By: Niveja Assalaarachchi, News Writer

On June 20, the Canadian Standards Association, also known as the CSA Group, released a new draft version of CSA standard Z94.4, which was open to public consultation until August 19. It sets to regulate workplace standards around “the selection, use, and care of respirators.” The CSA Group is a non-profit organization which creates non-legally binding but precedent-setting regulations for professional workplace standards. As reported by DoNoHarm BC, the rule changes would see new nationwide respirator requirements that mandate the use of respirators like N95 masks instead of surgical masks by workers, patients, and visitors in healthcare settings. 

The CSA Group’s new draft has received praise from healthcare advocates and workers alike. DoNoHarm BC was one of the leading organizations pushing the public to support and contribute to the CSA Group’s consultation process. 

The group also pushed back on certain changes in the healthcare sector, such as in March 2025, when the provincial government controversially decided to lift mask restrictions, drawing outrage from healthcare advocates and vulnerable populations. 

The World Health Network has also pushed a social media campaign to support the move. In a press release, the organization notes that the new revision “represents a long-overdue shift toward protecting healthcare workers and other professionals from airborne hazards.” In addition to DoNotHarm BC and World Health Network, a coalition of over 1,700 civil servants and concerned citizens has signed a statement supporting the CSA respiratory standard amendments. Spearheaded by the Canadian Aerosol Transmission Coalition, advocates argue that data shows new infections for diseases like COVID-19 have primarily been in healthcare settings.

The Peak interviewed two doctors who signed the statement. Retired BC emergency physician Dr. Lyne Filiatrault highlighted the problem of relying on surgical masks instead of respirators.

“Surgical masks were never intended as personal protective equipment.”

— Dr. Lyne Filiatrault, retired BC emergency physician 

“They were designed to avoid a surgeon’s spit, when they sneeze, or if their nose drips, to go into the wound,” she said. “It was never intended as a respiratory protection, and the only reason that’s what was used early on was because that’s what was available.” 

Filiatrault also pointed out the lack of action taken by the government to create policy in previous airborne pandemics that could have been used during the emergence of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “Back in March 2003, when the first patient with SARS presented to the emergency department at Vancouver General Hospital, I was on duty,” she said. 

“It turned out to be the first case of SARS for Vancouver, but within an hour or so, the patient was put in a respiratory isolation room.” Filiatrault added, “All of us entering the room wore respirators, which are high-grade, tight-fitting masks that prevent you breathing in any potential [contaminated] aerosols.” 

According to Filiatrault, this level of care set a high standard for how the province dealt with SARS during that period. However, she pointed out that the SARS precedent was completely ignored when the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, raising concerns about how future pandemic responses may look.

The Peak also interviewed Dr. Dick Zoutman, professor emeritus in the schools of medicine and of nursing at Queen’s University, specializing in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and medical microbiology. “This new standard from the CSA is a very important, landmark decision,” he said. “I believe that if it is codified into law, it’s going to have a gigantic impact for people.” He added that roughly 25–40%  got COVID-19 from the hospital.

This “tells us something very, very important: that our healthcare settings are unsafe, and we are transmitting COVID-19 actively within the healthcare environment to the people who are most vulnerable,” continued Zoutman. “So, I believe that the CSA standard will go a very long way to mitigating and reducing that risk as far as possible.”

Zoutman noted that the fight for healthcare reform in this country is far from over: “We need a bundle of solutions that deal with, for example, the design of our hospitals, and healthcare, and nursing homes, and long-term care facilities.”