Mayor wants answers on snow-truck deaths

Montreal Mayor Grald Tremblay wants to know why two people died this week in separate accidents involving snow-removal crews. He says he wants a report on his desk on Thursday.

On Monday, a 21-year-old woman was killed when she was hit by a snow-removal truck in Westmount. The next night, a man in his seventies was killed by a similar truck in the city's east end. That accident did not happen near a site where snow removal was taking place.

• FROM DEC. 21, 2005: 2nd pedestrian killed by snow truck

Coun. Marcel Tremblay, who is responsible for city services, says the companies that carry out snow removal are under a lot of pressure.

"The pressure [is]coming from the population, the merchants. Everyone wanted the city cleared rapidly," Tremblay says.

The company involved in the death in Westmount says its drivers are paid by the hour, and not by the load, to make sure they are not in a rush to get the job done.

But the City of Montreal's website says contractors, in general, are paid by the number of cubic metres of snow the trucks haul away, and the distance they have to travel.

Tremblay says the mayor is demanding answers from the city's director general, "To ask him in 24 hours, give [a] report of the situation Let us know what happened. If [there are] things we can rapidly change, we will do [it].