OTTAWA – The federal government is moving to ban all products containing asbestos by 2018.
The comprehensive ban is designed to include construction materials and brake pads that currently use the cancer-causing agent.
Even minute amounts of asbestos fibres can cause lung cancer or deadly mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer.
READ MORE: Government moving to ban asbestos, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Thousands of Canadians continue to suffer from the long-term impacts of decades of heavy asbestos use.
Canada closed its last asbestos mines a decade ago, but has continued to obstruct international efforts to list it as a hazardous substance.
WATCH: A coalition of health, labour, and environmental groups, is calling for a ban of the use of asbestos
Science Minister Kirsty Duncan says that stance will change in the next Rotterdam Convention.
READ MORE: Asbestos-related cancers on rise: StatsCan
In a news release, the government says the comprehensive ban on asbestos will include:
- Creating new regulations that ban the manufacture, use, import and export of asbestos under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.
- Establishing new federal workplace health and safety rules that will drastically limit the risk of people coming into contact with asbestos on the job.
- Expanding the current online list of asbestos-containing buildings owned or leased by the government of Canada.
- Working in collaboration with the provinces and territories to change the national, provincial and territorial building codes to prohibit the use of asbestos in new construction and renovation projects across Canada.
- Raising awareness of the health impacts of asbestos to help reduce the incidence of lung cancer and other asbestos-related diseases.
— With a file from Global News
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