Boy, 4, drowns in a residential pool in Beauharnois

Quebec's lifesaving society is asking homeowners to secure their backyard pools immediately and not wait for a new law to come into effect next year, after a four-year-old boy drowned Thursday night at a residence southwest of Montreal.

Emergency services were alerted at around 8:30 p.m. about a child in cardiac arrest who had been found in a pool in Beauharnois, Que.

Marc-Olivier Chatelois, spokesperson for Chateauguay police, who serve Beauharnois, said attempts were made to resuscitate the boy, who was then transported to hospital where he was declared dead. Police said they are still trying to determine how the boy ended up in the pool.

Raynald Hawkins, executive director of the Quebec lifesaving society, said that according to media reports, the boy's death is the fifth drowning in a residential backyard pool in the province so far in 2024, and the fourth involving a child under the age of five.

It is too soon to determine whether lax safety measures were responsible for the boy's drowning, but Quebec pool owners should not wait to make their pools more secure, Hawkins said. Legislation adopted in 2010 requires homeowners to secure access to backyard pools -- but because of the COVID-19 pandemic and shortages in supply and labour, the government has pushed back the deadline to September 2025 for pools built before 2010.

"Please don't wait (until) next summer to try to meet this standard," he said.

Hawkins said that according to his group's tally, based on media reports, there were five drownings in backyard pools in Quebec in 2023, four in 2022 and six in 2021. The overall trend in the last decade has been a drop in backyard drownings, he said.

To comply with the law, homeowners must install an enclosure around below-ground pools above a certain height, and above-ground pools require ladders equipped with self-closing gates.

"What we know is that accessibility to residential pools in homes is a determining factor in the majority of drownings involving children under the age of five," he said.

On Facebook, officials with the town of Beauharnois offered their condolences to the child and his family.

"We are taking a few moments this morning to send our most sincere thoughts to the young boy, his family, the neighbourhood and also to our precious first responder colleagues who intervened at the scene of the tragedy," the municipality said.

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Aug. 2, 2024.