Do Ottawa building permits cover asbestos abatement?

No. We found no City of Ottawa permit for asbestos testing, removal or remediation as such.

What the City does require is a building permit to relocate or demolish a building. The City's demolition permit page points owners to section 30 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which requires an owner to determine whether designated substances, including asbestos, are present before a project begins and to share that information with prospective contractors. A designated substance survey is not listed as a submission item on the City's demolition permit application guidelines, so we found no rule requiring you to attach an asbestos report to your permit application. If you are unsure what your specific project requires, check directly with the City of Ottawa.

The rules that actually govern asbestos work in Ottawa are Ontario's, not the City's. O. Reg. 278/05 classifies asbestos operations as Type 1, Type 2 or Type 3, depending on whether the material is friable and how much of it is disturbed. Those thresholds are assessed on site by the contractor, not determined by a permit office. For Type 3 work, the constructor or employer must notify, orally and in writing, an inspector at the nearest Ministry of Labour office before the work begins. That notice is not a permit. Type 3 work also requires that workers and supervisors have completed the Ministry-approved asbestos abatement training programs before work starts.

A few practical points worth knowing:

• Asbestos waste leaving the site must go to a disposal facility whose operator has agreed to accept it, under Ontario Regulation 347. We found no exemption for small loads, and asbestos waste cannot go out with regular curbside collection.
• We found no Ontario company licence for asbestos abatement as such. What you can check is whether the contractor has current WSIB clearance, which you can search online.
• If your project is in Gatineau, Quebec rules differ; check with Quebec authorities.
• On the owner-occupier exemption in O. Reg. 278/05: The exemption covers a home the owner or their family lives in, and a building of up to four units where the registered owner or family lives in one of them. A landlord who doesn't live in the building, a building of more than four units, and commercial property are not covered.

For a quote on the work itself, the request form on this page reaches contractors listed in the Ottawa Construction Network directory.