Chinese teen drowns in B.C. lake

A 17-year-old international student found floating in the water at a lake near Squamish, B.C., died early Sunday.

Police said the teen, who is from China, was swimming with a friend at Alice Lake Provincial Park on Saturday afternoon when he encountered difficulty.

He was later found floating and unconscious and was pulled from the lake, police said.

An air ambulance flew the teen to B.C. Children's Hospital in Vancouver, where he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.

His mother, who was on vacation in Canada, was with him when he died, police said.

The international student was on a day trip with a group from Bodwell High School, a boarding school in North Vancouver.

The B.C. Coroner's Service is investigating.

Rash of drownings

There have been several drownings and close calls on lakes, rivers and pools across Canada this month, including nearly a dozen deaths involving teenagers and children.

In B.C., four people drowned last week, including a toddler who fell into Okanagan Lake while on a family vacation and a 16-year-old girl who died on Hatzic Lake when she fell from a boat and was run over.

In Ontario, a three-year-old girl died Saturday after she was pulled from a backyard pool in the North York area of Toronto.

Several days before that, a four-year-old boy drowned in a river in Peterborough, and last weekend an 18-month-old baby died after being pulled from a pond in Ajax, northeast of Toronto.

The incident in Squamish, about 50 kilometres north of Vancouver, comes just days after the release of a report that suggested newcomers to Canada are at a greater risk of drowning in boating and swimming mishaps than those born in this country.

The study, commissioned by the Lifesaving Society of Canada, focused on newcomers from China, South Asia and Southeast Asia, and found that people who have been in Canada for less than five years are at highest risk of drowning.

Twenty per cent of new immigrants surveyed for the study said they couldn't swim, compared with just four per cent of Canadian-born respondents.

Despite the disparity, 79 per cent of the new immigrants surveyed said they planned to spend time on or around the water this summer.