Asbestos in BC's shipyards

Wartime demand built the exposure

When Canada's WWII shipbuilding program ramped up in 1940, BC's Vancouver Harbour and Esquimalt yards became major producers of merchant ships, corvettes, frigates, and Victory-type cargo vessels. By 1943 more than 30,000 people were working in BC shipyards. Almost every ship in that program used enormous quantities of asbestos-containing insulation on boilers, steam piping, exhausts, bulkhead penetrations, and machinery spaces.

When the war ended, most of that workforce moved to peacetime shipbuilding, ship repair, and Naval refits. The asbestos kept being used, in new construction through the 1970s, and in repair, overhaul, and refit work well into the 1980s.

The major yards

• Burrard Dry Dock Company (North Vancouver): Canada's largest wartime shipyard, built 111 vessels in WWII. Continued as Burrard-Yarrows Corporation and Versatile Pacific until closing in 1992.
• Yarrows Ltd (Esquimalt): major naval and merchant shipbuilder from 1912; became part of Burrard-Yarrows in the 1970s.
• Victoria Shipyards / Esquimalt Graving Dock: continues to operate. Extensive asbestos use in ship overhaul and refit work through the 1980s.
• North Van Ship Repair: major WWII builder, closed after the war but employed thousands.
• West Coast Shipbuilders: WWII-era yard on False Creek.
• Allied Shipbuilders: postwar shipbuilder in North Vancouver.
• Vancouver Shipyards: continues to operate today; extensive historical asbestos exposure during the mid-to-late 20th century.

Occupations most exposed

Asbestos exposure in shipyards was rarely limited to one trade. Fibres were everywhere:

• Insulators and laggers, highest direct exposure, applying and stripping pipe and boiler insulation.
• Boilermakers, welders, and shipfitters, working next to insulated systems, cutting or welding through insulated bulkheads.
• Pipefitters and steamfitters, routinely cutting and rebuilding insulated piping.
• Electricians, running cables through and around insulated machinery spaces.
• Machinists and mechanics, servicing engines, gearboxes, gaskets, and packing.
• Painters, cleaners, and labourers, often exposed to dust from tradespeople working around them.
• Shipyard clerks and supervisors, secondary exposure walking through work areas.

Secondary (para-occupational) exposure to family members was very common. Shipyard workers wore work clothes home. Spouses laundering those clothes had substantial exposure over years.

Naval exposure

Royal Canadian Navy personnel who served on WWII- and Cold-War-era ships built or refitted in BC yards had significant asbestos exposure, particularly in engineering-branch trades. Veterans Affairs Canada has a distinct disability-benefit path for service-related asbestos-disease claims, separate from the WorkSafeBC path.