The key question here is, are you a volunteer? I reckon not for the simple reason that the work you do is to the benefit of a corporation of which you are a member. Is doing a few hours a week’s work for the executive committee (and thus saving on strata management fees) any different from doing a few hours work in your family’s business and thus saving on accountancy or shop assistant wages? It’s not the same as doing charity work which only benefits other people.
Sure, the voluntary work you do on your EC or around your building benefits your immediate community – but it also boosts the value of your home.
However, and we should heed Colin Grace’s advice not to panic, this only really applies when members of the executive committee have been warned that there may be a danger and decide to do nothing about it. There is no ‘innocent victim” in that scenario. If Executive Committee members give levies a higher priority than personal safety then they probably deserve what’s coming to them.
These laws are about an individual or collective decision to do nothing about a potential danger to life and limb. That’s called culpable negligence and all these new laws do is to make people live up to their responsibilities BEFORE an accident happens, rather than waiting until after someone is hurt or killed.
And one final point on whether or not you are a volunteer in terms of the clause you cite above – if all those regulations applied to executive committee members, why do we have Executive Committee insurance which covers EC members in case they make a mistake while acting in good faith?
As for a second opinin, both lawyers who’ve written about this on this Forum agree (to a great extent). But any others who have a differing view are welcome to chip in.