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Manitoba is updating its regulations governing the handling of asbestos to protect workers from dangerous exposure to the material, the leading cause of work-place related deaths in the province, the government says.
“Stronger, clearer rules were needed to protect workers. At the end of the day, this work is about prevention. It’s about making sure that people who repair and maintain our buildings can go home safe to their families,” Labour and Immigration Minister Malaya Marcelino told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.
Under the new rules, workers who handle asbestos will need to be trained and certified. Employers who use the material will need to register with the province, while building owners will take on greater responsibility to ensure workers are not put at risk, the province says.
The government is giving workers until June 2027 to either pass an exam conducted by the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba on the safe handling of asbestos or be trained and take the test to be certified, Marcelino said.
Training costs can range from $150 to $950 per worker, the minister said, an estimate based on B.C.’s model that requires workers to get special training before doing asbestos abatement in buildings.
Companies with employees handling asbestos will also need to be registered with the province by June 2027, or they won’t be authorized to work with the material.
Asbestos was commonly used in roofing materials, insulation and other building products for decades in Canada. It was not fully banned in Canada until 2018, although its use was largely phased out around 1990.
During demolition and construction projects, microscopic asbestos fibres can be released and trapped in people’s lungs. It’s known to cause several health conditions, including cancer.
‘New rules will save lives’
About six Manitobans have died on average annually from diseases including mesothelioma cancer and the scarring of the lung issue, contracted through asbestos exposure, according to Kevin Rebeck, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour (MFL).
Even though the risks related to asbestos exposure have long been known, Rebeck says, Manitoba’s rules were woeful and inadequate rules. The province had general workplace safety and health regulations for asbestos, but training on how to handle the material wasn’t standardized or made mandatory, andultimately left up to the employer.
Rebeck says some companies trained workers well but others were skimped on needed requirements for protection, such as specialized equipment.
As more aging buildings require demolition or repairs workers are going to be exposed to asbestos in the near future, Rebeck said.
The MFL has sought stronger regulations for handling the material because Manitoba could face a new wave of asbestos-related deaths without them, Rebeck says.
“Protection from asbestos is literally a life and death issue for the workers,” Rebeck said. “These new rules will save lives.”
The regulations can also prevent asbestos exposure to building occupants.
Jeremy Carslon, president and training co-ordinator for Insulators Local 99 — the union representing heat and frost insulators in Manitoba — says friable asbestos, a variation of the material, can be powdered with hand pressure and released into the air if not properly treated or blocked off.
“That will expose all the tenants of the building or the school children or whoever is in the building that this work is being done on, which is quite detrimental to everyone’s health,” he said.
Carslon is happy to see stricter regulations are coming because at the moment it is hard to know how many people are handling asbestos in Manitoba and who is following the rules.
“Sometimes people will put an ad up on Kijiji and then [workers] will go and do the work not knowing it’s asbestos, because they didn’t have the proper training.”
The MFL said it was aware of a number of job postings in the summer offering people opportunities for asbestos removal.
Without regulations it would have been hard to ensure workers had the skills and equipment to do the job safely, Rebeck, says.
“Having these rules in place will give health-and-safety officers the means to make sure … that employers have been registered and people have training,” he said.
Otherwise “this act will now make it possible to issue stop work orders, to issue fines for employers if they aren’t following [the rules].”
