Tragedy at Ontario Condominium

Article from Volume 10, Issue Number 1, 2023

By CCI MB Board | Other articles by CCI MB Board | Feature

By now most of you will have heard or seen media reports of the shooting of condo directors and unit owners in December at an Ontario condominium. CCI National posted condolences on its LinedIn feed https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7010693343491874816/

CCI Toronto also issued a press release expressing condolences https://ccitoronto.org/news/view/media-statement-mass-shooting-event-at-bellaria-residences.

While a lot of media coverage includes details about the perpetrator (“if it bleeds, it leads”), an excellent article from Bill Thompson talks about the victims. Bill, a condominium consultant, past director with CCI Toronto and past chair of CCI National has first hand experience with the victims (and the perpetrator) from the period during which he lived at the condominium. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7011532566600065024?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7011532566600065024%29.

A joint media statement (excerpt below) has been issued by the Association of Condominium Managers of Ontario (ACMO), the Canadian Condominium Institute’s (CCI) Toronto Chapter, and the Community Associations Institute (CAI) Canadian Chapter. The statement in its entirety can be found at https://ccitoronto.org/news/view/violence-and-mental-health-in-condominiums

JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT

Violence and Mental Health in Condominiums

Toronto, ON, January 11, 2023: The Association of Condominium Managers of Ontario (ACMO), the Canadian Condominium Institute’s (CCI) Toronto Chapter, and the Community Associations Institute (CAI) Canadian Chapter stand together to offer condolences and deepest sympathies to everyone impacted by the events at the Bellaria Residences in Vaughan, Ontario on December 18, 2022.

Our organizations are leaders in providing education and resources to volunteer board members, condominium unit owners, condominium managers, and other condominium service providers. We give our best efforts to support healthy condominium communities by ensuring that condominiums have access to the resources they need when complex issues arise.

Condominiums are a microcosm of society governed by volunteer directors who are legally mandated to enforce the governing documents of the condominium corporation and endeavour to protect all of the residents within their community. To do so, they take the advice of various professionals and attempt to investigate and address the unique issues and concerns of their owners. Disputes are not uncommon and can be particularly complex and challenging to resolve in condominiums because parties to a dispute must continue to live near each other and regularly encounter one another in common spaces.

In some cases, even when every effort has been made to resolve a conflict, no remedy can be found that leaves all parties satisfied. Litigation is a last resort, and evictions in a condominium are extremely rare and only pursued when the community is deemed to be at risk.

As a result of the shooting at Bellaria Residences, condominium directors may now fear getting involved in disputes and/or serving on the board. This would be unfortunate as the 12,400+ condominium corporations in Ontario necessarily rely on the service of volunteers to provide governance to their communities.

Minimizing the risk of personal harm on a condominium’s property is a critical focus, but unfortunately there are inadequate community resources available to help de-escalate conflicts. Residents, property managers, board members, staff, vendors, and professional business partners alike have the right to feel safe within a condominium community.

Our organizations are jointly committed to:

Continue identifying areas for legislative reform to better protect personal safety in condominiums and educate government agencies about how best to minimize risk for condominium communities.
Continue identifying additional appropriate resources relating to mental health and conflict de-escalation to support condominium corporations in the future. This may include better educating other organizations about the unique challenges in condominiums.
Continue developing and offering additional educational programming for our members to ensure that the condominium market has the best possible information available.
Proactively supporting our membership and community through education, networking events, and advocacy.

We call on the Ontario government and industry regulators to implement legislative reform and provide additional resources to better protect all parties within condominium communities and offer the expertise of our organizations to assist in this process.

We are prepared to help the media better understand the Condominium industry as best we can without speaking to any specifics related to the ongoing investigation.

CCI Manitoba Board