AboutMesothelioma.Net

By Wade Rawlins
Even today with the health hazards of asbestos well documented, Canada remains the fifth largest exporter of the mineral fiber in the world. Much of the product goes to parts of the world where lax or non-existent workplace safety regulations allow unknowing workers to inhale a steady diet of microscopic asbestos fibers into their lungs.

In a tough-minded editorial, The Montreal Gazette newspaper chastises the government for supporting the export of a material known to cause cancer and for subsidizing the Canadian mines that produce it. The Gazette writes that the government “subsidizes this deadly industry to an extent that most Canadians would find shocking.”

Twenty five years ago, the Canadian government, the provincial government in Quebec, the asbestos industry and the union established the Asbestos Institute — now called the Chrysotile Institute —to put out the word that Chrysotile asbestos – the type of mineral mined in Canada – was different from other forms of asbestos and a safe product. Even then, the risks of asbestos were established. And today, the institute continues to receive government subsidies to support its safe product publicity campaign.

The World Health Organization estimates that 90,000 people die every year from asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis. Exposure to chrysotile asbestos, the predominant asbestos fiber used today, is strongly associated with lung cancer and linked to other forms of cancer, an expert panel commissioned by Health Canada, the health agency, said in a report issued this spring.

In August, the Canadian Medical Association General Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling upon the federal government to reverse its opposition to the international designation of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous chemical. The resolution favored eliminating the use and exportation of asbestos.

Nevertheless, the administration of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has remained a staunch supporter of Canada’s asbestos mining industry and the export and usage of chrysotile asbestos.

The national and provincial governments agreed to provide $1.3 million to the Chrysotile Institute, based in Montreal, over the next three years, the newspaper said. That despite a call by a number of Canadian health experts urging the government to stop funding the institute.

The subsidies flow at the same time that the Canadian government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to remove asbestos from parliament buildings, as several ministers of parliament noted. “The only conclusion to draw from this,” the Gazette opines, “is that our government thinks asbestos is sufficiently dangerous that it doesn’t want ministers of parliament exposed to it. It’s not worried, however, about the citizens of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Brazil, countries where Canada exports more than $100 million worth of asbestos. This is shameful.”

Read the editorial