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Newsstand: June 26, 2015
News today: a court case involving workers' deaths should be ruled on today, a government source says the province is working to make gender-reassignment surgery more accessible, and one of the city's biggest landlords agrees on a settlement with two evicted tenants.
The court case against a construction crew project manager is expected to be ruled on today by a Toronto judge. The manager, Vadim Kazenelson, faces four counts of criminal negligence causing death and one of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, all related to an incident in 2009 in which scaffolding collapsed and four workers fell to their deaths. One worker, the only one who was attached to a safety lifeline, survived but was suspended in midair; that worker later said Kazenelson didn’t insist any of them be attacked to lifelines and asked him to lie about the incident. The company involved, Metron Construction Corp., has already pled guilty to criminal negligence causing death and been fined $750,000 and a “victim surcharge.” This was the first time the criminal code was successfully used against a corporation in the event of a worker’s death.
An unnamed government source has told the Canadian Press that the Ontario government is working to increase accessibility to gender-reassignment surgeries. At the moment there are about 970 patients on the waiting list and around 100 new referrals come in each month. New referrals have to go through the Canadian Addiction and Mental Health facility in Toronto for approval to get surgery; it is the only place in the province allowed to approve prospective patients. The government’s plan is likely to include authorizing more places across the province to approve patients.
MetCap Living Management and Suite Collections is one of the city’s biggest landlords, and has finally agreed to settle on the debts it claimed two evicted tenants owed. That agreement comes after a Toronto Star investigation was published last weekend showing that the company’s practice of charging two months of rent from evicted tenants existed in, at best, a legal grey area. It had been upheld in a 20-year-old court decision, but struck down last year. Provincial housing minister Ted McMeekin said of the investigation that he didn’t think MetCap’s behaviour was legal and that he would seek to end any confusion or loopholes. After that, MetCap said it would settle with each of the two tenants as long as they paid the rent they owed and the sherriff’s fee incurred by their eviction. Wesley Harkness, one of the tenants, sounded skeptical but cautiously optimistic about the agreement, while Cyrilla Hamilton, the other tenant involved in the investigation, was relieved to have the issue behind her and that it would soon no longer affect her or her niece, who co-signed the lease.