A 12-year-old Outaouais boy drowned in a hotel pool in Montreal even though a lifeguard was on duty at the time.
Jean-Gardy Bienvenue was found unconscious at the bottom of the outdoor pool of a Holiday Inn in the Montreal borough of St-Laurent around 8:25 p.m. on Saturday.
Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful and he was later confirmed dead at a downtown hospital.
The cause of the drowning is unknown but police say it appears to be an accident.
"We have several witnesses including the people that were in the pool, a lifeguard, maybe they'll be able to tell us exactly what happened," said Montreal police spokesman Laurent Gingras.
Police say they are not considering criminal charges.
"It appears at this point we're dealing with an accident," said Gingras.
An autopsy will be performed early this week.
The boy was in town with his parents for a soccer tournament. The team has since pulled out of the competition.
This is the 49th drowning in Quebec this year, according to Quebec Lifesaving Society statistics.
The death comes in the light of a coroner's report released last Friday recommending mandatory swimming lessons for all primary school children.
The recommendations followed an inquest into the drowning death of an eight-year-old boy in a provincial park in 2006.
Raynald Hawkins, executive director of the Quebec Lifesaving Society, says Quebec's tourism industry has tried for years to reduce safety standards in their pools.
"The hotel pool industry, the tourism industry has said for many years that nothing happens inside their pools, so we have reduce the standards, we have to reduce the training programs," Hawkins said. "This case will confirm we have to maintain the regulations and maintain the training programs."
He said there are one or two drownings each year in public pools and beaches. The majority of drownings happen in open water and backyard pools.
Drowning is the third leading cause of accidental death for Canadians under 60 years of age, and claims about 400 victims each year.
According to the coroner's report, swimming is the most popular physical activity for children between five and 12 in Canada but only 60 per cent of children take swimming lessons.
Still, drowning deaths have been declining annually since the 1990s, especially in backyard pools.
Hawkins attributes this to education campaigns and Quebec's strong safety regulations for public pools and beaches.
The Quebec Lifesaving Society will wait for more details on Bienvenue's death before it makes any recommendations, said Hawkins.
"Is it the public safety pool regulations component we have to work on, is it the ratio of the number of lifeguards to patrons, is it life guarding programs we have to revise?" he asked.
"We say the ideal situation is to always have national standard lifeguards on duty and if we can have more than one, it will be safer."
With files from The Canadian Press
