The good weather and heat of the next few days in Quebec may prompt you to take off your bathing suit and jump in the water, so it’s important to remember to be careful around the pool!
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According to data from the Life Saving Society, swimming pools are responsible for 15% of drownings each year, including 7 fatal and 28 non-fatal out of 35.
To avoid drowning, it is important to properly educate your children about the dangers around swimming pools.
“We must take the time to raise our children. You must not be near water or go swimming without your parents being present. Most children and even the elderly drowned alone. “Nobody to watch them and nobody to pull them out of the water,” said Raynald Hawkins, director of the Life Saving Society.
For Mr Hawkins, the solution to preventing drowning is to make swimming pools completely inaccessible.
“The goal we have in the regulations is to make everything inaccessible,” he added.
How can we properly and safely prepare our swimming pools?
In Quebec, regulations governing the safety of private swimming pools must be followed.
A fence with a minimum height of 1.2 m and a self-closing security gate must be installed around the swimming pool.
The canopy must not be designed to be easily climbed over and any fixed structure or device that might allow a child to reach the pool must be installed more than one meter from the pool wall.
Owners are responsible for properly securing their pools or they could be fined $500.