The Safe Indoor Temperatures Act requires owners of long‑term care homes, multi‑unit residential buildings and public buildings to ensure cooling systems can keep occupied areas at or below a regulatory temperature during summer months and to maintain and operate those systems. The Act sets municipal inspectors, a complaint-and-compliance process, temporary-exemption powers and criminal penalties for unpaid or ongoing contraventions.
For building owners, the bill creates an affirmative operational duty complemented by tenant protections against interference and extra charges; for administrators it creates inspection and enforcement responsibilities and a broad regulatory mandate to fill in technical details such as measurement, exemptions and transitional timelines.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill imposes a seasonal duty on owners to equip and operate cooling systems that keep occupied indoor areas within a specified maximum temperature, establishes municipal inspectors to enforce compliance, and allows temporary exemptions where compliance is impracticable. It leaves technical specifics—measurement methods, classes of exempt buildings, phased compliance and minimum equipment standards—to Governor‑in‑Council regulations.
Who It Affects
Directly affects owners and managers of long‑term care homes, multi‑unit residential buildings (defined as buildings with more than four dwelling units) and public buildings including public housing, as well as municipal employees designated as inspectors. Indirectly affects tenants, long‑term care residents, building staff and utilities where unit‑level cooling and billing arrangements exist.
Why It Matters
The Act is one of the first provincial statutes in Canada to convert heat‑safety guidance into a legal duty for specific building classes, shifting responsibility for indoor heat control onto owners and municipalities and creating potential operational, retrofit and enforcement costs. Professionals in property management, long‑term care administration, municipal government and housing advocacy need to align procurement, budgeting and emergency plans with the Act’s obligations and forthcoming regulations.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill sets clear targets and a clear enforcement path but leaves a lot of technical detail to regulation. It applies only to three building categories—long‑term care homes, multi‑unit residential buildings (more than four units) and public buildings—while explicitly excluding private single‑unit dwellings and allowing the regulations to exempt other classes.
For condominiums it applies to corporate common elements but not to individually owned units unless the corporation owns them.
Between June 1 and September 30 each year owners must ensure their buildings are fitted with cooling systems capable of keeping occupied areas at or below a maximum indoor temperature (the Act uses 26°C as the baseline and allows regulations to set a different figure). Owners must keep equipment maintained and operated; however, if an occupant has direct control of a unit‑specific cooling device and opts not to run it, the owner is treated as compliant so long as the system is capable of meeting the standard.
The Act does not mandate any particular technology.Municipalities must designate inspectors who receive complaints, investigate alleged breaches and may issue compliance orders. Inspectors can grant temporary exemptions when compliance is impracticable because of emergencies, equipment failures or other prescribed circumstances; those exemptions can carry terms and can be voided for non‑compliance.
Where cooling systems are temporarily unavailable, owners must follow steps the regulations will prescribe; buildings housing people particularly vulnerable to heat face additional regulatory requirements such as redundancy and staff training.For enforcement, the Act creates a complaint route to inspectors, immediate compliance obligations after an order, and an appeal path to the province’s Regulatory and Appeals Board. It creates a summary‑conviction offence with a maximum fine (up to $10,000 or a lesser regulatory amount), daily exposure for continuing breaches and corporate officer liability where an organization directed or acquiesced in the contravention.
The Governor in Council is given broad regulation‑making power to fill in measurement, inspection, exemption classes, transitional arrangements and other operational details; the Act comes into force by proclamation.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Act requires cooling systems capable of maintaining occupied indoor areas at no more than 26°C during June 1–September 30, subject to regulatory adjustment of that temperature.
It applies to long‑term care homes, public buildings (including public housing) and multi‑unit residential buildings with more than four dwelling units; condominium corporations are covered only for common elements.
Municipalities must designate an inspector; inspectors can issue compliance orders, grant temporary exemptions with conditions, and their compliance orders are appealable to the Regulatory and Appeals Board.
Owners cannot prohibit or unreasonably interfere with tenants’ use of required cooling systems and cannot impose a separate fee for installation or availability, although unit occupants who pay their own utilities remain liable for their own energy costs.
Contraventions are summary offences with fines up to $10,000 (or a lower regulatory amount) and daily liability for ongoing breaches; corporate officers who directed or acquiesced in violations may be prosecuted individually.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Definitions and scope terms
This section supplies the statutory definitions the rest of the Act relies on—building, cooling system, dwelling unit, multi‑unit residential building, public building and owner. Those definitions determine who falls inside the regime and who does not, and they create a material distinction for condominiums (corporate ownership vs individually owned units). Practically, compliance strategies will hinge on how these terms are interpreted in regulations and enforcement guidance.
Which buildings the Act covers
Section 4 lists the covered building classes and explicitly allows the regulations to exempt additional categories. It also clarifies that the Act does not reach private standalone dwellings and that, for condo corporations, the duty is limited to corporate common elements. Owners and property managers must map their portfolios against these definitions to identify where retrofit, procurement and operational plans are required.
Municipal inspector designation
Each municipality must designate at least one employee as an inspector under the Act. The inspector role is the operational linchpin for complaints, inspections, exemptions and compliance orders, which means municipalities will likely need to define inspection powers, reporting protocols and resourcing—either by training existing staff (building, bylaw, public health) or creating new capacity.
Owner duties on cooling capability and operation
This is the Act’s core operational duty: owners must equip buildings with cooling systems capable of achieving the statutory temperature during the summer season and must maintain and operate that equipment. The section includes an occupant‑control carve‑out that treats owners as compliant when tenants control and decline to run a unit‑level system. The provision avoids prescribing specific technologies, which gives owners flexibility but shifts the burden to regulations to set technical minimums for capacity and monitoring.
Exemptions, temporary measures and vulnerable populations
Inspectors can grant temporary exemptions where compliance is impracticable because of emergencies, equipment failure or other circumstances defined in regulation; exemptions can include terms and are void if not obeyed. When a cooling system is temporarily unavailable, owners must follow regulatorily prescribed steps, and owners of facilities housing people particularly vulnerable to heat face additional mandated measures such as redundancy and staff training. These provisions balance strict obligations with a pragmatic mechanism for short‑term failures but import complexity that will be resolved in regulation.
Recordkeeping, disclosure and tenant protections
Owners must provide records and information about cooling systems to occupants per regulations, and owners of multi‑unit residential buildings cannot prohibit or unreasonably interfere with system use or impose separate installation/availability fees. There is an explicit caveat that occupants who pay unit utilities and control unit equipment bear their own energy costs—an important allocation that affects how landlords structure contracts and utility billing.
Complaint process, compliance orders and penalties
The Act creates a complaint route to the inspector and empowers inspectors to issue compliance orders; owners must comply immediately and can appeal to the Regulatory and Appeals Board. Offences are summary convictions with fines up to $10,000 (or less if regulations prescribe), exposure to separate offences for each day of a continuing breach, and corporate officer liability where leadership directed or acquiesced in the breach—language that raises the stakes for boards and senior managers.
Regulation‑making power and commencement
The Governor in Council receives wide authority to make technical and substantive regulations—design standards, monitoring methods, classes of exemption, transitional rules and phased compliance—so much of the Act’s operational impact will arrive through regulations. The Act comes into force by proclamation, allowing the province to sequence regulatorily dependent obligations to give owners and municipalities time to prepare.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Residents of long‑term care homes: the Act forces owners to plan for redundancy, staff training and cooling capability that directly reduce heat exposure risks for a highly vulnerable population.
- Tenants in multi‑unit residential buildings and public housing residents: they gain legal protection against landlord interference with cooling and against being charged separate installation or availability fees for required cooling systems.
- Users of public buildings (schools, municipal facilities, hospitals): these occupants benefit from mandated temperature controls during summer months, which supports public health and continuity of services during heat events.
Who Bears the Cost
- Building owners and property managers: they shoulder capital and operating costs for installing, maintaining and operating cooling systems, and for any required retrofits to older stock to meet capacity and monitoring rules.
- Municipalities: required to designate inspectors and manage complaint, inspection and exemption workflows, municipalities may need to reallocate staff or budget to administer the Act effectively.
- Condominium corporations and non‑profit housing providers: these entities may face significant common‑element retrofit bills and governance challenges when distinguishing corporate obligations from individual unit owner responsibilities.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between protecting health by imposing a uniform indoor‑temperature duty on owners and the financial, technical and administrative burdens of meeting that duty in an aging and heterogeneous building stock: achieving public safety may require expensive retrofits and new municipal enforcement capacity, while allowing exceptions or occupant opt‑outs undermines the uniformity and predictability of protection the Act seeks to guarantee.
The Act converts a public‑health objective—keeping indoor heat within safe limits—into legal obligations but delegates most technical detail to regulations. That delegation is efficient in principle but risks uneven implementation: municipalities will interpret inspection powers and complaints procedures differently, and owners will face uncertainty until the province sets measurement locations, averaging methods, equipment capacity formulas and transitional timelines.
Older buildings present a particular challenge where achieving the temperature standard may require costly structural upgrades rather than simple HVAC replacement.
The occupant‑control provision reduces owner liability where tenants decline to operate unit‑level cooling, but it also creates a potential loophole: owners may avoid broader investments by relying on tenant behavior. The statutory ban on separate installation fees protects many tenants, yet allocating utility costs to occupants who control unit equipment can create disputes about billing and responsibility.
Finally, enforcement design—summary fines, daily liability, corporate officer exposure and an administrative appeal route—creates both deterrence and a potential flood of appeals and litigation that municipalities and the Regulatory and Appeals Board will need resources to manage.
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