Last week, a five-year-old boy drowned in a pool in Pierrefonds, a case the province is investigating.
According to Adam Di Fulvio of Canada Swim School, there is room for improvement in both the province’s safety standards for pools as well as how parents supervise their kids.
The current pool regulations are for structures built as of July 2010.
“It covers stuff like how high a fence you have to have, self-closing gates, no obstacles around it that kids can use to climb over, stuff like that,” he said.
“Though this has been very effective, we see from accidents like this that more needs to be done.”
Di Fulvio asks whether the current provincial standards should apply to pools that are over nine years old.
The current regulations require a permanent fence, something that homeowners may not necessarily want.
“A compromise could be maybe getting a temporary fence in place,” he said.
“There are some that are mesh that are less expensive, but still provide the same coverage at a fraction of the cost.”
For parents, Di Fulvio has coined the ABCs of pool safety:
-Always watch your kids
-Be able to swim
-Checklist for backyard pools
“A lot of parents think, ‘Oh my kid is swimming. I’m just sitting on the side playing on my phone. I’ll run in and do some laundry,’” he said.
“That is not adequate. Always eyes on...or better yet, being in the water.”
