The Lucknow Sentinel, 2015-01-21, Page 15Banni
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g fu
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In fear of personal injury lawsuits, many municipalities are banning tobogganing
SHEENA GOODYEAR
QM! AGENCY
While tuque-clad Canadi-
ans take to the slopes in defi-
ance of tobogganing bans, the
quintessential winter pastime
remains in danger so long as
cash-strapped municipali-
ties cower in fear of personal
injury lawsuits.
In recent years, a handful
of municipal governments
across Ontario have restricted
or outright banned toboggan-
ing on public land, and others
across the country are consid-
ering following suit.
"These huge lawsuits can
really overwhelm a munic-
ipality," Orangeville, Ont.,
Mayor Jeremy Williams said.
Orangeville recently made
headlines for posting a big
"No Tobogganing" sign on a
hill specifically built for tobog-
ganing.
The ban on Murray's Moun-
tain has been in place since
the city bought the land from
the school board in 2009, but
it's never been enforced. In
fact, most residents didn't even
know it existed until a new sign
was erected this winter.
"It's really quite absurd
when you think about it —
having a tobogganing hill
where you can't toboggan,"
Williams said.
But the city had no choice,
Williams said. Its insurance
company mandated the sign.
Even with signs, municipal-
ities aren't safe.
Despite having a citywide
sledding ban since 2003,
Hamilton was ordered to pay
$900,000 in 2013 to a man
who injured his spine when
he hit a snow-covered drain-
pipe while tobogganing on a
city hill in 2004. There were
signs, but the plaintiff said he
didn't see them.
Robert Durante, a partner
at the personal injury law firm
Oatley Vigmond in Barrie,
Ont., litigated a similar suc-
cessful tobogganing lawsuit
against an Ontario munici-
pality a decade ago, in which a
man suffered a serious spinal
injury crashing into a make-
shift snowboarding ramp
someone left in the park. If
the city had been as diligent
about maintaining the park in
the winter as in the summer,
that never would have hap-
pened, Durante said.
"I suspect some of the
municipalities just don't want
to go to the trouble of inspect-
ing parks in the win-
ter time and making it
safe, so they just ban
it:'
HOSPITALIZATIONS CAUSED BY
WINTER ACTIVITIES, BY YEAR
Excludes those treated outside of a hospital, such as
in a walk-in clinic or doctor's office.
N
N
.--i
CO
N
Fiscal year
2006- • 2007- • 2008-
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
2009- • 2010-
00
00
• -1
00
00
00
�-� Hockey
Source: Canadian Institute For Health Information
00
Skating
Banning sledding certainly
hasn't stopped them in Oran-
geville.
Last Sunday, local families
held a protest "sled -in," tobog-
ganing down the hill in defi-
ance of the rules. Mayor
Williams was there, handit
-
ing out hot chocolate.
More than 6,000 Ham-
iltonians have signed a
petition against that city's
longtime ban. Local artist
Laura Cole even wrote a pro-
test song about it.
Durante says municipali-
ties are "overestimating" the
risk of lawsuits anyway.
"I'm in the business of filing
lawsuits, so I hope that comes
as a bit of a relief to risk man-
agers," he said.
But it only takes one suc-
cessful litigation to drive up
insurance costs and make
local governments wary, the
Association of Municipalities
of Ontario said.
"It's not just tobogganing.
It's public activity in public
places," AMO executive direc-
tor Pat Vanini said. "In some
communities, they're clos-
ing down their trails, they're
taking play equipment out
of the playgrounds to reduce
their risk to expo-
sure to insurance
costs. I'm not sure
those are the kind
of communities we
want to see:'
The culprit
behind this phe-
nomenon in
Ontario is some-
thing called "joint
and several liabil-
ity," Vanini said.
Under this model,
Wednesday, January 21, 2015 • Lucknow Sentinel 15
Cr)
N
Skiing/
Snowboarding
LC)
Cr)
1
l
00
N
,-i
if some parti
lawsuit are unable
damages, any other
ant can be ordered to plc
the slack.
Vanini says municipalities
are often unfairly targeted in
these lawsuits because of their
deep pockets, even when they
only shoulder a small portion
of the blame. That drives up
insurance costs, she said, and
taxpayers pay the price.
They want Ontario to cap
the amount municipalities
can be liable for.
Christine Burke, a spokes-
woman for Ontario Attor-
ney General Madeleine Meil-
leur, said joint and liability is
"unlikely to apply to tobog-
ganing cases:'
What's more, she said the
province examined the issue
last year and "did not see
enough evidence that making
changes to joint and several
liability would have an impact
on insurance costs:'
Williams, who has spent the
last few weeks ensuring his
townspeople they won't be
arrested for tobogganing on a
tobogganing hill, disagrees.
"It might take a good old
Canadian toboggan to
knock some sense into
the premier," he said.
sheena.goodyear
@sunmedia.ca
Snowmobiling
N
LSI
N
LC)
N
Cr)
00
O
N
Tobogganing
i
r\
HOSPITILIZATIONS
BY AGE AND GENDER
In total from 2006-2011
3,000
2,000
1,000
Hockey
Fotolia photo
-- Females — Males
0 — I - - -
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
800
600
400
200
0
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
3,500
2,500
1,500
0
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
1,200 —
800
400
Total
4,363
Skiing/
Snowboarding Total
12,173
0,
200
100
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
Tobogganing
0 1 [L r
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
INFOGRAPHIC BY
MEGAN DINNER/
QMI AGENCY