5 dead in at Quebec retirement home blaze

SPRINKLER REGULATIONS

CARP, an association representing the elderly in Canada, has long demanded that all such facilities install sprinklers, but said cost concerns have overridden safety needs.

"We've had these kinds of fires over the last three decades, inquest after inquest making these recommendations. Here we are today and we still don't have ... a national standard that's enforced and fully funded," said CARP spokeswoman Susan Eng.

A firefighter looks on at the seniors residence Residence du Havre after a fire in L'Isle Verte, Quebec, January 23, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

An investigation by La Presse newspaper published on Friday found that 1,052 of 1,953 private seniors' residences in Quebec have no sprinklers at all, and 204 of them, including the L'Isle-Verte home, had only partial sprinkler systems.

"It's clear that the best way to protect our seniors in these residences is to have sprinklers," said Andre St-Hilaire of the Quebec Association of Fire Chiefs.

Canada has a patchwork of regulations for homes for the elderly that can vary from province to province. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, made sprinklers mandatory at the beginning of the year in all homes for seniors, allowing a phase-in period for existing homes.

The United States now requires all long-term care facilities to have sprinkler systems if they serve Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.