Asbestos brake pads that can release deadly fibers during repairs will soon be banned in Ontario, if one member of the provincial parliament has her way.
Guelph MPP Liz Sandals tabled a bill today that, if passed, would be the first in Canada to block imports of asbestos brake pads from entering the Canadian market.
Most mechanics contacted by CBC News believed that asbestos was already banned from brake pads years ago. But figures from Statistics Canada show that more than $2.6 million worth of asbestos brake pads entered the country in 2011.
The federal government doesn’t require Canadian border agents to verify whether companies are properly labeling these imports as containing asbestos.
Sandals says that when brakes are manufactured in Ontario, we know that they don’t contain asbestos.
“That’s because of all the health and safety legislation around manufacturing in Ontario,” she says. “But if they come from somewhere else in the world, we really have no idea what’s in the brakes.”
The lack of regulation makes it impossible for auto mechanics to tell whether dust released from car and truck brakes contains toxic fibres.
Read the rest of the article, which outlines the risks of exposure and calls for government action, at CBC News Canada.
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