There will be no fireworks during Saturday’s Canada Day celebrations at the Quai de l’Horloge in Montreal’s Old Port. A decision made following the cancellation of another pyrotechnics show scheduled for Thursday night.

It was a “heartbreaking but necessary” decision, he explains in an interview The duty the spokesman for the organization of Canada Day in Montreal, Stéphane Guertin. A decision he would maintain even in the event of a positive opinion from Montreal’s Regional Public Health Department (DRSP) through “solidarity for the great fires”.

“We’re sending the message that there are other ways to come together as citizens than with fireworks,” he says.

The cancellation follows the cancellation of the first pyrotechnic show of the International des feus Loto-Québec, which was scheduled to take place in La Ronde on Thursday.

On Thursday morning, the Montreal DSRP’s associate medical director, D^R David Kaiser explained at a press conference that the particles emitted by the fireworks had increased the smog. Had the event been maintained, the amount of air pollutants would have temporarily reached levels that public health was “not satisfied”.

“We’re up against something new in Montreal,” noted the D^R Kaiser on this review and his team’s risk analysis. “We are learning to deal with this situation, with information that does not allow us to project well in advance. »

Montreal’s regional health department sent its recommendations to La Ronde and Loto-Québec after the organizations asked for their opinion on the city’s air quality.

To see in the video