At least 25 children under the age of five have lost their lives in residential pools over the past four years in Quebec, according to the Journal de Montreal.
Just last week, a four-year-old boy in Beauharnois, near Châteauguay, drowned in a backyard swimming pool.
In 21 of these cases, a fence was present to prevent access to the residence’s pool or that of a neighbour.
It’s a reminder to parents that the presence of a fence can lead to a false sense of security.
The Journal consulted 60 coroner’s reports on more than 70 deaths by drowning in residential pools over the past four years and found that many deaths were entirely preventable.
In many cases, doors or fences that allowed access to the pool had been left open, broken or poorly maintained.
In other cases, cedar hedges were substituting as a fence, but are not effective in keeping children out.
In almost all cases, coroner’s reports highlighted how quickly a drowning can take place, by noting that children had only momentarily escaped the supervision of a parent.
The incidents hammer home the importance of always having a designated supervisor on site and never leaving children unattended even for a few minutes.
By Sept. 30, 2025, pool owners will have to comply with several new regulations that will aim to make residential pools safer and reduce the risk of drownings.
Some new requirements: the fence must be at least 1.2 m high; the door must close and lock automatically and have a safety latch installed on the pool side, and a hedge or shrubs can no longer constitute a fence.
Residential pool owners who fail to comply will be subject to fines between $500 and $700.