Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The Attorney General of Canada applied for an interlocutory injunction under section 311 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to stop Les Sables Olimag inc. and its president, Claude Gosselin, from manufacturing, selling, and distributing sand products alleged to contain asbestos in violation of the Asbestos Prohibition Regulations.
• At issue is whether section 6(2) of the Asbestos Prohibition Regulations — which prohibits using asbestos mining residues to manufacture products containing asbestos — was breached by the defendants' calcination process, which allegedly failed to fully convert chrysotile into forsterite.
• Repeated testing by Environment and Climate Change Canada detected asbestos in Olimag's finished products; the defendants challenged the reliability of the ASTM-D7521 protocol used, arguing it was ill-suited to their products and prone to producing false positives.
• Two compliance orders — OEPE #1 dated September 16, 2024, and OEPE #2 dated July 22, 2025 — were issued by ECCC and left uncomplied with, resulting in more than one hundred alleged violations recorded against Olimag from May 29, 2024 onward.
• Disputed scientific methodology regarding the appropriate testing protocol for detecting asbestos in Olimag's products was found to require full expert evidence at the permanent injunction stage and could not be resolved at the interlocutory stage.
• All three criteria for an interlocutory injunction under article 511 of the Code of Civil Procedure — prima facie right, serious harm to the public interest, and balance of convenience — were found to favour granting the injunction.

Facts of the case

Les Sables Olimag inc. (Olimag) is a Quebec corporation operating in the abrasives industry, with Claude Gosselin serving as its president since 1986. The company manufactures, sells, and exports various types of sand derived from the calcination of asbestos mining residues, including refractory sands used in steelworks and foundries and abrasive sands for sandblasting operations. According to its website, Olimag's products — marketed under the brand name JETMAG — are also used for recreational surfaces such as golf course sand traps, tennis courts, pétanque courts, beach volleyball courts, and synthetic turf fields, and are described by the company as presenting no health hazard.

On May 27, 2024, ECCC received a complaint from the Quebec Ministry of the Environment regarding the presence of asbestos in Olimag's finished products, attributable in part to calcination temperatures allegedly below those required under the provincial ministerial authorization, which would compromise the complete destruction of asbestos fibres. A sample taken on January 25, 2024 confirmed the presence of asbestos. Following the complaint, an ECCC enforcement officer verified that Olimag's products were available on shelves at multiple hardware stores and purchasable online. On July 22, 2024, an inspection was conducted at Olimag's facilities, and a notice of intent to issue a compliance order was transmitted to Gosselin and Olimag. From May 29, 2024 onward, more than one hundred violations of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 and the Asbestos Prohibition Regulations were alleged against Olimag.

ECCC issued a first Environmental Protection Compliance Order (OEPE #1) on September 16, 2024, valid for 180 days until March 25, 2025. It required Olimag to implement a structured quality control and assurance system, including product testing, sampling, a traceability labelling system, and the quarantine and destruction of non-compliant batches. The defendants initially challenged OEPE #1 before the Canada Environmental Protection Tribunal under section 256 of the Act but withdrew their challenge on July 18, 2025, shortly before the hearing on the merits. The defendants continued to commit violations during and after this period and did not comply with the measures ordered. ECCC subsequently issued a second compliance order (OEPE #2) on July 22, 2025, for a period of 92 days, as a final opportunity to achieve compliance. Olimag persisted in its non-compliant activities, continuing to manufacture and sell asbestos-containing products without the required labelling and without conducting mandatory product recalls.

Regulatory provisions at issue

The central regulatory provision is section 6(2) of the Asbestos Prohibition Regulations (SOR/2018-196), which prohibits the use of asbestos mining residues to manufacture products containing asbestos. The AGC took the position that this prohibition is absolute — any detectable quantity of asbestos, however small, constitutes non-compliance. The defendants countered that sections 4 and 5 of the same Regulations — which ECCC itself had applied in issuing OEPE #1 and OEPE #2 — provide that only quantities above trace levels (i.e., 0.1% or more) constitute a violation. The defendants further argued that the words "in quantities greater than traces" must be read implicitly into section 6(2), pointing to the illogic of treating mining residue-derived products more strictly than other consumer products regulated under sections 4(c) and 5(b) of the Regulations. The injunction application was brought under section 311 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, a statutory injunction provision authorizing the court to issue an order where the existence, imminence, or likelihood of an offence under the Act has been established.

Court's reasoning and analysis

The court applied the three-part test for interlocutory injunctions under article 511 of the Code of Civil Procedure, rather than applying the full statutory burden from Canada v. Ipsco Recycling Inc. at this stage. The court reasoned that applying the Ipsco standard — requiring the court to be legitimately convinced on a balance of probabilities of a serious possibility of a violation — would effectively decide the merits of the case at the interlocutory stage, leaving no basis to proceed to a permanent injunction hearing. This approach aligned with the reasoning of Justice Poulin in Procureur général du Canada c. Tremblay (2025 QCCS 1828), which similarly retained the civil procedure criteria at the interlocutory stage while treating the Ipsco standard as applicable at the merits stage.

On the first criterion — prima facie right — the court found that asbestos had been repeatedly detected in Olimag's products through ECCC testing, that the defendants' own counter-expert report from Mistra (dated February 18, 2026) also reported results indicating the presence of asbestos in Olimag's products, and that asbestos was found in samples taken from distributor TENAQUIP and in products identified at Sel Warwick. While the court acknowledged the defendants' serious challenge to the ASTM-D7521 testing protocol through the sworn declaration of Ms. Pascale Pierre — who argued the protocol was unsuited to Olimag's products and likely to produce false positives — it determined that this methodological dispute required full expert testimony and could not be resolved at the interlocutory stage. The AGC's scientific evidence was accepted as prima facie proof of a violation of section 6(2) of the Regulations, subject to reassessment at the merits stage.

On the second criterion — serious or irreparable harm — the court noted that asbestos is classified as a toxic substance under the Act and that inhalation of asbestos fibres can cause life-threatening diseases, including asbestosis, mesothelioma, and lung cancer. The risk was found to be particularly elevated given that Olimag's abrasive sands are designed to be propelled at high speed through the air during sandblasting operations, generating significant clouds of dust and fibres, and that sands used in sports facilities and playgrounds are frequently disturbed, enabling inhalation by workers and the public. The court relied on the Supreme Court of Canada's guidance in RJR-MacDonald that the burden of demonstrating irreparable harm to the public interest is less demanding for public authorities, and on the Court of Appeal's statement in Carrier c. Québec (Procureur général) (2011 QCCA 1231) that a clear violation of a public interest statute gives rise to a near-irrebuttable presumption of serious and irreparable harm.

On the third criterion — balance of convenience — the court found that the defendants' potential prejudice was economic in nature and therefore reparable, while the public interest in protecting Canadians from asbestos exposure was paramount. The court further noted that the defendants operate in a regulated industry and are expected to bear the costs of compliance as inherent to their activities. The public interest in enforcing the law, particularly where health risks are engaged, outweighed the economic inconvenience to the defendants.

Ruling and overall outcome

The court granted the interlocutory injunction in favour of the AGC. The defendants — including all directors, officers, representatives, agents, and shareholders of Les Sables Olimag inc. and any person under their control — were ordered to immediately cease all manufacturing activities involving products containing asbestos or likely to contain asbestos in contravention of section 6(2) of the Asbestos Prohibition Regulations and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. All sales, marketing, and distribution of products manufactured from asbestos mining residues were suspended pending: the implementation of a validated product traceability system; pre-sale submission to ECCC of certificates of analysis using the ASTM-D7521 method confirming the absence of asbestos in each daily batch, with a detection limit capable of quantifying concentrations down to 0.1%, conducted in an ISO 17025-accredited laboratory; and the recall and destruction of all non-compliant Olimag products sold in Canada since September 16, 2024, to be completed within eight months of service of the order. A case management conference was scheduled for July 27, 2026 to set timelines for the permanent injunction proceedings. The order was made with costs; no specific monetary amount was stated in the judgment.