A moratorium on following up on certain kinds of fire safety inspections raises serious questions about whether the Old Montreal fire that killed seven in an illegal Airbnb could have been prevented.
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Since a fire tore through a heritage building housing illegal Airbnb units in Old Montreal in March, killing seven and injuring nine, there has been no shortage of questions about how a litany of regulations were flouted with such impunity.
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These include why short-term tourism rentals were operating without the appropriate municipal or provincial permissions, why a room was still listed on Airbnb that a previous customer had complained was hazardous, and why a building owner who racked up so many safety infractions over the years doesn’t appear to have corrected problems signalled by fire inspectors.
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Now a new and troubling accountability vacuum has been exposed that may have contributed to this horrific blaze. According to a report published in the Globe and Mail, Montreal’s fire department simply stopped enforcing some basic rules a few years back.
Memos obtained by the newspaper show the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal (SIM) suspended follow-ups on inspections that raised red flags about inadequate evacuation routes as of Oct. 26, 2018. The department also hit pause on “legal proceedings relating to the upgrade of fire alarm systems” at some point.
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We’re not talking about cutting back on the number of inspections conducted — Montreal Fire Chief Richard Liebmann assured the public Tuesday that the rhythm of usual checks never slowed. The SIM’s moratorium was on dealing with possible security breaches its own officials had already discovered in the most complex and potentially litigious cases.
But this is all the more stunning in light of what we know so far about the inferno at Place Youville.
Recall that some survivors had to jump from the burning building. One witness reported being awakened from slumber — not by the sound of the fire alarm blaring, but the bright light of flames and the sounds of explosions in the hallway. Chillingly, we also know that one of the victims, Charlie Lacroix, called 911 from inside the inferno to report she was trapped in a windowless room and couldn’t get out.
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If the deferral of deeper investigations wasn’t scandalous enough in the first place, the SIM quietly restarted probes of possible fire code safety violations in the wake of the Old Montreal tragedy. Internal communications consulted by the Globe and Mail indicated the department launched “Operation Vulcain,” a blitz to uncover “as many non-compliances as possible” in a “sensitive” and “highly publicized context.”
The reasons cited for the halt in regular activities were a lack of staff, expertise and training. Montreal’s municipal court had decided not to handle any more files for fire code infractions because of insufficient evidence in previous cases. The SIM was reviewing its policies and procedures on risk assessments when the pandemic struck and caused delays. The moratorium was in the process of being lifted when the Old Montreal building went up in flames, Liebmann stated. Those efforts were “accelerated” in the wake of the disaster.
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Also shocking is that Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante admitted at city council Tuesday that she only learned about the four-year freeze on a crucial activity from the media. As Ensemble Montréal Opposition leader Aref Salem quipped: “If information of this magnitude escapes her, what other vital information is she missing?”
Plante professed herself “enormously concerned” and asked the city’s auditor general to get to the bottom of the debacle.
Prevention is as fundamental to the work of fighting fires as hoses and ladder trucks. Proper alarm systems and enough evacuation routes are among the most elementary measures required to save lives. Opting to let potentially risky situations slide is incomprehensible.
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The most heartbreaking part is that these latest revelations demonstrate that safety concerns with the Place Youville building were not unknown or hidden — quite the opposite.
As far back as 2009, an inspector named Geneviève Tremblay had flagged a dead-end hallway on the second floor and an insufficient number of exits on the third floor. Nine years later, she was still on the case. But according to the Globe and Mail, Tremblay’s attempts to get the department to dig deeper were approved by two more officials in 2018 but rejected by a third in 2021.
Liebmann is right that fire prevention is a duty that is shared with building owners, designers, constructors and the Régie du bâtiment. But again, it appears the SIM dropped the ball on addressing the most alarming, serious and dangerous cases.
This unfathomable shirking of a basic function of the fire department will surely be the focus of the upcoming coroner’s inquest into the the fatal blaze, as well as fodder for the class-action lawsuit launched by the family of Nathan Sears, one of the seven who died.
But the unfortunate message from this whole disaster is that Montreal is the Wild West and no one is holding rule breakers to account.
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Allison Hanes: Fire department's failure to follow up on inspections is inexcusable - Montreal Gazette
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