- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor
Ray Botten was back at City Hall on Monday night. The poverty advocate and one time-mayoral candidate asked a question during public question period and accomplished what the senior management of four major service agencies in our city could not. Council unanimously, and publicly, asked for a report from staff on public washrooms.
Botten spoke of the lack of toilet paper or handwashing facilities, and said that police were called when people who just had to relieve themselves were spotted in public. He offered to clean a washroom personally, after each and every user, if one were made available to the public.
Citing this as a human rights and dignity issue, Councillor Merton moved that City staff “evaluate, in collaboration with Police Services and other social service agencies, the impact and options related to access for a public toilet available 24/7”.
A toilet. Just a toilet and a place to wash your hands.
The immediate staff response at the council meeting was left to Kate Allen, Director of Corporate Services. She indicated that there is a washroom in city hall, open to the public during Monday to Friday business hours.
At this time of year, there are 79 daylight hours a week that city hall is not open (twice as many as it is). These are the hours that we encourage people to walk and bike and push strollers through the “river district”, sit on the benches under the shade sails, enjoy take-out at the picnic tables provided.
The consultant for the re-branding of the “River District” included washroom access as a necessary element to change public perception of the area.
The City's first priority, Ms. Allen said, would be “ensuring the safety of our residents as well as our staff”. According to City reports, staff safety was the reason the outside washroom at city hall was removed in the renovation and the Farmers' Market washroom has been closed in the past.
City Hall, the Farmers' Market, the Public Library and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery are all closed on Sundays. While city committees encourage downtown business owners to add Sundays to their six-day work schedule, and to welcome the public to use their washrooms, downtown city properties provide no such facilities.
When the Art Banner Project did its public launch at the Farmers' Market on June 5, the washroom was closed. One of the organizers drove home to use the toilet. A participant tripped and fell, taking out his front teeth and needing stitches in his nose, and there was not even access to water for first aid.
The washroom was open, often with line-ups, for the Pride parade and street fair. Inside was a sign that indicated that the exit button did not always work, “please use the handle”. In other words, the washroom is no longer the “accessible facility” it was remodelled to be.
At the City's transit terminal, also closed on Sunday, printed signage was added to their washroom doors that said they were “Out of Order”. In fact, the washrooms were functioning, they just wanted to discourage their use. Regular transit users knew the signs were not accurate, and used the washrooms anyway. The sign was removed from the women's washroom because - "women are not the problem" - to quote one source.
During the pandemic, when washroom options were even more limited, four local social service agencies wrote a joint letter to the City council and senior staff about this concern. After some delay, they were told that it was “under consideration”, but no action was taken.
Access to public washrooms is one of those issues that spans the entire population – barely-toilet trained toddlers to the elderly, tourists in SUVs to the homeless, the able-bodied and those using mobility devices, those attending special events and residents on their daily walks.
This is a perfect example of vision and process at odds, when we need the effective use of our resources and processes together to realize the vision of the healthy community we all want.
