Mayor Valérie Plante confirmed on Tuesday that a moratorium on investigations concerning building evacuation routes had been introduced by the Montreal Fire Department (SIM) in 2018. But according to her, this moratorium was lifted in 2021 , and not last March, following the fire in Old Montreal that killed seven people.
Valérie Plante learned of the existence of this moratorium by reading an article in the Globe and Mail released on Monday. “It worried us a lot. Several calls, you can imagine, were made to the Montreal Fire Department via senior management to ask for explanations. […] Because security, we must not skimp with that, ”she said when questioned by the leader of the opposition, Aref Salem, on the occasion of the assembly of the municipal council on Tuesday morning.
“There was indeed a moratorium which was put in place, according to the information we received, after the DPCP [Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales] mentioned to the SIM that certain inspections did not provide sufficient evidence in court. »
But according to the SIM, the moratorium on the investigations of the experts would have been lifted in 2021 and not a few weeks ago as indicated by the Globe and Mail, supported the mayor. “We will do everything to shed light on this situation because it is not what we want. Everything must be in place so that security and building inspection [soient assurées] “.
The Globe and Mail reported Monday that following the fire in Old Montreal, which occurred on March 16, the SIM would have discreetly lifted the moratorium in place since 2018 on investigations concerning the evacuation routes of buildings. According to the daily, this moratorium would have been decreed due to a lack of staff training. It ensured that the firefighters no longer enforced safety standards on the evacuation routes of the buildings on its territory.
Shortcomings identified as early as 2009?
According to the revelations of World, a SIM inspector reportedly identified as early as 2009 gaps in the Place d’Youville building which was engulfed in flames last March, causing seven deaths and injuring several. This inspector reportedly identified dead-end corridors and an insufficient number of exits. No document in the file shows that the problems have been corrected, according to the daily.
In 2018, the inspector would have again tried to report problems concerning the absence of a second exit on the third floor and a dead end corridor on the second floor, underlines the daily. First approved, the request would have finally been refused in 2021 due to the moratorium.
“The City of Montreal has always invested in the SIM. In the last year, 27 million have been invested, ”supported Valérie Plante on Tuesday. “We hired a lot of new inspectors, preventionists. So every effort is being made, but if there is more to be done, obviously we will do it, based on the information that the Fire Department gives us. »
Recall that in April, Quebec ordered the holding of a public coroner’s inquest into the fire in Old Montreal in order to shed light on the circumstances of this tragedy.