Montreal fire chief says safety inspections still being done

The head of the Montreal fire department assured the public Tuesday that investigations into building evacuation routes were not halted four years ago after a media report raised questions about the city's fire safety practices.

A day earlier, The Globe and Mail reported that the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal (SIM) had initiated in 2018 a moratorium on such investigations and that it had quietly ended days after a fire ripped through a building in Old Montreal last March, killing seven people.

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante called the media report "very concerning" and called on the city's general auditor to shed light on the fire safety practices. "The safety of Montrealers is our priority. We will not compromise to get to the bottom of this tragedy," she said in a tweet.

Addressing those concerns, fire chief Richard Liebmann told reporters at a news conference that fire safety inspections were never halted. What did happen in 2018, he said, was that the fire department stopped using the courts to get building owners to comply with fire code violations in certain "complex" cases.

"We never, at any time, paused our inspections with respect to means of evacuation or any other aspect of fire inspections. The inspections were always maintained," Liebmann said, adding that the department has taken on a new approach to getting buildings into compliance.

The main reason for tackling such cases differently was because cases were lingering in the courts and "not getting anywhere." He also said inspectors lacked specific training on evacuation routes.

"We have evolved our approach and we're trying to force all building owners in all types of buildings to return to compliance quicker and more effectively than the approach that was in place before," the chief said.

The evolution is ongoing, which means the moratorium on legal recourses in certain cases is still being applied and is in the process of being lifted.

Asked by a reporter Tuesday whether not the moratorium had any effect on the Old Montreal fire on March 16, Liebmann said he couldn't give an answer since there are two investigations ongoing into the incident: one by Montreal police and another by the provincial coroner.

The opposition at City Hall criticized the Plante administration for being in the dark about the fire department's practices.

Opposition Leader Aref Salem said he always thought Liebmann to be a "really clear, straight to the point" official but said he felt the chief was hesitating to answer questions during the news conference.

The fatal fire in Old Montreal has raised several questions about the enforcement of fire safety regulations at the heritage building. Documents obtained by CTV News last month revealed that the building at the corner of Place d'Youville and Port Street had been flagged by fire inspectors for non-compliance over several years.

For example, an inspector identified an issue with the fire alarm in February 2019. According to the report, the alarm needs to reach a certain detectable decibel level inside the apartment. The inspector wrote that the building did not conform to that rule, and on a follow-up visit in November 2020, the inspector indicated that the problem hadn't been fixed.

Relatives of the victims and survivors have claimed serious fire safety issues with the building, including one rental unit that didn't have any windows.

Randy Sears, the father of one of the seven victims of the fire, has asked the court to authorize a $22-million class-aciton lawsuit against the building's owner, Airbnb -- which rented several unauthorized units in the building -- and the man believed to be renting the units on behalf of the owner.