Climate organizers launch campaign to get city to protect Edmontonians from extreme heat

Climate Justice Edmonton (CJE) launched its “Right to Be Cool” campaign outside of city hall on July 11, calling on city council to ensure Edmontonians are protected from the extreme heat that’s becoming increasingly frequent. 

The campaign consists of four demands for the city:

  1. Pass a bylaw mandating a maximum internal temperature of 26 degrees Celsius for rental housing by next summer, with protection against landlords increasing rent to pay for retrofit costs.
  2. Invest and expand cooling areas in all parts of the city, prioritizing heat islands.
  3. Launch a public inquiry into the health impacts of heat and smoke and use the results to develop a strategy for zero deaths due to extreme weather. 
  4. Support a universal heat pumps program to provide a more cost-effective, energy-efficient alternative to air conditioning. 

Juan Vargas of CJE has been a renter in Edmonton since he moved to the city from Medicine Hat nine years ago. He told attendees that he’s lucky to have friends who live in basement apartments or have kiddie pools that he can use to escape extreme heat. 

“But luck isn’t an alternative to viable public policy, and for hundreds of thousands of Edmontonians who rent, luck is running out,” said Vargas. 

Juan Vargas speaks at the CJE press conference announcing the launch of their "Right To Be Cool" campaign outside of city hall on July 11. Image by Jeremy Appel. 

CJE conducted an informal online survey circulated on social media to gauge how Edmontonians are faring during extreme heat, which received 120 responses. 

“Tenants aren't safe in the city during extreme heat events. More importantly, tenants do not feel that their landlords are doing enough to help them stay cool during extreme heat events. That's because landlords don't have to,” said Vargas. 

“From our survey, we know that some landlords are actually actively antagonistic in some cases, forcing tenants to remove AC units forcing tenants to remove what they need to stay cool.” 

In an interview with The Progress Report after the news conference, Vargas said the CJE survey was intended to provide a “preliminary idea” of Edmontonians’ experiences of extreme heat. 

“Grassroots groups aren't in a position to do a huge methodologically scientific study, which is why we asked the city to then implement and roll out their own public inquiry on the impacts of extreme heat and extreme weather,” he explained. 

Vargas acknowledged that the campaign’s demands focus on the adaptation, rather than mitigation, side of the climate crisis equation. 

He said that by seeking to address the impact the climate crisis is having on Edmontonians’ day-to-lives, CJE is “building up power to push back against fossil capital as a whole.” 

Local emergency room physician Dr. Julia Sawatzky, representing the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, spoke at the campaign launch about the health impacts of extreme heat and smoke, which she sees regularly during the summer. 

“In the emergency room on very hot days, we see not only acute cases of heatstroke and heat exhaustion, which can be life threatening in and of themselves, but also increased numbers of patients presenting with heart attacks, respiratory distress, dehydration, kidney failure and strokes,” said Sawatzky. 

Image by Dylan Campbell.

She added that some of the most vulnerable members of the community — children, seniors, people with disabilities and mental health conditions, and racialized and low-income people — are at the greatest risk during a heat wave. 

“The most important risk factor for heat related deaths is living in a dwelling without access to air conditioning or other artificial cooling,” Sawatzky said. 

Hannah Bayne, a graduate student at the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health, noted the practicality of implementing heat regulations. 

“We already regulate air quality, water quality and we have policies in place for minimum living temperatures for rental units. We have to do the same for maximum living temperatures,” said Bayne.

Three city councillors were in attendance at the news conference kicking off the campaign — Anne Stevenson, Ashley Salvador and Michael Janz. 

Salvador, who represents Ward Métis, told The Progress Report that the concerns outlined at the campaign launch match those her constituents have expressed “on a fairly regular basis.” 

In May, council passed the Clean Energy Improvement Program, which provides upwards of $20 million in loans over four years for Edmontonians seeking to retrofit their homes to conserve energy, including the installation of heat pumps

Salvador said she’s “curious to see” what other funding the city could provide for heat pumps, which take hot air from outside and convert it to cold air indoors, and vice versa in the winter.

Stevenson said that at least some of the campaign demands “are really promising in terms of being implementable and practical.” 

She cautioned that council cannot change regulations that are already outlined in the province’s building code, but can pass bylaws on anything the code “is silent on.”

“I'm really reflecting on the importance of ensuring that when we're putting new standards in we're also creating pathways for people to be able to invest in new requirements, making sure that we are matching regulation with financial support to help people make modifications,” said Stevenson, who represents Ward O-Day’min. 

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