The Canadian Press
TORONTO ? The province is coming under fire for failing to act quickly to install sprinklers in all nursing homes after a fire this week at a facility in Orillia killed two people.
Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday he will wait for the results from the Ontario fire marshal's investigation into the Orillia fire before deciding whether sprinklers should be mandatory.
"We very much look forward to the results of the investigation and any recommendations that might arise from that," McGuinty said.
"There are some folks who advise that we ought to install sprinklers in all of our buildings and retrofit all of our homes. We're going to wait for the advice that we get from this particular investigation."
Ontario's fire marshal has assigned 10 people to investigate the cause of the fire, and has repeatedly said in the past that sprinklers are needed.
A coroner's inquest into a 1995 fire at a Mississauga retirement home also recommended making sprinklers mandatory in private facilities.
"It seems we run on reports but at some point somebody's going to have to make a hard, fast life safety decision," said Richard Boyes, president of the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs.
"We can pass numerous other pieces of safety legislation in the province without a lot of effort. Why is this one taking so much?"
It's not necessary to know the cause of the fire in Orillia to understand that sprinklers would have slowed its spread, Boyes said, adding that fire chiefs "are extremely frustrated that people continue to die unnecessarily."
"What number do we have to have die in a fire before all of a sudden everybody says this has to happen?" Boyes asked.
"In my books we are two too many right now."
The association believes sprinklers should be installed anywhere that people sleep, and has repeatedly lobbied the government on the issue.
"Every investigation is going to say it would help mitigate the problem," Boyes said.
"We just need to ultimately accept that we need sprinklers and move on with it."
Community Safety Minister Rick Bartolucci said Wednesday that while sprinklers are already required in new buildings, retrofitting old homes is complicated, so he wants to wait for the fire marshal to look at possible regulatory amendments and bring the province some options.
"This is a tragedy. There were recommendations 14 years ago that haven't been acted upon," Bartolucci said.
"I want to ensure that I look at all those options, I want to ensure that I can feel comfortable in knowing that in the future we have a stronger protection than we have in the past."
Progressive Conservative critic Peter Shurman said the province should stop dithering and put existing recommendations in place.
"When you're dealing with two deaths and the possibility of more as a result of critical injury, we have to look seriously at recommendations that are already there from previous inquests at the level of the fire marshal, and we have to consider sprinklers."
NDP critic Andrea Horwath said McGuinty's response is "completely unacceptable."
"What he's saying is, we would rather sit on our hands and do more studies and more investigation instead of doing the right thing by our most vulnerable seniors."
Two residents died and 11 were injured after a fire at the Muskoka Heights Retirement Residence, a privately run home that reportedly did not have a sprinkler system.
The province's fire protection act doesn't require sprinklers in private nursing homes.