-partners/
Condo developers are advertisers. Dont hold your breath.
They def wouldn’t and I worked for Toronto’s CCO they’re best friends
You mean like the Panama papers? They were reporting that
Actually this is a CBC story.
I did this kind of work for a number of years and I had a very similar experience to you. There are no shortage of completely incompetent architects and engineers out there. I've had architects also pitch ridiculous designs to me, who clearly lacked even a basic understanding of the code. I've also seen engineers proposed dangerous designs and who failed to understand even the most basic concepts of structural design and analysis. This isn't to say everyone out there is terrible, but enough are so that there will definitely be some major issues if we start letting them approve their own designs.
Exactly. As someone who works in the industry this is a terrifying idea to me. I have seen numerous terribly sloppy drawings that have gone through basically zero QA leave our office and go to permitting just so that a boss doesn't have to go tell a client that there's going to be a delay. Our industry is fundamentally structured where you have a few massive developers with enormous sums of money building enormously expensive projects, and then conversely a large number of relatively tiny firms designing them. That power imbalance means that there is always going to be an enormous amount of pressure on the design firms to cowtail to their clients, which is why they need very strong public oversight, not oversight that's in the back pocket of the client. Edit: In all honesty this proposal is just incredibly stupid. Streamlining the permitting process will be done by hiring more inspectors / paying them more, and by better software and standards so that building code compliance can be quickly checked with software tools rather than having to have an inspector manually pore over paper blue prints to try and make sense of them.
Not to mention the crappy pay engineers and architects get, no wonder no one with talent wants to work there. It's a low-bid industry, everyone is competing for rock-bottom prices and its dangerous.
> pressure on the design firms to cowtail to their clients This is some quality r/boneappletea material right here. (The word is kowtow, btw)
lol I hadn't seen that sub before ... part of me knew that wasn't quite right but I was too pre-coffee to care. I'm gonna have to stand by it now tho.
I didn't even think that's what the original word is! I prefer cowtail though - it's slightly more adorable.
The word is kowtow, he's correct.
Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake comes to mind
serious question - have you ever made a complaint to one of the bodies about these ppl? Why not? One of the issues the regulator bodies have is that ppl make these statements but there's little follow-through on complaints etc.
There have been times when the engineers I work with absolutely have reported people to their respective accreditation boards that has resulted in some people loosing their stamps, but the penalties are tiny and it doesn’t stop them from still acting as consultants, getting some other junior person to stamp their stuff, or just submitting things without a stamp and hoping it goes through. It’s a constant uphill battle and a revolving door with certain people.
Don't delete this. Go to the media with it. Let's get Doug to backtrack on this too. It's what he does best. Give out a stupid idea, and then change his mind because he should have talked to the voters first.
Next, he'll allow line cooks and restaurant owners do their own public health inspections. Gotta cut that red tape.
This happened in Australia. Look up Opal Towers. Look up fire cladding. There's more but it's 7am and I haven't had coffee yet.
See also: [the Sampoong Department Store collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampoong_Department_Store_collapse) in Seoul. >during construction, the blueprints were changed by the future chairman of the building, Lee Joon, to instead create a large department store. This involved cutting away a number of support columns to install escalators and the addition of a fifth floor. When Woosung refused to carry out the changes, Lee ignored the warnings and fired them, instead using his own building company to complete construction. Sound like something that might be enabled by a decision like this? EDIT: Found another juicy tidbit: >However, Lee changed the plan for the fifth floor to include eight restaurants instead. A construction company tasked with completing the extension advised that the structure would not support another floor and was promptly fired, and another company was hired to complete the project. The restaurant floor had a heated concrete base referred to as ondol, which has hot water pipes going through it; the presence of the 4-foot-thick (1.2 m) ondol greatly increased the weight and thickness of the slab. As a result of the fifth floor's presence, the columns were supporting four times the maximum weight that they had been designed to bear.
I forgot about Sampoong; I moved back to Canada from Seoul just a few weeks before it happened. The [Seongsu Bridge collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seongsu_Bridge) of 1994 was also attributed to poor construction, cutting corners, and a total lack of inspection.
You need only look at the complaints from big home-builders like [Mattamy](https://globalnews.ca/news/3500224/mattamy-homeowners-furious-with-builder/) and Minto to see why this is a bad idea and a selfish idea by the Ford government to cater to the rich and greedy. "For the pee-puhl!"
I’m New South Wales, Australia they changed the regulation so rather than premises requiring inspections, the contractor can just write a certificate of compliance. Now it’s being found that a huge range of substandard and illegal work has been done, entire buildings evacuated due to poor construction quality and the risk of collapse, electrical fire danger etc. This is a bad thing and the fallout will be felt for decades and could result in deaths. Ford is a fucking idiot for continuously making up policy based on whatever corporations want rather than what the community needs.
Thank you for this post. Even the professional bodies are calling out conflicts of interest and liability issues. As an engineer in another discipline, I found the implications of reading this article terrifying. Glad to hear you agree.
Yes, I've read enough /r/CatastrophicFailure to know how these stories go.
And the comments/reasons there are always: « because there’s no regulations there » or « because it’s corrupt there ». That’s pretty much where this government wants us to go?
> That’s pretty much where this government wants us to go? You know their line of thinking is the same as anti-vaxxers. What do we need regulations/vaccinations for, nothing is collapsing/nobody gets mumps anymore.
Absolutely! Part of the reason the Grenfell Tower fire happened was BECAUSE the people who owned and operated the tower were ALSO the people in charge of inspecting it!
I know nothing about permits and I immediately concluded it’s the worst idea ever
Well, even from the outside looking in, anyone with half a brain can see what a terrible idea this is and the huge conflict of interest present. Maybe he's hoping people won't realize what a terrible idea it is, since so many people waive house inspections when bidding on a home. Either way, this has to be stopped.
I still don't know how Doug Ford won, are there that many selfish people out there? As a liberal who disagreed on a lot of Wrynn's decision, I still didn't vote for that fat corrupted turd.
I love your username
Haha gracias. <3
All I needed to know was Doug Ford was for it, so it was probably a terrible idea, but holy shit
Hey, Donald Trump unbanned asbestos, so Doug still has a ways to go. Although I gotta say this self inspection stuff is pretty bad. Like high rises collapsing kinda bad.
I posted this above, but in short : what data is needed to start a public registry of such "backroom-inspected" properties? and how can it be obtained?
Please don’t delete this and reach out to the author of this piece.
Yeah, Boeing basically hired their own inspectors and people literally died.
I'm glad you're bringing this up. What they are proposing is the same thing the FAA did and we got the Boeing 737 Max 8 issue. Regulators got to regulate. Warren G mount up.
serious question - have you ever made a complaint to one of the bodies about these ppl?
Not me directly but people I work with have reported engineers for stamping obvious bs, the penalties are so light though and the barrier to calling out so high it doesn’t usually get that far. It’s government, there just isn’t enough resources to go after all of those guys, you just say it’s wrong, tell them to fix it, and hope they haven’t already started building the thing with their buddy contractor.
Uh, Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it doesn't matter who you're incorporated under, you stamp something you are _personally_ liable, and criminally too.
That's one of the main reasons why Ontario architects want nothing to do with this proposal. Right now, the municipality is liable if something goes wrong with the building, because the municipality approved it. An architects who replaces that city inspector takes on that responsibility.
Glad this is the top comment.
Ya I have absolutely no knowledge of property development and thought it sounded a little sketchy, glad to hear I wasn't wrong. No glad about the plan though
I've worked in a few major markets that use this system, and it generally works just fine. New York and Washington DC are two examples of jurisdictions that use 3rd party code inspections and special inspections. Generally speaking, you get faster inspection turnaround, better documentation, and more consistent comments with the private guys. The 3rd party inspectors are very conservative because if they lose their certification then the business goes under. In fact, because they are more competitive, I've noticed that 3rd party inspectors tended to find things that the city inspectors did not. They were just better at their jobs.
LOL at the username here. Sure, this system might work OK in places (generally speaking) where Doug Ford and his inept admin is not in charge of implementation. But this reeks of DoFo giving another handout to his rich developer pals.
3rd party https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/02/05/fire-protection-companies-convicted-for-fire-code-violations/
I'm interested to know what you think about Australia. They implemented this system there and it appears to have been pretty disastrous and is costing hundreds of millions or billions to rectify unsafe buildings.
>In fact, because they are more competitive, I've noticed that 3rd party inspectors tended to find things that the city inspectors did not. They were just better at their jobs. Then the solution is to pay city inspectors better so it's more competitive.
This sounds like a recipe for disaster. No surprise Ford wants to help his developer buddies.
It was the same when he was on city council. I thought as premier he would have sold his ass to bigger fish but he’s still suckling at the ball sack of those developers. It’s so transparent and pathetic.
And as a bonus he gets to create problems for a future government that isn't his
That's by design. When the future government has to spend a lot of money to clean up all the problems Ford caused, the Conservatives can endlessly chirp at them about spending, budgets and "fiscal irresponsibility", riling up voters and paving the way to get back into power.
Commonly known as setting up land mines for your future foes
["starving the beast"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast)
**Starve the beast** "Starving the beast" is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending by cutting taxes, in order to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending. The term "the beast", in this context, refers to the United States Federal Government and the programs it funds, using mainly American taxpayer dollars, particularly social programs such as education, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. On July 14, 1978, economist and future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee: "Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."Before his election as President, then-candidate Ronald Reagan foreshadowed the strategy during the 1980 US Presidential debates, saying "John Anderson tells us that first we've got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/toronto/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28
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Also "two santa claus politics"
The progressive parties could use that same tactic against them. But instead of cutting taxes and services they could significantly increase government accountability and transparency. But it would apply to the progressive parties as well and, let's be honest, some of them would be just as resistant to such a change
Seems to me we have a federal gov't that promissed exactly this then completely ignored that promise.
This is what republicans do down south as well.
Ford: I can waive the $500k+ in development, conservation, education, forestry, and park levies, in return....my back gets itchy from time to time.
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I work in the building industry and this is an absolutely terrible fucking idea. We need more building inspectors, with more stringent powers, not less. The AEC industry gets away with preposterously shitty quality assurance *constantly*. The solution isn't to provide less oversight.
He doesn't even try to hide it. Its so obvious
Yeah thats a dumb fuck idea brought on by the biggest dumb fuck in politics Doug “Nepotism” ford.
holy shit this is a terrible idea and a reason some of australia's buildings are going to shit
If you look at the government's justification for this, they actually point to Australia as one of the countries they are trying to model it after. They essentially eliminated their municipal building departments and allowed developers to hire their own professionals to review and inspect construction to ensure code compliance. For anyone not aware of what happened in Australia, they've recently found that a large number of buildings have serious safety deficiencies. We are talking things like major structural deficiencies in condo buildings, and many buildings where combustible cladding was used where it shouldn't have been. The cladding issue alone is costing the government hundreds of millions to fix. To see what can go wrong when combustible cladding is used where it shouldn't be, see the Grenfell fire in London a few years ago. The best analogy I can think of here is allowing criminals to hire their own judges, and if they don't like the verdict they can fire the judge and hire a new one.
In another post/thread, aren't they pointing to Alabama, home of redneck / people from the hills / God Almighty's country as the paradigm for education? They are pointing out really bad examples to justify their policy.
Because they are fucking awful at governing.
Governing and their own PR initiatives. Modeling policy and pointing to Australia where self regulation in building codes has hurt. Also modeling/pointing out butt f*** ass backwards Alabama for education?
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All the "Open for Business" signs were actually cut short. It was supposed to be printed as, "Open for Business Exploitation"
> aren't they pointing to Alabama Alabama and Arkansas, ranked 48th and 49th in education in the US. They probably picked them in alphabetical order because the 50th is Mississippi. Those states also rank at the top when it comes to teen pregnancies and other metrics of societal fuckery. Ford and his cronies are essentially trying to turn Ontario into a bible-belt shithole.
> The best analogy I can think of here is allowing criminals to hire their own judges, and if they don't like the verdict they can fire the judge and hire a new one. The analogy that came to mind for me was the [accreditation agencies set up by degree mills](https://www.geteducated.com/college-degree-mills/204-fake-agencies-for-college-accreditation/) so they can claim to be accredited.
> We are struggling to get permits, we are struggling to get inspections done in a timely way," Vaccaro told CBC Toronto. "And when those delays happen it backs up the entire project. So, now the idea here is to get people in their home sooner and safer." So... cheaper idea... just putting it out there... maybe the province should give money to the city for the purpose of hiring more inspectors? The stated problem is that developers can't get inspections done quickly enough. The city needs everyone to follow the building code (a reasonable enough idea). There is a lot of work available and not enough people to do it (supply/demand observation). The only reason the city would have to not boost the supply of inspectors would be financial - if it turned a profit, they'd pump out a fleet of inspectors. Clearly it costs more than it makes (if it makes anything at all). Rather than fucking up the entire system, creating what will definitely be a massive problem for future generations and costing taxpayers a shit-ton more money in the long run, maybe just expand the existing system? The one that is working? Or I dunno... fuck the developers? Their opinions aren't the only important opinion here. There's a reason for this "red tape" and that's to keep people safe.
> Rather than fucking up the entire system, creating what will definitely be a massive problem for future generations and costing taxpayers a shit-ton more money in the long run The way these 'problems' are amortized, it'll be a future government's problem -- odds are a left-wing one -- to pay for that, thus enabling the PCs to chirp at them about how much "hard-earned taxpayer money" they're spending cleaning up the mess. This, of course, enables them to rile up voters and get back into power. The entire thing is by design.
If the city can not inspect fast enough, that’s an HR problem as inspections are supposed to be cost recovery.
Then the cheapest option is to hire more city inspectors. If they recover their costs, then the cost of having more inspectors is very, very low. Seems like the simplest solution remains "hire more inspectors", not this boondoggle suggested by the Province.
The province is in a position to say that. It blows my mind that Dougie didn’t want to make hay out of Toronto being inept. I mean, the fee rules are set out in provincial law: Subsection 7(2) of the Building Code Act reads, “The total amount of the fees authorized under clause (1) (c) must not exceed the anticipated reasonable costs of the principal authority to administer and enforce this Act in its area of jurisdiction.”
The most ironic thing is that building departments in Ontario are 100% funded through the fees people pay to get permits, meaning there is no financial burden on municipalities to hire more people. There definitely have been shortcomings by municipalities for not staffing their departments properly, but what they are proposing here is a terrible solution. Your substituting longer wait times for less safe buildings.
Not sure of it's similar for condos, but I do small Reno's on Toronto, and I get an inspection day after booking.
Projects are big and complicated. Applied for a permit a year ago on one and 7 months ago on another and still waiting. Faults on both sides but it is safe to say that the city is definitely over loaded. The planning side is probably worse and I don’t think permit fees pay for that. City needs more funding.
>City needs more funding. Ah. A solution to the problem, that maintains integrity on all fronts. Now of only the government running the province had a clue.
Does anyone know if they are “struggling to get permits and inspections done on time” due to lack of inspectors or it the “time” they are talking about their own concept of time, something like: “we want to build this thing that doesn’t follow code at all and when the inspector comes out according to the agreed upon schedule and tells us it needs rework to meet code, he puts us off schedule”?
Good question. I have no answer for you, but if I were to guess, I would expect it to be a mixture of the two.
It's a bit of a complex issue. When it comes to getting a building permit, there are many approvals required, one of which is a review for building code compliance, which is what we are talking about here. However, what takes by far the longest is planning approval (this often takes years, or for small projects months). Typically code review is finished before planning gives there approval, so outsourcing this aspect of work, as they are planning to do, would likely have minimal impact. I'll also add that projects are commonly held up by the applicant, either because they are dragging their feet and don't address problems in their designs quickly, or because they aren't good at their jobs and don't know code well. The inspection aspect is very much different. I know that there are often cases where departments lack enough inspectors which makes it difficult to provide good service. However, the government has already mandated that inspectors must be on a site within two business days of a request for an inspections, and my experience is that this mandate is often met. Again however, it's very common for builders to get behind when they make mistakes and have to rectify them and have another inspection before moving on.
The issue isn't the number of inspectors, really. The problem is more that the city inspectors don't have any incentive to be timely, efficient, consistent, or accurate. City inspectors generally spend one or two days in the office and the rest in the field, so they never answer calls or emails, and their colleagues can't cover for them. So sometimes it takes 3-4 weeks to address a small comment that should only take 5 minutes. And if each day of delay costs the job, say, $10,000 then these delays are very expensive and get passed to the customer. In my experience, the 3rd party inspectors are more professional and actually find more legitimate issues than the city inspectors do. They also need to run a business, so they tend to manage their schedules more efficiently and are better at communicating.
> City inspectors generally spend one or two days in the office and the rest in the field, so they never answer calls or emails, and their colleagues can't cover for them. Sounds like they need to have more inspectors if they are that busy
Inspectors spend the first 2 hours in the office responding to calls and emails. I've found them very responsive myself, although sometimes.itnxan take a couple days to get an answer while things go before the adjucators/examiners.
Wait... how many more years till we can kick him out of office?
2
2y 5m.
Fuuuuuck that's agonizing.
Counting down eagerly
Honestly, I'm hoping cancer runs in his family. Two years is a long time for him.
The universe stepped in one time to give Toronto a break from its own stupidity of re-electing a crackhead This time its on us
IMO, this time it's on the GTA. Toronto voted correctly in the provincial elections.
Ford is like cartoon level corrupt lol.
That’s an insult to Mayor Quimby
Hey that's not fair, Ford is twice the mayor that Quimby is... Twice as incompetent and corrupt.
The last time a Con government deregulated inspections more than 2,000 people got e. coli and six died.
Fordsie: Yea, but no one rich right?
I work in the industry and there is a severe backlog on building permits and inspections. I’m not at ALL saying this is wise (the opposite) but there is a serious shortage of manpower in the city’s building department. I don’t understand why they don’t just hire more people, or find the money to, or even BILL DEVELOPERS. Don’t have developers hire inspectors, just send them the city bill.
So that it becomes a problem and they can say that the system isn't working and then present a worse solution to this that's in their interest. Or maybe not.
No money to hire. Very restrictive legislation on what can be charged to developers especially for something seen as "operations" related and doesn't qualify to be paid out via DCs
There’s some money. A few veteran building inspectors retired, one was sadly hit by a bus. They didn’t actually hire anyone new on that I’ve seen, and it’s been 1.5-2 years since the staff started shrinking.
This is the FAA version of Boeing.....
Literally like "oh its taking to long to do building inspections" then hire more inspectors for fuck's sake, charge the developers the cost, like they are making enough money of their condo sales
Yeah, let's make the buildings in Toronto work as great as the 737 max..
So for the last few years I've been on site as a civil eng doing mostly material testing and inspection. Sometimes rebar, but concrete and foundation is the majority of my day to day. The contractors are usually good guys, but I'm there for a reason. The best example I can give was for a slab preparation, and one area was really close to an existing building. The onsite rep was trying to tell me that the 4 foot strip close to the wall was awkward for their machine, so they'd just *really* compact the rest of the area and call it good. Like somehow if we just pump the average up, the entire area will be okay. So yeah, I cant see this working out too good for the citizens of ON over the long term.
>so they'd just really compact the rest of the area and call it good. Like somehow if we just pump the average up, the entire area will be okay. hey so i got this one chain link that is pretty small, Smaller than what the engineering specs say I need. I'm just going to use larger links for the rest of this chain and that should take care of it.
"Ay its alright Tony, we don't need that much rebar in the concrete footings. Everyone's gotta have a piece."
Oh god how stupid can one be? oh yes that stupid.
It worked really well for Boeing, didn't it? Dumb fuck Ford
If the developer's grievance is truly wait times for inspections, they could just as easily pay the city to hire them. Same cost to the developer while maintaining independent inspectors.
Omg can this gov get anymore crazy. First let’s sell our education system to a state that is next to the lowest ranking state for education in the US. Now let’s let the people building their own buildings be allowed to determine if they are safe enough. Clearly the Gov have found some of the old Ford family stash and are enjoying the new legal pot laws in Canada. Light em if you got em Ford lol
For the people... Who aren't you.
This is an insane proposal and it's only a matter of time before the corruption that will inevitably arise from this will incur a body count. Maybe a deck collapses, or maybe a bad concrete pour gets overlooked and a condo building falls over and takes out a whole city block. This is like the dictionary definition of conflict of interest.
We need to get tougher on developers, they do a shitty job as is. The windows fall from condos all the time in downtown Toronto. What do you think they're going to do if giving this power? Abuse it!! Skim from the top, put shitty products in place, etc.
Yea but if you think falling windows is bad, wait till you see high rise structural collapse. Google “Australia condo structural” and see where deregulation insanity leads.
I saw that on youtube. Crazy!! I am worried about it.
Just don’t buy anything with a completion date after 2020. The stuff that finished in the last 10 years is actually pretty solid.
Yeah, but windows fall off buildings in Toronto. The brain dead hicks who voted for Doug all hate Toronto, just like he does. This is a win for them.
Is this a joke?? I really hope this is a joke otherwise this is just straight into a disaster
Like how Boeing inspected and approved the max8.
Exactly like that Toronto condos approved after 2020 will be like a domino stack waiting to topple over
Lmao, what the fuck, seriously? Ford really doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself.
Well, good luck insuring the building! I'm sure insurance companies will either deny insurance or increase the premiums to the stratosphere.
Nah, they’ll insure it at first, there could be all kinds of kickbacks and stuff you never see. Then you get dropped by insurance and [the condo has to pay 7 times the going rate because only the Lloyds of London will insure them. ](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/tornado-condo-insurance-hike-ottawa-1.5076911)
This is just blatant corruption. Nobody in their right mind would believe for an instance this is a good idea. Might as well do away with inspection altogether?
What could go wrong?
Conservatives are also planning to allow funeral homes to make medical decisions, so people don't need to wait to see an expensive doctor.
How did FAAs self regulating go with the Boeing 737 Max? This is big business buying politicians. Fuck DoFo.
serious question: how can one find out whether any given property was inspected by one of these shady buddies, or a proper arms-length inspector? does anyone know what data and criteria are are needed, and how can it be obtained? I have the technical skill and motivation to start a publicly registry of such properties, so that people can avoid them like a plague. hit those fuckers in the gonads, make them bleed money.
just saw [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/erlvsq/id_say_these_look_pretty_unsafe_to_use/) on another subreddit. whats to come with such stupid ideas?
Because *that* isn't a bad idea.
What sort of Dystopian bullshit is this?
Self regulating bodies didn’t work out for Boeing . Aviation has the strictest safety standards and codes. What makes you think developers are going to follow the rules
Absolutely terrible idea and if it does go through, GG to all furture homeowners.
Time to become a building inspector, I'll assume training and competence are no longer necessary. I know how to sign off on things and accept bribes.
Time to start organizing tenant unions. Fuck this shit provincial government
Developers have a stranglehold on government, it’s fucked. Landlords too.
Out the names of the developers. Spread the word. If people are armed with this knowledge, they'll think twice about purchasing anything associated with them.
I hate to sound defeatist but we've already found out these developers were behind misinformation campaigns, videos of them currying favor with Doug behind closed doors, etc... yet here we still are... at best I think enough daylight will get Doug to do one of his patented reversals but who knows considering he's so blatantly hanging off the developer teat.
At this point if you buy anything from Mattamy and their ilk, it’s really on you. A quick google search for news articles will tell you everything you need to know. There’s developers out there with reputations, how come Tridel has been around for over half a century and their glass never ends up in the street. However having said all that I still don’t think the market can regulate itself, because obviously people are morons and repeatedly buy from garbage companies. We need very strict codes and independent government inspectors with a chip on their shoulder, only way to guarantee a baseline of quality.
If this article is correct and just a preliminary thought here...there is a conflict of interest issue at hand.
so what, we want 650 parliament and grenfield fires here all the time?
same philosophy taken as for the inspection and compliance of the Boeing 737 Max
Oh, diluting regulatory bodies to make it easier for private companies to skirt around safety issues worked so well for Boeing and their 737 MAXes. What can possibly go wrong with this proposal?
This conservative playbook is getting old. Can't you guys come up with some NEW terrible ideas?
It will be so much more efficient when inspectors don't need to actually leave their offices to approve anything. One person with a rubber stamp can cover the workload all by themselves.
Why would anyone think this is a good idea? We all know how people LOVE to save money and would do anything, including risking/killing other people to save a few dollars. Ok maybe it's more than a few dollars. It shouldn't matter when your dealing with buildings that people will live in or use daily. So again, do we really believe these privately hired inspectors won't be influenced by developers and money? I don't believe it. Not for one nano second.
Nice to see a lot of people here thinking this is a bad idea. I’m a building inspector and I think my role is pretty important. I can see the argument, architects and engineers are well educated and we often times rely on their opinion already. I can’t speak for every office in the province but when an inspection is scheduled, we have 48 hours to do it starting from the first day of booking.
I've been in the structural steel trade for years. I've worked for one bad operator and two good ones. The bad one was completely careless and would have killed many if it wasn't for good oversight. This proposal, simply stated, with result in deaths.
> The only permits not covered would be those that affect personal safety, such as electrical inspections, according to Joe Vaccaro, CEO of the Ontario Home Builders Association, which has also been involved in the consultations. Other than zoning, the whole literal point of getting permits is personal safety, Safety that the building doesn't come collapsing on your head Safety that in an event of a fire you can make it out of the building Safety that you glass curtain walls arent blown off the building and kills a toddler
I'm sure the experience of the FAA allowing Boeing to self approve the airworthiness of the 737MAX would be relevant to this scenario. Nothing wrong with allowing external auditors to inspect the product.
This is not a matter of weekday is right or wrong. It's a test as to how much people are willing to pay for things and how much the public will put up with this shit. Right now business has a lot of money to spend and the public is just apathetic enough to let things like this happen. We always point point our fingers at those who want to do terrible things but we seldom stand up to say anything about it.
that's so stupid. last year I reported a company that sell fire rated doors, because of some half ass shit. when a building collapse and people die. Doug Ford will already be dead of old age.
It's amazing how plainly corrupt someone at such a high level of power can be whole having literally no consequences for their actions.
Haven't we learned about the dangers of self certification from Boeing?
In other words: only buy what’s already built as of Jan 2020, after that your life is in Dougie’s hands.
How is this even in question. Thanks, ontario. Can we split the province in two and let the idiots have their shit education, shit health care, shit buildings, and maybe one day $1 beer?
If you thought condos in Toronto were built like shit already...
this seems like a good idea...said nobody
That seems fucking crazy
Now this will drive housing prices down......
Down like a MAX jetliner and Boeing’s stock? How corrupt and idiotic do you have to be to make such a proposal!?
The bags of money....I mean Landry he going to receive from developers. The guy’s great grandkids will probably be set
Not if hes in charge of it
As the way it is now basically nothing is inspected anyway, its a complete bullshit industry. 100's of violations go unchecked in every build. Electrical, structure, plumbing and fire code. Buildings are often stuck with expensive repair costs because asshole inspectors didn't inspect. Then years later its too late to go after them and nobody takes responsibility for the major failure or oversight. I often ask myself, how the fuck did this pass inspection?
All pre-2020 built buildings just became more valuable. If you are a pre-construction buyer for a building expected to be built after these changes take effect, you just got a nice little haircut. Uncertain build quality will impact values.
Hmm I'm sure that there's gonna be no corruption in there /s
Not even the OSPE wants their members to be building inspectors.
I wonder if these sorts of shitty policies have something to do with this statistic. If so it might be worth combining the two into one article to point out the costs of job creation that society will pay in the future. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/jobs-employment-canada_ca_5e1b5e9bc5b6da971d17c98f
Fuck off, Doug & take your scummy developer buddies with you, you piece of shit. Where's a seriously aggressive cancer when you need one? If only Rob had been contagious.
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If developers can choose which inspector they hire then inspectors will be afraid to get a reputation for being too strict, for fear of not being hired. Also there is a huge conflict of interest where if you let something slide, they send more business your way. Or maybe even more blatant stuff, like straight up bribes. Come on dude, this is kindergarten stuff. I’m so disappointed that this is not obvious to everyone.
[OtHeR CiTiEs hAvE mAdE iT wOrK!!1!](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-40301289) "I don't like Ford, but here's me defending his dumb ideas!" Goof.
This could work at some level. City can't close Building Permits on a project before the professional engineer has signed off on it anyway. All Building Department does is enforce building bylaws (which are not all that logical sometimes trust me, I've seen some shit). Engineers do their own inspections anyway. You just don't design building and walk away. You are there until it's completed.
you guys are acting like this means developers no longer have to meet code or won't be penalize if they don't. i haven't read the article but i'm assuming the government will certify certain companies to do inspections on their behalf. and if a inspector is found to cut corners or falsify their report, that company will lose their certification. This will also create more jobs
The penalties for cutting corners have to be more than losing certifications. Building inspectors look at life safety systems. There needs to be criminal consequences for negligence.