More drownings in Canada: What needs to be done?

Three children drowned in Southern Ontario's Lake Erie this past weekend.

Two of the deceased were siblings who couldn't swim. They weren't wearing life jackets.

A young man in his 20s was rescued from Lake Ontario before he met the same fate.

In Quebec, the province with more backyard pools per capita than anywhere else in Canada, a heart-breaking record seven drownings occurred within 21 days this summer. All of the victims were under the age of 5.

The Globe and Mail reports that national surveys "have shown private pools pose by far the greatest drowning threat to young children, while older children and adults tend to drown in larger bodies of water."

[ Related: Many immigrants can't swim, says safety society ]

In Quebec, the high number of deaths "renewed calls for aggressive public education campaigns and more accessible water-safety courses for children. It has also prompted stern reminders from officials that keeping an eye on kids near the water's edge is critical," writes Monique Muise of the Montreal Gazette.

Provincial public-health officials are also pushing for tougher security rules, demanding that all backyard pools are fenced, not just newly installed ones as the law currently demands.

"Children drown in old pools just like new ones. I'm calling on the province to examine the logic of demanding gates on new pools and not old pools. It defies logic," Debbie Friedman, trauma director at the Montreal Children's Hospital, told the Globe and Mail.

Others are pushing for greater water-safety education — Quebec will be following Ontario's lead, launching a "Swim to Survive" program for all grade-three students — access to swimming lessons at a young age, and keeping pools isolated from homes.

[ Related: Toddler drowned 'so fast,' Quebec mother says ]

"Nobody ever thinks it's going to happen to them…and it happens so fast," Shannon Scully-Pratt, a water safety expert with the Canadian Red Cross told QMI Agency.

"It's a matter of being prepared around water at all times no matter what the age, whether they're small toddlers, growing children, teenagers and adults."

Scully-Pratt says Ontario is on track to meet the unfortunate annual average of 116 drowning deaths a year.

Montreal social worker Angeliki Souranis says the stigma that the parents were neglectful "helps us to distance ourselves, to think we would never do anything like that," but the mourning parents need compassion.

"Let me tell you, nobody is going to judge these parents more than themselves," she told the Montreal Gazette. "At the best of times, when a parent loses a child, they have guilt whether it's rational or not. Now magnify that a thousandfold, because the reality is that (drowning) is a moment of negligence."

"I don't like to point fingers at parents, but we teach our children to stay off the street, we should teach them to stay away from the water with the same vigour," Raynald Hawkins of the Quebec branch of the Lifesaving Society told the Globe and Mail. "But I know that's hard to get through to a 16-month-old who sees how much fun the pool can be."

"If we see a parent leaving a child in alone the pool, then we could start talking about negligence," Hawkins told the Montreal Gazette. "But, for us, the best way to prevent drownings of young children is education."

According to the 2011 edition of the National Drowning Report, there has been a recent "drowning resurgence" in Canada which "is of concern and reinforces the need for continued strong drowning prevention efforts."

Contrary to this weekend's sad reports, the data found that 18-to-24-year-olds have the highest death rate of any age group in Canada, with drownings also on the rise for older Canadians.

The risk of drowning is also higher for new Canadians, as they're "four times more likely to be unable to swim" than individuals born in Canada.

"Over and over again, we heard from our focus group members that swimming was a very Canadian thing to do," Barbara Byers, public education director for the Lifesaving Society told Canadian Immigrant. "Many said swimming pools and beaches were not easily accessible for them in their home country. They view Canada as being about the great outdoors and swimming is something they want for their children."

Still, drowning remains the number-one cause of unintentional injury deaths among children between the ages of 1 to 4, and the second leading cause of preventable death for children under 10, the Lifesaving Society reports.

(CBC photo)