Let’s say goodbye to asbestos!

By Lyn Cockburn

Asbestos. It’s about as sexy as elephant poop. If we think of it at all, we mutter isn’t it kind of dangerous? Doesn’t it cause some sort of lung disease? Then we remember we no longer use it as insulation. Didn’t we spend a ton of money a bunch of years ago tearing buildings apart to get rid of the stuff? But that was way in the past, so why bring it up?

Because Canada sells the damn stuff. To third world countries.

Because while the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and a lot of other countries have banned the use of asbestos, Canada still mines asbestos in Quebec.

Wait – didn’t I hear somewhere that Canada is one of the countries that banned the use of asbestos? Yes indeed. We do not allow the use of asbestos in our country. But we export it. Without warnings about its dangers.

In fact, RECENTLY in Geneva, Canada was successful, for the third time, in preventing the inclusion of asbestos on a United Nations list of hazardous exports. The inclusion would have included warnings of health hazards to recipient countries which could then refuse such imports.

The rationale? Evidently the countries that import Canada’s asbestos are already well aware of the health hazards and can, therefore, take necessary safety precautions. If that doesn’t impress the hell out of you, there’s the one about how we only export chrysotile asbestos, a name that refers to a fibre which Stephen Harper’s government contends is much less dangerous than asbestos containing other much more dangerous fibres.

The facts are a trifle different. First, there are several readily available documentaries (one of them done by CBC’s Melissa Fung) showing unprotected labourers in India handling asbestos 10-12 hours every day – without so much as gloves to protect them and certainly no masks. It is a small irony that even if warnings were printed on the packaging, many of these labourers have little education and could not read them.

Then, the chrysotile defence was recently dented when NDP MP Romeo Saganash reminded industry minister Christian Paradis that asbestos is currently being removed, at high cost, from MP’s offices. Saganash politely asked if Paradis would prefer to have the allegedly less carcinogenic chrysotile asbestos installed in his office. Evidently Paradis did not offer up his office for this experiment.

Saganash was less polite when he asked: “Or would he rather continue to export his hypocrisy to Third World countries?”

Paradis retreated behind the contention that Canada has been promoting the safe and controlled use of chrysotile for 30 years.

Unfortunately, I don’t know whether Saganash then suggested that since chrysotile is so safe, perhaps the government would like to put forward a bill to lift the ban on the use of asbestos in Canada.

So what are the health hazards connected with asbestos? Can’t be that bad, can they? We wouldn’t be exporting the stuff if it were that dangerous. Would we?

For starters, the World Health Organization states that some 107,000 people die each year from asbestos related illness, a figure which, ironically, is way less than years ago. Why? Because so few countries now export the damn stuff. Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Canada are the top four exporters worldwide. Ah, the company we keep.

Just what are these people dying from? The answer is simple. Mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer which affects only those exposed to asbestos. But if you’re lucky, you’ll only get asbestosis, a non cancerous respiratory disease which might take a decade to develop to the point where you’ll gasp for breath if you so much as try to walk a few steps. You’ll die from that too, but more slowly.

Meanwhile, back in Canada, there is hope in Quebec that if a private consortium can raise enough money, the provincial government will provide funding to expand the Jeffrey mine in Asbestos, so it can go from open pit to underground. It will then be able to export asbestos to India for at least another half century. It, and the town of Thetford Mines, will then be home to the two largest asbestos mines in the country.

Surely it is an irony too terrible, too deadly to countenance that Canada continues to export a substance so dangerous that we ban it here.

LET’S SAY GOODBYE TO ASBESTOS!

You can read more from Lyn Cockburn on her great blog