For example, in Montréal, at the end of the 1990s, 23 factories that manufactured asbestos products or used them in production were identified. Seven (30 %) of these factories showed problematic situations, with respect to standards being exceeded, despite the knowledge about the health risks, the regulations in force and the intervention of public health teams in these factories (INSPQ, 393). Ten years later, in 2008-2009, only nine factories were identified in Québec but in all of them, the employees were not working safely. Moreover, in one of these nine factories, significant exceedances of the exposure limit were observed, despite the use of prescribed work procedures (INSPQ, 1213).

The second important finding concerns the construction industry. In Québec, asbestos-containing materials were used abundantly in buildings constructed prior to the 1980s (5). However, in the past, no records were kept of the places where these materials were installed. Consequently, today, workers who repair older buildings do not protect themselves against this substance since they are not aware of its presence in their work environment. Furthermore, when employers and workers know that asbestos is present, it is difficult to enforce existing regulations because the protective measures are constraining. In 1998 the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec (CSST – Québec workers’ compensation board) and public health authorities adopted a joint intervention program in the construction industry. Despite this, the number of non-compliance notices issued by CSST inspectors on these work sites have not decreased with the passing years, contrary to what should be observed (INSPQ, 1213). Consequently, considering first, that the results of the exposure measurements taken on Québec construction sites show exceedances of the exposure limit for chrysotile asbestos in 43 % of cases (INSPQ, 1213) and second, that the regulations are not always applied, it follows that workers are still at risk of developing asbestos-related diseases. These points lead us to conclude that in Québec, as in other western countries, the safe use of asbestos in construction seems to be impossible to achieve (INSPQ, 393).

Despite the large number of deaths observed in the mining sector, construction and maintenance workers currently generate the greatest number of cases at the CSST for one of these asbestos-related diseases (49.5 % of cases or 646 asbestoses, lung cancers and mesotheliomas) (INSPQ, 1213). Some sources suggest that the installation of amphibole asbestos explains this “rise” of diseases in construction and maintenance. Yet according to two studies carried out for the INSPQ, between 75 % and 95 % of the materials sampled on construction sites contained only chrysotile (INSPQ, 1213 and INSPQ, 986). It therefore becomes difficult to separate the role of one type of asbestos fibre from the role of another in the development of asbestos-related diseases, and even more difficult to outrightly deny the role of chrysotile by claiming that it was not used in buildings in the past.