The Decibel - New details emerge about Montreal’s deadliest fire in decades

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

On Monday, Montreal police said the Old Montreal fire that killed seven people in March 2023 is now being treated as a criminal investigation. Alongside police looking into persons of interest in the case, the Globe’s Montreal-based reporter Frédérik-Xavier Duhamel reported on the many safety violations in the burned-out building that Montreal and Quebec officials had known about for more than a decade. He uncovered a moratorium on enforcing evacuation route violations that had been in place since 2018, which were quietly lifted in the days after the fire.His investigations are trying to answer: how did this happen and who is ultimately responsible for the deaths of seven victims and the safety of Montrealers?Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

On March 16th, in the early hours of the morning, a historic building burned down in old Montreal. It's a big building. It's a 14-unit, three-story. It was a stone building, so all the inside was charred and completely destroyed while the stone facade and the turret were still standing. Frédéric-Xavier Duhamel was covering this for The Globe from Montreal when it first happened. We didn't know the extent of the tragedy right away

because it took a few days before authorities, firefighters and the police announced that seven people were missing and they recovered seven bodies over the next several days. There's nine cushions that that were able to get out. Two of them are still in emergency, in a big fire. We have seven people who we think are inside. One of them, we were able to take out. At their arrival, there was already heavy fire involvement to the building.

They rescued many people from windows and from other parts of the building. Nine people were transported to the hospital, of which two are still hospitalized. Our thoughts are with them. And Frédéric Xavier, who also goes by FX, has been following the story ever since. He's recently uncovered concerns surrounding the building's safety that go back more than a decade. And then on Monday, Inspector David Shane of the Montreal Police made an announcement. Following several analysis results collected to date, the SBVM's Arson and Explosives Unit is able to confirm

that the accidental cause has now been ruled out. We are now talking about a criminal investigation. Our investigators have identified an area where the fire started and I can confirm that traces of accelerant were found which may help explain the speed at which the blaze spread combined with the building's heritage structure. Today, FX is on the show to tell us what we've learned about this deadly fire. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail.

Frédéric Xavier, thanks for being here. Thank you for inviting me, Cheryl. This fire broke out back in March, and we're talking to you today because there are some recent developments, but I think it's worth catching people up with what happened. What stories did we hear from people trapped inside basement and she was able to go out through a window. But she told us that she and her boyfriend did not hear any alarms when the fire broke out. There were reports of people who jumped from the second floor, from windows, or who waited on the outside walls for help from the firefighters. That sounds so scary. Yeah. So on site, I spoke with Louis-Philippe Lacroix, whose daughter, Charlie Lacroix, she was 18. She died in fire. Mr. Lacroix knew then and there that his daughter had perished because she and her friend had called 911 during the fire, pleading for them to come and save them because they were trapped in a

windowless room. That's when we started realizing that there were several things that might have been problematic before the fire even started. Seven people died and nine people were injured. I think six escaped unhurt. And you mentioned there that some people did die. Can you give me a sense of who they were? What did we learn about them? Yes. So there was a longtime resident, Camille Maher, who was an artist, a photographer who lived there. There was Nathan Sears, who was 35. He was an academic, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Toronto. There was Dania Zafar, a graphic designer from Toronto, who was visiting Montreal with her friend, Sania Majar-Khan, who was also in her

early 30s and passed away. There was Anne Wu, who was a neuroscientist originally from China, who was working at the University of California, San Diego. And she was in Montreal for a conference. She passed away. There was Charlie Lacroix, who was 18. She was staying in an Airbnb with friends. She was from Terrebonne. It's a suburb north of Montreal. And there was also Walid Belkala, who was also 18, who was also a student.

And I should mention that it is exceedingly rare for this many people to die in a fire in Canada and in Montreal. There was a report by the Journal de Montréal that reported that you have to go back almost 50 years in 1975 to find a fire that caused more fatalities. And it's also exceedingly rare for young, able-bodied people to die in a fire. I've spent a lot of time reading through coroner's reports of deaths in fires in Montreal. And most of the time, those are older people who might have difficulty moving around. What does that tell us about the conditions of the building? The fact that you say it's exceedingly rare to have young, able-bodied people not being able to escape a fire. What does that say?

Well, multiple investigations are continuing right now. There will be a public investigation by the coroner's office. But we also found through our own investigations that there were many problems with the building and its fire safety record. I and others have reported that the building was flagged multiple times throughout the years for fire safety infractions related to firewalls, to alarm systems, to evacuation routes. And I wonder, can you just describe what this building was like before it burned down? Give us a picture of what we're talking about here. It's a big building. It's three-story. It's 14 residential units plus a commercial space made of stone walls. It's a historic building. It was built in 1890. It had this distinctive turret on the corner. It's situated in the historic part

of Montreal. It's right next to an anthropology and history museum, the Musée Pointe-à-Calière. It was bought in 2009 by a man named Emilheim Benhamar. And almost as soon as he purchased the building, there started to be reports of various fire safety issues in the building. What happened after 2009, this first complaint was filed? So initially, the city brought charges against the owner, Mr. Ben Amar, in the municipal court. That added to a little more than $700 for things related to non-compliant firewalls and lack of an evacuation plan being displayed. But the city also dropped charges relating to evacuation routes and alarm systems. So that was in 2013 that he was fined and that other charges were dropped. And there was no further court case about any of the other issues afterwards concerning this building. And then after 2013, did anything get fixed or

did the complaints continue? So some of the things that were flagged got fixed. There are records that firewalls, for example, were fixed in some parts. But other issues, there's no record that they were ever fixed. And that's the case for evacuation routes that were not compliant. And also for alarm system issues. This has been a recurrent issue at the building. And some issues with the alarm systems were fixed, but other issues emerged as late as 2020. We have records saying that the alarm systems were not up to code and we don't have records of them ever being fixed. And the same goes for evacuation routes. Some of the issues that were flagged in 2009 were still issues as late as 2018, and there's no record of them ever being fixed before the fatal fire of March 16th. If there were all these complaints, why did this building continue to operate as it did? There's no clear answer to that, but what my reporting has shown is that City of

Montreal's fire department instituted in 2018 a moratorium on the enforcement of issues related to evacuation routes and alarm systems upgrades. And this is a citywide moratorium, but we have records that show that it affected this building in particular because the file relating to evacuation routes was closed in 2021 because of this moratorium. Okay, so let's get into this. Back in May, you learned that this fire department had instituted this moratorium back in 2018. So what process specifically was being suspended here? They conduct thousands of inspections per year. And then for some specific issues, they fill what's called a request for expertise. And then this goes to what's called a technical officer, who's another official within the department, who will be able to better assess whether the building is up to code or not. And so that's what was suspended in 2018 were those requests for expertise regarding evacuation routes.

And this is important because what it means is, according to sources at the fire department who were familiar with the process with inspections, what it means is this stopped enforcement against owners who were not maintaining or upgrading their buildings for them to be up to code, like Mr. Villamal. So to be clear, the city didn't actually stop inspecting buildings, they just stopped taking people to court.

Yes, the inspections continued, but the enforcement stopped. Why would they do that? So after my reporting in May, the fire chief, Richard Libman, called the press conference and he admitted to the existence of the moratoriums. And he said those were in place because the fire department was unable to win court cases. He said those were complex cases and the city was not able to win their case with the proofs that they had in those cases. They mentioned that their officials lacked training to enforce issues related to evacuation routes. In my reporting in May, I also found that the moratorium had been quietly lifted in the days following the fatal fire.

An indirect reaction to it, according to my sources and internal memos. But Mr. Liebman, the fire chief, said that the fire department had been in the process of lifting the moratoriums in the months preceding, but that it was accelerated following the fire. Following my reporting, the Montreal Mayor Valérie Blanc was questioned by the opposition at City Hall. She said that she was not aware of this moratorium. She said she was shocked. She asked the city's compt General, to accompany the fire department to look at the process that led to these moratoriums. And there should be announcements related to the Comptroller General's examination of the fire department and measures to be taken, if any.

We'll be right back. So FX, you've been reporting on this since March, and you'veed a few hundred dollars because of non-compliances in his building. And also that some other charges were dropped. Now, what I learned most recently is that the city of Montreal asked for those charges to be dropped. And this is significant because after my reporting in May, when I uncovered the moratoriums, the fire chief, Mr. Libman, said that those moratoriums were put in place because the city was not able to win court cases

with the kind of evidence that it gathered. But in the case of Mr. Ben Amar in 2013, the city did not even try to test its evidence regarding the non-compliant evacuation routes and alarm systems. So FX, we know there's a criminal investigation underway, but do we know who was responsible for the state of the building before the fire? So it's a shared responsibility. The owner of the building is responsible to keep it up to code. But the fire department is also responsible to enforce the code. And the RBQ, the Régie du bâtiment du Québec, this is a provincial organization that drafts regulations and

enforces them relating to building codes in Quebec. And they also have jurisdiction in this regard. I should mention that there were inspections as soon as 2009 showing a variety of issues, fire safety issues in the building. And one of the inspectors that conducted those early inspections, she filed a complaint with the IRBQ in 2011 and flagging longstanding issues, the evacuation routes issues in the building. Okay. So we've kind of laid out here that the responsibility is kind of in a number of different places. We have the owner, we have the RBQ, which is the province, and also we have the fire department is kind of responsible for what's going on. I want to talk about the owner, Emile Benamor. He owns other buildings. What do we know about those buildings? He does.

He has something like 15 or 20 buildings in Montreal. And what we have learned in the documents provided by the fire department, by inspection reports, including inspection reports in other buildings, is that this is not the only building that had issues, that had fire safety issues. Other buildings from past inspections had problems with evacuation routes, problems with fire escapes. I visited some of the other buildings owned by Mr. Benama,

and I saw some troubling signs. There was this building where a renter showed me the back door. He told me it had been screwed shut with screws and the holes were still there. And of course, it caused him great concern in the case of a fire. Oh, my gosh. FX, I'm also wondering about the families of the victims. Like, what are they doing in response five months later? So one victim's family, the family of Nathan Sears, the young academic, filed a request for authorization of a class action lawsuit early on against Airbnb,

against the owner of the building, Mr. Ben Amar, and against Tariq Hassan, who was allegedly running illegal Airbnbs in that building. Their lawyer told me that she was also very much considering adding the city of Montreal to the lawsuit after our reporting. There's also Louis-Philippe Lacroix, the father of Charlie Lacroix, the 18-year-old woman who died in the fire. His lawyer told me that he was planning to file a lawsuit against the city of Montreal, Mr. Benhamar, among others. I'm wondering about institutionally, what's happening then? Is anything being done to look into how this all happened? Yes. So there will be a public coroner's investigation, meaning there will be public hearings, probably recommendations in the

coroner's report when it is done. There are the family's lawsuits that are upcoming. Of course, it will take months, if not years, to get any resolution out of this. And our own reporting has triggered the City of Montreal's Comptroller General's review of the fire department policies regarding the moratoriums. FX, just to end here, I'm wondering what this will all mean for the future of building safety in Montreal, because Montreal is an old city. It's known for its historic architecture,

very beautiful architecture. And that also means that there are a lot of old buildings there. I mean, how do people feel safe after what happened in March? Answers are few at the moment. Of course, I reported on this as a journalist for the Globe and Mail, but I'm also a resident of Montreal. And so, you know, after my reporting in May, when I reported about the moratoriums that lasted for years preventing enforcement against owners of buildings that were not up to code. The fire chief, Mr. Libman, he insisted on the fact that the fire department had never stopped inspections. I'm not sure how that was supposed to be reassuring for Montrealers, because we all knew that there had been multiple inspections at the old Montreal building that burned in March. The issue was rather that there was no enforcement following

those inspections. But there are multiple investigations continuing. There will be a public investigation by the coroner's office, which will probably end with recommendations. There will be the results of the review of the fire department's policies by the city's comptroller general. There are those lawsuits by the family. There is an investigation by the police. So hopefully Montrealers get more answers in the coming months and families of the victims get some closure. FX, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Cheryl. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland.

Michal Stein helped produce this episode. Nagui Nia is our summer producer. Our producers are Madeline White and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.