London city council votes down motion to publish fire code convictions

A last ditch effort to have convictions under London’s fire code posted publicly failed at city council Tuesday night.

The cause, championed by Coun. Mo Salih, failed at the committee level last week. The Ward 3 representative said he would raise it again during Tuesday’s full council meeting.

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Salih says the information is already publicly available, but this would make it easier to access.

“I’ve heard from tenant advocates, I’ve heard from people in the fire world from across the province saying this is an amazing step in doing more and something versus doing nothing,” said Salih.

One of the major objections to posting the convictions was that the information may be misleading, as a building’s current condition could be different from the time a conviction would have been based on.

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“The one thing that was a reoccurring word that was brought up during debate was ‘shaming’ and this isn’t what I would consider shaming, it’s just stating the facts,” said Salih.

“You’re convicted, you did it wrong, it is what it is. Hopefully it will be a deterrent to those and hopefully it will be a way to say to people that if you violate these rules, you will be held responsible and accountable in the public sphere.”

The vote ultimately failed 8-6.