The union representing guards at Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Correctional Facility claims that provincial government officials withheld information about asbestos at the prison.

In a CBC News article, Jim Gosse, president of Local 480 with the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, said guards “only learned about the asbestos last month, while officials knew about it for at least 20 years.”

“Here we have an employer who not only snubbed their nose at the occupational health and safety legislation in this province, but they also failed to abide by the asbestos legislation that’s out there for safe removal for the handling of asbestos products in Nova Scotia,” Gosse said in an interview on Monday. “And the employer kept that information from staff. They failed to notify supervisory staff as well as front-line managers within the correctional facility.”

Gosse likens the situation to a similar one that occurred two years ago in a Cape Breton public housing development. In that case, three people who work with the Cape Breton Housing Authority and the Department of Community Services were charged under the Occupational Health and Safety Act earlier this spring, Gosse points out.

“And what’s most interesting, we have the same deputy minister who was responsible for community services at the time — Marion Tyson, who is now also the deputy minister responsible for justice and in particular correctional services,” Gosse said.

“So, it’s going to be most interesting to see how this employer and this government is going to try to crawl away from this predicament that they find themselves in.”

Gosse also points out that much construction work was done at the prison in the last 10 years without regard for the presence of asbestos, putting guards and others at risk for exposure to the toxic mineral.

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