Allison Hanes: Old Montreal fire a tragedy foretold or sinister déjà vu? (2025)

What are the odds that two tragedies of epic proportions could repeat themselves in Montreal, with so many chilling similarities, just 18 months apart?

Waking up Friday morning to news of a five-alarm blaze overnight in a century-old building in Old Montreal was a flashback to the earlier disaster that shook the city. This time it was a youth hostel smouldering on the corner of Notre-Dame and Bonsecours Sts. In March 2023, it was an apartment complex converted into illegal Airbnbs at Place D’Youville a few blocks away.

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But here’s where it gets eerie. Both buildings were owned by the same man, Émile Benamor. Both were the subject of fire-code violations in recent years as well as negative reviews from tourists complaining of windowless rooms. Both blazes were fatal, with a mother and daughter from France perishing Friday, adding to the grim toll of the seven people who died in the previous inferno. The cause of both fires appears to be criminally set, with Radio-Canada obtaining security camera footage of a hooded intruder breaking into the ground-floor restaurant under the hostel in the wee hours of Friday, then running away and snapping a photo moments later as smoke began to billow out.

The chances of so many sinister parallels and troubling coincidences must be infinitesimal. Unless, that is, we’ve failed to hold anyone to account for the previous tragedy, learned from earlier mistakes and heeded previous warnings. Since so much remains unresolved in the aftermath of 2023, it is clear this is less a case of déjà vu and more a chronicle of a tragedy foretold.

To be fair, the efforts to get to the bottom of the initial catastrophe are still playing out. That includes the police investigation, a coroner’s probe and various civil suits.

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Montreal police determined that the cause of the first fire was arson. La Presse learned that a convict with a long criminal record, including a murder rap, was on the lam at the time and is considered a prime suspect. The file has been handed over to Crown prosecutors, but no charges have yet been laid.

The case is also in the capable hands of coroner Géhane Kamel. But her inquiry is on pause until the criminal investigation is complete. However, the chief coroner has ordered a public inquest into the latest fire, giving Kamel the option of merging her mandates, all the more critical in the wake of recent developments, but which could prolong the process.

There are multiple cases before the courts, including a $22-million lawsuit filed by family members of the victims, initiated by the father of Nathan Sears. Benamor, who owned the two scorched buildings, is suing both insurers and the city while being pursued by various parties himself.

Legal proceedings take time to wind their way through the courts. However, other pressing matters remain unsettled.

The province and the city cracked down on permits for short-term vacation rentals in the aftermath of the 2023 fire, since most of those who died were staying in units illegally offered on Airbnb. But it’s unclear whether these measures have done much to curb the lucrative market that cannibalizes permanent dwellings amid a housing crisis or whether booking sites and hosts continue to flout the rules with impunity.

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The youth hostel that burned last week did, in fact, have authorization to operate as tourism rentals. But, as Ensemble Montréal said, that raises even more questions about the permit process, given documented concerns about the suitability and safety of the premises.

The opposition also has serious qualms about the priorities of fire inspectors, who shut down restaurant terrasses on Peel St. during the opening night of the Grand Prix and gave a bar owner grief about the height of the plants on his patio in the Village this summer. The Montreal Fire Department had to rekindle its followup to fire-code infractions in the wake of the first Old Montreal fire after it was revealed in the media that there had been a four-year moratorium on investigations into properties that had been red-flagged.

What are we to make of more people dying so horrifically in a second building owned by the same person, one with a history of fire-code violations? TVA reported that Benamor owns yet another building in Old Montreal containing a youth hostel, which has been cited for lacking proper escape routes and signs. Do the laws have enough teeth to force compliance? And what can be done about repeat offenders if authorities don’t have the power to shut down potential death traps?

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La Presse reported in recent days that investigators are looking into whether criminal extortion led to the torching of Loam, the restaurant under the hostel. In the last few days alone, a dépanneur in Verdun was targeted by an incendiary device, as were a café in St-Léonard and a bar in Pointe-St-Charles. Such fires are a common occurrence in Montreal but are usually quickly extinguished and don’t do much more than material damage. Have we been taking this phenomenon too lightly for too long? The shakedown theory still doesn’t explain the gravity of the fatal fire.

The integrity, effectiveness and enforceability of the fire department’s prevention practices is all the more urgent now. The building on Notre Dame and Bonsecours Sts. was found to have safety violations in 2020. The issues were said to have been corrected.

But that comes as cold comfort to the latest survivors, the victims’ families — not to mention future visitors to this city and all Montrealers. How can anyone trust that the rooms they fall asleep in at night are safe?

Last Friday, 23 of the 25 people staying in the Hostel 402 mercifully made it out of the burning building, including two who were injured, one of whom was taken to a hospital in critical condition. A mother and her young daughter from France did not. Police have identified the pair as 43-year-old Léonor Geraudie and seven-year-old Vérane Reynaud-Geraudie.

A witness told CBC he saw a woman waving her arms from the fire escape of the burning building as he looked on from across the street. It’s a haunting image, if it was indeed the victims who were unable to escape, and one that will no doubt be seared in the soul of the bystander.

But it should be branded into our collective consciousness as a reminder that after the litany of failures that contributed to the deaths of Sears, Camille Maheux, Dania Zafar, Saniya Khan, An Wu, Charlie Lacroix and Walid Belkahla in 2023, two more innocent people have been killed.

It’s hard to think of a more devastating blow to Montreal’s reputation as a welcoming city for tourists than a mother and child dying under such strange circumstances that are nevertheless frighteningly familiar.

ahanes@postmedia.com

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