In a July 5 memo to council and the park board, the commission outlines 15 recommendations to help mitigate the effects of extreme heat and poor air quality on residents and visitors.
“Failing to act and create policy that reflects the reality of people’s lives can and will cause people who would otherwise be alive to die,” said the memo, which is included on council’s June 20 public meeting agenda.
“Please remember at one time central heating and indoor plumbing were considered luxuries only available to the wealthiest. It is time we make maintaining high indoor air quality and energy efficient air conditioning part of our standard expectations of housing just as we do toilets, bathtubs and heat.”
The commission’s primary focus is for the municipal agencies to target under-served areas of the city and populations, including people with disabilities, who are more greatly affected by an event such as the province’s most recent heat wave.
That means planting trees and placing or building water fountains, pools, waterparks and other infrastructure such as cooling stations in neighbourhoods that have little or no sources of refuge from the sun and heat.
The memo doesn’t identify neighbourhoods but stresses the need for the city to advocate for and work with the B.C. government and Vancouver Coastal Health to ensure air conditioners and air purifiers are provided to residents living in social housing.
Lobbies and lounges in those buildings should be set up as cooling centres, and sprinklers or portable misting tents should be provided outside a building, the commission said.
The commission’s recommendations come after the BC Coroners Service reported 719 sudden and unexpected deaths in the province between June 25 and July 1. The number of deaths was three times more than what would normally be reported during the same period.
The soaring temperatures in late June, with Lytton reaching 49.6 C before the town was destroyed by fire, was believed to be “a significant contributing factor” to the increase in deaths, said Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe in a news release issued July 2.
Mayor Kennedy Stewart referred to the deaths in a news conference Wednesday, where he said city manager Paul Mochrie continues to lead a review of how the city responded to the heat wave.
“As mayor, I want to commend everyone at the city, particularly our first responders that threw everything they had at this crisis — they did an extraordinary job in very tough conditions,” Stewart told reporters.
“Yet, we still fell short and I really want to offer my condolences to all those who lost loved ones. We are doing everything we can to learn from this experience — what we did right, and what could be improved.”
The mayor said the review is being conducted in two phases, with the initial phase focused on any immediate adjustments that can be made to the city’s extreme heat response plan and implemented this summer, if needed.
The second phase will examine longer term additions to the response plan based on a detailed look at assessments of the heat wave provided by the coroners service and first responders.
The city’s response to the most recent heat wave included setting up 10 temporary water fountains in various neighbourhoods, augmenting more than 200 that already exist. Misting stations were also activated at eight locations.
Residents were urged to visit one of the city’s 10 air-conditioned community centres or any library locations to beat the heat. Outdoor pools were open, as were waterparks.
Community centres in the Downtown Eastside offered water and sun block to patrons, while the city’s housing staff implemented a hot weather plan for tenants, which included wellness checks and providing water and fans for residents not wanting to leave their rooms.
In 2019, city council declared a “climate emergency” and last year followed up in approving an ambitious $500-million plan that aims to substantially reduce the amount of carbon pollution generated in the city over the next decade.
How that work will or would have impacted the recent heat wave and others to come is an open question when considering climate change is a global reality, with China, the United States and India still the top three countries emitting the most carbon dioxide.
Coun. Pete Fry, who is council’s liaison to the planning commission and will introduce a motion next week tied to the memo, said Vancouver has to continue to lead by example on fighting climate change, despite what other cities and countries may or may not be doing.
“Really, I think the most profound change starts at a local government level,” said Fry, who has been talking this week with other civic politicians as part of Union of B.C. Municipalities meetings.
“Ten years ago, some folks in the UBCM weren’t necessarily sold on the idea of climate change as being real. Now they’re all talking about climate emergency, now they’re all talking about resilient strategies.”
Some of the commission’s other recommendations include:
• Ensure all public parks, beaches, pools and public washrooms are open and remain open 24 hours a day during an extreme heat wave.
• Widen sidewalks so trees can be planted and seating such as benches can be placed in medians and boulevards.
• Create policies that mandate larger overhangs on buildings to provide shade and weather protection.
• Invest in pop-up cooling and clean-air tents.
• Accessible, multi-height water fountains and misting stations should be placed all over the city during periods of extreme heat. Same goes for temporary accessible washrooms.
• Schools, recreation centres, libraries and museums with air conditioners should be used as cooling centres. Transportation should be provided to get residents to these sites.
• An annual course should be developed for multi-family housing, apartment, single-room-occupancy hotels, group homes, temporary housing operators, providers and landlords on extreme weather events.
• The city should produce and send material related to extreme weather events in multiple languages to landlords and housing providers to post and distribute in their buildings.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Adrian Dix announced Wednesday that he has appointed former Vancouver police chief Jim Chu to chair the board of the BC Emergency Health Services.
Dix said in a news release that he was confident Chu “will provide the focused governance leadership BC Emergency Services needs to be an effective and high performing ambulance service.”
The move is in response to a shortage of paramedics in B.C., a fact that was further exposed during the heat wave, with some patients waiting hours for an ambulance to arrive. Dix announced funding for 85 new full-time paramedics, 30 full-time dispatchers and 22 new ambulances.
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