Grow-op fire sent offender’s aunt to hospital
Judge questions sincerity of nephew’s remorse before imposing sentence
A Regina lawyer said his client has learned his lesson after his marijuana grow-op apparently caused a house fire that sent his aunt to hospital with smoke inhalation.
“(He has) no intention of this occurring again,” Nicholas Robinson told a judge at Regina Provincial Court on Monday of his client, Dwayne B. Galbiati-Bourassa.
Galbiati-Bourassa, 34, pleaded guilty to drug production and failure to appear.
Judge Dennis Fenwick agreed to impose the nine-month conditional sentence that was jointly recommended by Crown and defence counsel.
Paul Malone, agent for the federal Crown, told the court that emergency crews were called at about 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 27, 2016, to a home on the 700 block of Garnet Street.
The homeowner reported she had awoken to find smoke and alerted others in the house, allowing them to escape the fire. Even so, court heard the woman’s sister had to be taken to hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation.
Fire crews found smoke coming from a small basement room partitioned off from a downstairs bedroom.
Upon checking further, they found the room contained lights, pumps, heaters, fans and power bars, among other equipment, and the reason became clear upon the discovery of six or seven small but mature marijuana plants.
The homeowner reported her son stayed in the basement but wasn’t home at the time.
While fire investigators didn’t release a specific cause of the fire, Malone said it started in the room in question, the suspected result of heating from the various electrical items being used for the grow-op.
Although Malone didn’t count the number of plants as significant, both he and Fenwick noted Galbiati-Bourassa isn’t new to the drug scene, already in possession of a handful of drug convictions.
While Robinson said his client is “apologetic,” Fenwick wondered aloud whether Galbiati-Bourassa’s remorse is wholly genuine, given his previous drug convictions likely came with apologies of their own.