Longer summers leaving beaches exposed, councillors worry

As the summer season gets longer, city councilors are concerned about the number of people using beaches during unsupervised times.

This year, the City of Ottawa’s beaches operate with supervision from noon to 7 pm from June 15 to Aug. 25. But councilors say those times don’t align with the heat the city has experienced.

“With climate change, we’re getting hotter and hotter days before that opening and people are feeling like, well, shouldn’t we be open now,” said Bay Coun. Theresa Kavanagh.

There have been four fatal drownings since 2020 at the beach in her ward, Britannia. A coroner’s report from July 2023, based on three of the deaths, recommended the City of Ottawa staff beaches with lifeguards during all hours of daylight.

The latest death was of a nine-year-old boy in early June, when the city’s “beach season” had not begun.

“It was very early in the season and yet a very hot day and so the temptation is there to go to a beach — that was June 3. Normally we don’t even think of swimming that early,” she said.

The city’s supervised beach hours run from 12 pm to 7 pm and end a week before Labor day. (Nick Persaud/CBC)

River Coun. Riley Brockington, who has Mooney’s Bay beach in his ward, said he also worries about people using it before or after hours.

“At the back of my mind, I’m thinking about times of the day where people swim when their lifeguards are not on shift. I see people in the water, I see people who are not good swimmers in the water and that’s a risk to themselves, but also of course a risk to the city,” he said on Wednesday.

Brockington said the city should look at extending the hours and season to help better protect residents, and visitors coming to Ottawa’s beaches.

Brockington said he raised these concerns with the city, and is looking forward to seeing the recommendations from the Lifesaving Society after they do safety audits on all Ottawa’s beaches next week.

“We know people are there, so why do we not have staffing that matches that need,” Brockington said.

Not an easy question

As much as Kavanagh wants to see changes at her beach to increase safety, she said extending hours isn’t easy.

“We’ve always had students primarily for lifeguarding and our season opening basically coincides when they’re available,” she said.

Sean Duffy, vice president of management training for the Lifesaving Society Ontario branch, said there is a shortage of lifeguards across the country.

“It can be challenging to recruit,” he added.

Sean Duffy with the Lifesaving Society says that drownings are preventable, and the safest place to swim is close to a lifeguard. (Nick Persaud/CBC)

In 2020, the Lifesaving Society lowered its age requirement for the national lifeguard certificate from 16 to 15 years old.

When determining if someone meets the standard to receive the certificate, it’s based on their performance rather than their age, according to Duffy.

Kavanagh agrees.

“I wouldn’t rule out anyone who’s been trained properly. You can be a very mature 15-year-old… we’ve got 17-year-olds winning (Olympic) medals,” she said.

But she said extending hours, and hiring more lifeguards would be a big budget ask.

In a statement from the city on Wednesday, they said extending hours would pose challenges as there’s not sufficient daylight at the start and end of the day for lifeguards to properly supervise.

“The City undertook a benchmarking exercise to determine the operational hours of other municipal and public beaches in Ontario, and at beaches relatively close to Ottawa in Quebec. Information from this exercise identified that Ottawa’s beach operating hours align with those of other beaches. No other supervised beaches have operating hours that match daylight hours,” it read.

Kavanagh said she would like to see the city offer more places where people can cool off such as pools or splash pads to help see people away from beaches during unsupervised hours.

“We have to do better,” she said.