The first week of April is Global Asbestos Awareness Week.  Asbestos was regularly used in buildings until the late 1990s and if products containing asbestos are disturbed, the tiny fibres are released into the air. When they are breathed in, they can become trapped in the lungs and over time, the fibres can accumulate and lead to serious health problems.

Publicly-owned buildings have to report if there is asbestos and the results are in the online Saskatchewan asbestos registry. The Government of Saskatchewan says currently, Saskatchewan is the only provincial jurisdiction to have an online asbestos registry available to the public. To date, over 5,200 facilities have been registered in the searchable online tool.

Howard Willems of Saskatoon lobbied the federal government for an asbestos ban as he was dying of mesothelioma which is an asbestos related lung cancer.  He’d been exposed working for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, checking food plants that were under renovation. He helped found Saskatchewan’s asbestos registry and it became a reality in 2013 which is one year after Howard Willems died at age 59.

Last fall, the leader of the Saskatchewan Progress Party suggested many public housing properties in the province were vacant because of asbestos.  Jeff Walters says the options for the provincial government are to fix up the affected units or announce publicly what the asbestos situation is in the Sask Housing Authority units and develop a plan to take care of it.

In the past, asbestos was used in things like insulation, construction materials, flooring and brakes. The government earmarked $230,000 in new funding in the 2024-25 provincial budget to replace the current asbestos registry.