Among children aged one to four years, only two of the 61 who had drowned (three per cent) had ever taken formal swimming lessons, compared with 35 of the 134 controls (26 per cent).

Melanie Whittaker enrolled her seven-year-old son Riley in one-on-one swimming lessons seven times at the Canada Games Pool in Kamloops but he kept failing. "They weren't able to connect with him ...