Risk of asbestos exposure forces last-minute closure of Laval high school

A possible risk of asbestos exposure has forced a Laval high school to indefinitely close its doors – before those doors even opened for the new school year.

Horizon Jeunesse High School in Auteuil will be closed until at least Friday, though an exact date for students to return is not yet known.

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by this situation and we are aware of the impact on your child and your family organization,” the school’s principal Nassima Araar wrote to parents in a letter on Tuesday – what was supposed to be the first day of school.

That letter was provided to CityNews by the Centre de services scolaire de Laval.

Horizon Jeunesse was undergoing renovations during the summer. Until Monday morning, the school the work was “progressing well” and there was no indication the start of classes would be delayed.

Some of the work involved the ventilation system.

“This work was carried out in asbestos conditions and a safety protocol was in place, Araar explained. “The ventilation system was therefore stopped. Our teams are used to working in asbestos conditions and safety protocols exist for these situations.”

On Monday, as part of the work, the school says “the system was accidentally activated for one minute when it should have been kept off. Even if this activation was short, we did not want to take any risks.”

The school says after a first set of air tests, it could not confirm if there was a dispersion of asbestos fibres. Additional tests are in progress “to obtain a more precise picture of the situation,” Araar wrote.

Parent Elrhoul Mohammed, who has two children at the high school, was frustrated by the last-minute closure.

“I have my kids, they should be coming here in the school, but I don’t, it’s still like that, and I can’t do nothing,” Mohammed said. “I wait for the school where she opens. If she’s not open, you give me another solution for my kids, transfer for my kids to another school or something.

“Max is two weeks. I’m not going to wait more than two weeks.”

Health effects of asbestos

Montreal cardiologist and epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Labos says breathing asbestos can damage your lungs.

“It can cause the formation of pleural plaques,” he said. “It can increase the risk of lung cancer and also cause a condition called malignant mesothelioma.

“It does take time to have repeated exposure to asbestos and not everybody who is exposed is going to get sick, so a single episode where a vent was turned on is probably not going to do any damage to anybody. But if there is asbestos in the building, it should be removed.

“Because so many of our buildings, whether they be schools or hospitals or other types of dwellings were built so long ago, a lot of them were built with asbestos.”

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The school will be hosting a virtual meeting for parents on Thursday night to provide more information and answer questions.

“Surely it should be a problem for me, for my kids also, because I need him to start the school,” Mohammed said. “I don’t need to wait for two, three weeks, four weeks more. I need him to start the school now.”