At a time when a housing crisis is raging, CEGEPs are struggling to recruit students wishing to become municipal building inspectors. Cities in Quebec must therefore reduce their hiring criteria at a time when their inspectors, overwhelmed by permit applications to process, are struggling to apprehend owners who allow their homes to deteriorate or carry out unauthorized work. First article in a series of three on a shortage with multiple repercussions.
Across Quebec, job offers to fill municipal inspector positions are pouring in from cities that are suffering from a college program that is declining in popularity. However, in the midst of a housing crisis, cities need these professionals more than ever to enforce their town planning regulations and issue building permits.
“It’s really the cross and the banner to find people who do inspections,” said the mayor of Longueuil, Catherine Fournier, last April. She then told Duty having had to post three job postings before managing to hire, in 2022, two municipal inspectors responsible for housing sanitation files.
“There are always, out of 20 building inspectors, at least 2 or 3 inspectors to be assigned or replaced,” notes the director of the Planning and Territorial Management Department of the City of Sherbrooke, Yves Tremblay, who is far from being the only manager to have to juggle such a situation. “I still have a third of my workforce who are replacements,” confides the director of Planning and Sustainable Development at the City of Trois-Rivières, Dominic Thibeault, according to whom cities struggle to compete. with the private sector “for technician positions” in building inspection.
The City of Montreal notes for its part that “not enough people” obtain the training required to be able to occupy the position of building inspector, “compared to the needs” of municipalities. “This has the effect of creating competition between public sector employers and private sector employers,” writes public relations officer Gonzalo Nunez. As of June 7, the City’s Housing Department was missing 2 inspectors, out of a total of 18 positions.
A suspended program
Meanwhile, the only three CEGEPs in Quebec that offer a development and urban planning technique — intended to train municipal inspectors and land planning technicians — are struggling to recruit students from one year to the next.
The situation is particularly critical at the Cégep de Matane which, “for the first time” in its history, will not welcome “any student over the three years of training” this fall, although it could in theory welcome several dozen, indicates its communications manager, Francis Turcotte. However, it is rather a handful of students who have registered in recent years for this program, in the Bas-Saint-Laurent establishment, and none in anticipation of the next school year.
“The field of town planning is a little-known field among young people,” notes the coordinator of this program, Yannick Malouin. He also deplores the fact that this training is not eligible for Perspective Québec scholarships, which are offered in particular to people studying engineering and architecture. This training is also not eligible for the exemption from additional tuition fees for foreign students, offered for certain programs in fields with labor shortages.
The Cégep de Jonquière, for its part, has welcomed an average of a dozen students in this program since 2019, while this average is 24 students at the Collège de Rosemont. In these establishments, this technique is not threatened, but the number of new registrations is stagnating despite the growing needs in the municipal sector, as evidenced by the 100% placement rate in recent years of students in this program in CEGEPs which offer it.
“There are many municipal circles who call us directly to have interns, students,” notes the teacher responsible for the Department of Development and Urban Planning Techniques at the Cégep de Jonquière, Jean-Guillaume Simard, who notes that the institution is “working very hard” to raise awareness of this field in hopes of “increasing the number of students” in this program. “But we can’t force people” to study in this field, he specifies.
Joined by The duty, the office of the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, has not commented on the possibility of including this program among those eligible for Perspective scholarships, intended to attract students in fields with labor shortages. ‘artwork. By email, he instead reminds us that “the Parcours scholarships for student mobility are aimed precisely at attracting students from outside these regions, by offering up to $7,500 per year for this field of study.”
Additional delays
This shortage has the effect that processing times for housing construction permits have lengthened in recent years in many cities in the province, notes Mr. Malouin, whose observation is shared by the cities and several municipal inspectors. joined by The duty.
“When it’s young people who arrive and who take more time to make sure they don’t forget anything [pendant leurs inspections]”, this puts pressure on the deadline for the completion of major projects”, notes Dominic Thibeault, who indicates that the challenges of retaining technician-inspectors at the City of Trois-Rivières mean that the “average seniority” of these are two years. “It affects service to citizens in an immense way,” he notes.
“The delays are astronomical” in the issuance of building permits, notes Montreal built environment inspector Giovanni Di Tirro. A situation that he partly attributes to the lack of inspectors in place in the metropolis. According to him, the salaries offered for this position should be increased to avoid the “exodus” of these workers “to the private sector”.
Three tenant rights organizations joined by The duty note for their part that inspectors are taking more and more time to respond to tenants’ requests and to visit their accommodation to note unsanitary or safety problems. A delay which often stretches over several weeks, they note. “It can, in certain circumstances, cause problems for the health and safety of occupants,” notes the coordinator of the Logemen’occup organization, based in Gatineau, François Roy. And sometimes, the inspector simply does not come to see the extent of the damage, due to lack of time, he laments.