All seven bodies of victims from Old Montreal fire recovered, five total officially identified
Posted March 27, 2023 1:11 pm.
Last Updated March 27, 2023 6:31 pm.
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Some of the victims had rented units in the building on Airbnb, which was prohibited from allowing hosts to rent short-term rentals in the area due to a city bylaw.
Airbnb has since announced it would remove all listings in Quebec from its platform that don’t have a permit from the province.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
“So you got different possible causes. The obvious ones that you ask us questions about are the criminal ones,” said Shane. “So it could be criminal intention, Somebody lighting the fire. It could be part of negligence. But usually most of the time it’s involuntary. Whether it being a smoker, you know, something that has to do with somebody smoking, it can also be kitchen, like cooking or cooking or electrical cause. So those are all types of causes that are possible. When we took charge of the case more than a week ago, we started with a broad vision of all possible causes and as we go further, we will be able to to identify the cause. We’re working hard on that.”
The fire department says they’ve gone door to door to check fire safety in many of the older buildings in the area.
Montreal’s official opposition leader, Aref Salem, says the city needs to step up.
“First of all, when you submit a permit, the city has to make sure that the permit is right before delivering the permit. The plans are right before they give the permit,” Salem. “The second thing, when you send inspectors, there’s a follow up to do and what I’m hearing right now, there was no follow up done and it’s really dangerous.”
“We had the tragedy basically to know that there is things in the city that’s not done the right way,” he added.
