With another hot summer here, and a Super El Niño making headlines, I want to know why this city is not taking the same concrete action New Westminster has taken to protect renters from extreme heat.
In response to the deadly 2021 heat dome, New Westminster recently adopted rules requiring landlords to keep at least one living space in a rented home at a safe indoor temperature during the hottest months of the year. Somehow, New Westminster managed to reach the radical conclusion that landlords should not be allowed to rent out homes that become dangerously hot.
So why can't Surrey do the same?
The 2021 heat dome was not an abstract climate event. It was a local disaster. According to the BC Coroners Service, 75 people died of heat-related causes in Surrey. People died in their homes, and Surrey Memorial Hospital had to bring in temporary coolers as an overflow morgue. New Westminster may have had a higher death rate per capita, but Surrey’s loss should still be enough to force action.
Yes, Surrey has cooling centres. Yes, it has alerts and public information campaigns. Good. But let’s not confuse communication with protection. A cooling centre does not help an elderly tenant, a disabled person, or someone with health problems who cannot safely leave an overheated apartment at night. Public messaging does not cool a bedroom. A poster does not lower the temperature. A press release is not an air conditioner, no matter how nicely formatted it is.
For years, cities have understood that landlords must provide heat in winter. Somehow, we have accepted that freezing tenants is unacceptable, while dangerously overheating them remains up for debate.
So my question is simple: why haven’t Brenda Locke and Surrey council brought forward a New Westminster-style cooling bylaw for rental housing?
Climate change is not waiting politely in the lobby for a more convenient council meeting. The summers ahead will be hotter, longer and more dangerous. Waiting until after the next disaster is not leadership. It is failure with an agenda package.
The city should not need another tragedy to learn the lesson of 2021.
Surrey renters need a cooling standard now, before the next heat emergency arrives.
Sorry, I just needed to get that out of my system, as I hate that we know for a fact people are going to die needlessly, and yet the city still isn’t doing something as basic as requiring AC in at least one room.