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Canadian skiers and snowboarders have plowed closer to being able to buy safety-approved helmets after a new certification process was revealed yesterday and Health Canada announced it may make those standards mandatory for manufacturers.

Right now, there's no guarantee any alpine helmet sold in Canada can withstand severe blows or more than one impact, or won't fly off when jerked.

Yesterday, the Canadian Standards Association announced it would soon have an alpine helmet certification program that would test the helmets against standards created by leading researchers in the field.

Although certification would be voluntary for helmet makers, Health Canada said yesterday that it's consulting with stakeholders on a proposal that would put alpine helmets under the Hazardous Products Act.

If that proposal passed, any skiing and snowboarding helmets sold in Canada would have to be approved according to the CSA standards. Similar rules are already in place for hockey helmets.

The moves come as skiing safety is under greater scrutiny, following the high-profile deaths of actress Natasha Richardson, who was not wearing a helmet during a ski lesson, and several young people who suffered traumatic head injuries on ski hills this winter.

While safety advocates heralded the new certification process, they said they had little confidence that helmet manufacturers would follow the standards unless the federal government forced them to.

"In this country, it's buyer beware. And even with what the CSA has done today, it's still buyer beware," said Richard Kinar, a board member of the Brain Injury Association of Canada who has lobbied for years for changes to this country's alpine helmet requirements.

The CSA's new voluntary certification process has not been given the green light: It still must be approved by the Standards Council of Canada, a Crown corporation that reports to the federal Industry Minister.

"We have been advised by [the SCC] that we can be confident that we will receive the accreditation by next month," said John Walter, CSA's vice-president of standards development.

However, Stephen Cross, manager of certification body accreditation for the SCC, says it will take a minimum of two months to review the CSA's application, its testing facility and the knowledge of its testers. "I have no reason to think that this wouldn't pass," he said, "but it's still in the process."

Mr. Walters said the new standards - created in consultation with doctors, researchers and helmet manufacturers - would guarantee that a helmet could withstand a minimum of three impacts in the same spot and penetration by a sharp object, had working clips and straps, and didn't interfere with peripheral vision.

Whether manufacturers will apply the standards, Mr. Walters said, is up for debate.

He added that there are several ways to encourage them to do so - and they don't all include waiting for the federal government to pass new legislation.

Ski resorts or ski associations, for example, could require that only skiers wearing CSA-approved helmets be allowed to ride their lifts.

Each province could implement a process to regulate the type of equipment allowed on ski hills, he said.

Consumers can do their part, too.

"Think of what would happen if just a small proportion of the skiers and snowboarders in Canada said I want to get this [CSA approved] helmet in Canada," he said.