Ontario has proposed lowering the minimum age for lifeguards to 15 years old, partly to address the staff shortages that many municipalities experienced last summer.

The current regulations in the province's Health Protection and Promotion Act state that all lifeguards, assistant lifeguards, aquatic instructors, and trainers must be at least 16 years old. However, a few years ago, the Lifesaving Society lowered its age requirement for obtaining the National Lifeguard certification to 15 years old, and the government is looking to better align its rules with the training course.

Stephanie Bakalar, the company's Communications Director at the Lifesaving Society Ontario, said that if a 15-year-old meets all the requirements of the Society's National Lifeguard certification, they are ready to work.

She added in an interview: "We know that our programs take maturity and judgment into account, which is essential to be a lifeguard, so lifeguards and instructors must demonstrate physical, cognitive, and emotional maturity, and we have designed our program to take that into consideration."