Absence of life-jackets a constant in Quebec drownings, stats show

As a Quebec coroner was assigned Friday to investigate the drowning death Thursday of an 18-yearold kayaker on Lac St-Louis — the latest in a series of drownings that have made headlines over the past two weeks — public attention has been refocused on the issue of water safety in Quebec.

But statistics compiled on drowning deaths in this province possess one deadly constant: in 80 per cent of cases the victim wasn’t wearing a life-jacket.

According to numbers compiled between 2011 and 2015 by the Drowning Prevention Research Centre Canada (DPRCC), most Quebec drowning victims were adult males who died in a fresh water river or lake during a July weekend.

The DPRCC report for 2018, examining the four-year period beginning in 2011, found that men represented 83 per cent of drowning victims. In 69 per cent of cases, the drowning occurred in a river, lake or pond.

Fishermen, pleasure-craft users and canoers represented 30 per cent of all drowning victims in Quebec while drowning incidents in private or public pools accounted for just eight per cent of the incidents.

Martin Savard of the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheur, notes that a big part of preventing drownings involves changing long-held habits.

“If people aren’t wearing life jackets it’s because they never got into the habit of doing so,” he said, adding that it’s important to prepare for any eventuality when on the water.

If federal regulations call for watercraft to be equipped with a life-jacket or flotation device for each passenger, there is no legal obligation for the passenger to wear that device, a situation criticized by Serge Danis of the Domaine Shannon, a fishing and hunting lodge in De la Vérendrye Nature Preserve.

“I think it should be obligatory to wear it,” Danis said. “When we hand out a jacket, we tell them it’s to be worn.”

Danis said those who run lodges like his are the best ambassadors for water safety for the simple reason that “no one wants to be on television because there was a drowning at their place.”

Savard meanwhile acknowledges that certain circumstances — sunbathing or going inside the confines of a sailboat — could lead someone to take off their lifejacket. But he adds that it could be very difficult to put the jacket back on in the event of an accident.