Enhanced ventilation standards and other heightened safety protocols are now mandated for handling asbestos on Quebec construction sites. New updates to the provincial construction safety code also reclassify the removal of drywall with asbestos compounds in the joint-filler from a low-risk to moderate-risk activity.

Regulations now more precisely specify that, where required, exhaust ventilation systems must have high-efficiency filters and provide at least four air exchanges per hour. A new definition has also been added for “wetting agent” — as a surfactant or detergent additive to improve water’s penetrability of asbestos-containing materials — and this is now prescribed where asbestos-containing materials are kept wet to immobilize friable particles during indoor abatement procedures and the removal of debris.

Other new rules address: the decontamination, storage and discarding of work clothes and protective equipment; the cleaning of tools; and containers used to store and transport debris.