Manitoba to adopt mandatory asbestos training and certification

Manitoba workers who handle asbestos will be subject to mandatory training and certification as of mid-2027.

“Building owners will have clearer responsibilities, so workers are not put at risk, and safety officers will be better equipped to check that work is being done safely and responsibly,” said Labour Minister Malaya Marcelino Thursday as she outlined the change.

Currently, Manitoba’s Health and Safety Act requires employers to ensure workers are “provided information, instruction and training” on asbestos, but doesn’t define sufficient training. In addition, the 30-hour training program run by SAFE Work Manitoba is just voluntary.

Construction-sector employers received a letter in June to inform them regulations were in the works. Marcelino said they will have until June 2027 to ensure staff are trained in a provincially run program and take an exam through the Workers Compensation Board.

Employers whose staff work with asbestos will be required to register with the province, and there will be a public database of qualified businesses, the minister said.

In Manitoba, more than half of the annual workplace deaths are a result of diseases caused by exposure to carcinogens, dust and harmful chemicals, and the majority of all workplace deaths are caused by exposure to asbestos.

Asbestos was banned in most Canadian products as of 2018, but was widely used in construction well before then. Asbestos fibres that are released during construction or demolition get trapped in the lungs and can cause ailments such as cancer and lung scarring, typically not until years after exposure.

Every year, six people die of an asbestos-related illness in Manitoba.

In 2024, British Columbia became the first province to require asbestos training standards. Federal guidelines for asbestos already exist.

Labour groups in Manitoba have called for mandatory asbestos training for years. A committee set up by the provincial government in 2023 to review the Workplace Health and Safety Act included standards for asbestos remediation and removal in its recommendations.

“For too long, it was left up to individual employers to decide what training to provide to keep workers safe from the hazard of asbestos. Some employers did a great job of training people, others, not so great,” Manitoba Federation of Labour president Kevin Rebeck said. “Now everyone will be on a level playing field.”

Rebeck said the federation took note of multiple online job postings this summer that sought workers for asbestos removal, without requiring training. There were instances when workers were asked to provide their own protective equipment.

“Having these rules in place will give health and safety officers the means to make sure that people are certified… and if not, those businesses can face fines, stop-work orders and lose WCB rebates,” he said.

This year, 117 stop-work orders related to asbestos issues were issued in Manitoba, says a database published by Workplace Safety and Health.

One fine related to asbestos has been handed out this year — mould and asbestos removal company Enviro Doctors Inc. was fined $1,000 in June for failing to comply with a notice about asbestos.

Mechanical insulator Jeremy Carlson has worked for 15 years in B.C. and Manitoba. He said even with the regulations in B.C., shady employers would target newcomers, temporary workers and at-risk youth who may not have known what the standards were, and risked getting caught without certification to avoid paying to train workers.

“There (are) ways to get around the regulation, cheat the system and then, without proper punitive damages, what can be done to deter them from exposing people to occupational hazards?” said Carlson, who is president of Manitoba’s Heat and Frost Insulators Local 99, said.

Marcelino said training could cost from $150 to $950 per worker, based on training costs in British Columbia.

For Manitoba’s incoming training program to benefit workers, fines have to be greater than a slap on the wrist for big companies, Carlson said.

He wants the first-time penalty to be at least $1,000 and said higher fines must be levied against repeat offenders.

“(Manitoba) is a province that doesn’t want to pay for the work, I’ll put it that way. We want a low bid system. We want the cheapest work to be done,” he said.

“Well, you can’t have efficiency, you can’t have high-quality work at the lowest common denominator. If you’re going to be working with something that is a killer of people, you should at least have some middle ground, right?”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca