The federal government is still promoting the export of asbestos
February 8, 2010 - 3:05pm
Nobody can use it here, it's too dangerous - but it's still okay to send it where it hasn't been banned.
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Meanwhile, asbestos-related cancer continues to be a huge problem in the USA.
excerpt:
Authorities estimate that each year approximately 10,000 Americans die from illnesses caused by exposure to asbestos.
excerpt:
Unfortunately, the asbestos epidemic is just approaching its peak. In the vast majority of asbestos -related illness, symptoms do not surface for many years. In the case of mesothelioma, symptoms may not arise for 20 to 50 years.
According to governmental sources, the use of asbestos is still quite problematic. In 2005, for instance, the use of asbestos in materials and products manufactured in the United States totaled more than 2,000 metric tons. Of the approximate 10,000 Americans who will die this year from asbestos-related illnesses, approximately 2,000 will succumb to lung cancer, which scientists consider the second greatest asbestos-related cancer (following mesothelioma).
(the rest of the article, and associated links, are also pretty scary)Exporting Death: Another Popular Harper Policy - by Gerald Caplan
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/exporting-death-another-pop...
"What do you call a country that deliberately sells products abroad that will kill many people? You call it Canada. What do you call it when a state action kills a large number of defenseless people? You call it a crime against humanity. So how can exporting death by Canadian asbestos not be a crime against humanity and how can a state that does so not be guilty of committing such a crime?"
Go Gerry !!!
Exporting Death: Another Popular Harper Policy - by Gerald Caplan
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/exporting-death-another-pop...
"What do you call a country that deliberately sells products abroad that will kill many people? You call it Canada. What do you call it when a state action kills a large number of defenseless people? You call it a crime against humanity. So how can exporting death by Canadian asbestos not be a crime against humanity and how can a state that does so not be guilty of committing such a crime?"
I think this is one of the "principles" of foreign policy that Herr Harper said he was going to stick to regardless of the fact that he, er, Canada lost the bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council.
I like Duceppe, but on this issue he is just plain wrong, and he needs to admit it. However, he seems to redeem himself in the second excerpt.
Asbestos safe despite new report, says Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe
excerpt:
Duceppe, who said on Monday that he believes the production and export of asbestos in Quebec to be safe, seemed unfazed when confronted with the findings at a morning press conference in Rimouski.
“If (the production of asbestos) is done in a responsible way then it’s safe,” he said. “My first concern would be, were the rules respected or not? It’s the same as nickel or lead - if it’s not done properly, then there can be problems.”
When asked if this means asbestos on construction sites is not being monitored carefully enough in Quebec, Duceppe again said that the rules need to be respected, and if they are not being respected, then obviously there is a problem.
"I have not had time to review the report," he added. "We will look at it."
excerpt: (Conservative candidate Paradis is sucking up to the asbestos industry...)
Duceppe drew criticism from Conservative incumbent Christian Paradis on Sunday after he said he would support a recent request made by the Parti Québécois to have a Parliamentary Commission look into the question of asbestos safety.
Paradis said the Bloc leader's comments made it seem like he was calling the safety of the industry into question, which could have major consequences for asbestos producers in Quebec.
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Just out of curiousity, who is 'defenseless' in this, and why? Wouldn't the 'defense' simply be NOT IMPORTING ASBESTOS?? Is there someone on Earth who, for whatever reason, cannot choose to not import asbestos??
I wish this was a current campaign issue. Someone - anyone - needs to raise the issue and insist on shutting the industry down 100%, and to provide both pensions and job transfers to everyone that would be affected. This stuff kills, and it's outrageous that it's still a viable industry.
The NDP's Pat Martin has been relentless in the battle against asbestos - I've communicated with him by email in the past to encourage him in this fight.
Called Out On Asbestos
excerpt:
ASBESTOS has been called Canada's deadly secret and medical experts from practically every corner of the country have called for an end to its mining and export.
Last week, Canada's asbestos industry was hit with a damning documentary aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., which has a global audience of more than 240 million people.
Dangers in the Dust, a multi-part documentary produced in conjunction with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, is a damning rebuke of the global asbestos trade that it says could be responsible for millions of deaths worldwide.
excerpt:
The series also points out the hypocrisy in Canada's asbestos industry, in that we export it, but use very little at home. Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin has for years accused the Canadian government of putting workers in developing nations at risk to protect a dying industry at home that employs just over 200 people.
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Is there a similar documentary about the dangers of IMPORTING asbestos? And could it be shown to the right people?
I'm still finding it very curious that it's evidently our responsibility to stop selling something to someone who wants to buy it, as opposed to their responsibility to stop buying it in the first place. This isn't going to be some kind of White Man's Burden, I hope, wherein we knock the scales from some sovereign nation's eyes by virtue of knowing better than they do.
They have too much democracy in those democratic third world capitalist hellholes apparently. The workers know full well they are working with deadly materials. It must be better money than starving to death full-time.
Or not nearly enough, if it's beyond them to pass a law banning asbestos (assuming they even want to).
It's a good thing they don't have Gadhafi running the show in Bangladesh, India, UAE, Pakistan, Thailand and all those other democratic capitalist hellholes where asbestos workers die agonizingly slow deaths. A friend of the family in Ohio in his early 50's used to work at a GM brake factory. Not any more.
Why don't we start by sending them some pamphlets?
How do we know asbestos workers in these bastions of democratic capitalism can even read? I'll bet many of them would not understand North American warning labels for toxic and poisonous materials. And there is no such thing as socialized medicine in the capitalist paradise.
I was thinking more of sending them to the government.
I was thinking more of sending them to the government.
That's a great idea! And then our corrupt stooges might convince their corrupt, third world capitalist stooges to put the heavy on their industrialist friends to stop abusing mostly illiterate workers for profit.
I'm so glad the cold war turned out this way. They didn't need socialism in those countries just informational pamphlets printed in Texas or NY with a Government of Canada stamp on them. They are sure to see things our way.
It was broken before it got started.
According to Wiki:
Now I'm sure their socialism doesn't come close to the lab-grade purity expected by some, but I have to think it would be enough to ban something they believe to be dangerous. They ban many things, Fidel. Kissing in movies! Surely if asbestos is killing workers then they could ban that too, right?
Ya that's what they said before Gandhi was assassinated. India is real laissez-faire capitalist hellhole, believe you me. The oldest stock market in Asia is there in Bombay or rather "Mumbai".
And every eight years democratic capitalist India produces as many skeletons as what Maoist China did in all its years of shame, from 1958 to 1961 during the Great Leap period. Democratic capitalist India, from 1947 to 1979, produced more than 100 million corpses prematurely. And no matter how much they adhere to IMF and WTO free market diktats and other western world tutelage on economic affairs, the bodies continue rolling off the capitalist assembly lines in India 24-7. Starving to fucking death in a third world capitalist shithole is an agonizing way to turn the lights off in so many millions of children's eyes each and every year like clockwork, believe you me.
So they need us to save them, basically? If it's the White Man's Burden to lead the way then just say so.
Strahl urges Tories to move on asbestos
excerpt:
"We should just list it," said Strahl, who earlier outlined his position in an editorial Monday in the Globe and Mail.
The longtime B.C. MP, who held several high-profile portfolios in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet before his retirement ahead of last month's federal election, added he was reluctant to move to ban something just because he had a "personal history" with it.
"What isn't right is to ship something to some country and say, 'We won't tell you what's in this. Don't worry about it,' " he said. "The important thing to me is to tell people about the risk. … It is demonstrably bad for you, this stuff."
A spokeswoman for Industry Minister Christian Paradis, whose riding includes Canada's only asbestos mine, refused to say whether Canada would allow the chemical to be added to the Rotterdam Convention.
MP Pat Martin has been absolutely scathing in his condemnation of the asbestos industry on P&P.
In other news, Harper visited Thetford Mines to give support to the asbestos industry, although he called it a celebration of June 24.
Harper parties with supporters in asbestos country
European Parliament to be asked to take sanctions against Canada on asbestos, June 30
excerpt:
A media release issued today by the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers and the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat says, “Calls will be made on June 30, 2011 that the European Union take sanctions against Canada for derailing a United Nations protocol to protect vulnerable populations from the hazards of asbestos.”
excerpt:
IBAS Coordinator Laurie Kazan-Allen, a member of the Rotterdam Convention Alliance, will be making a presentation in this regard to the European Parliament on June 30 starting at 2:30 pm. Kazan-Allen says, "Canada is now a rogue state and should be dealt with in the same way as other administrations which have breached the acceptable level of behaviour expected of civilized societies. ...Canadian Government documents I am bringing to Brussels will prove to Members of the European Parliament that Ottawa had received recommendations from its own advisors to list chrysotile under the Rotterdam Convention. That they chose not to do so with the full knowledge of the tragic consequences is a sin of unpardonable proportions."
Canada, A Pariah State
Canada’s betrayal of the Rotterdam Convention has earned it huge negative press coverage at home and abroad which culminated with it being named a Cancer Culprit for its destructive and hypocritical position. For the sake of a few hundred jobs at the one remaining Canadian asbestos mine, Canada has willfully and in full knowledge of the repercussions sided with the global asbestos mafia to prioritize commercial profit over public health. The industry prefers that people are not given the information that chrysotile asbestos is hazardous.
On Facebook: We're sorry, world. Nous sommes désolé.
An apology on behalf of Canadians for causing thousands of death around the world due to Canadian asbestos exports.
This would nicely solve the problem - but makes it totally perplexing why the Conservatives would be trying to promote an industry that's going to be dead shortly anyway.
A confidential federal memo suggests Canada's last fully functional asbestos mine is about to die, raising the prospect the controversial industry might just disappear on its own.
The Natural Resources Canada memorandum, released under the Access to Information Act, estimates that the life of Quebec's Lac d'amiante du Canada will end in early 2012.
"Canada is now a rogue state and should be dealt with in the same way as other administrations which have breached the acceptable level of behaviour expected of civilized societies."
Hasn't Canada been "a rogue state" since it was a prison colony? Aboriginals, Acadians, Metis, etc...
Terence McKenna has a report on The National tonight about how the asbestos industry funded junk science studies at McGill University designed to mislead the public about the safety of asbestos.
I posted this over at BNR earlier today: "Today in QP Pat Martin continued the fight gainst asbestos, but the Cons refuse to debate the subject until Martin apologises for his remarks yesterday."
The study, which followed the health of 11,000 miners and mill workers in Quebec between 1966 and the late 1990s, is used by the Chrysotile Institute — a lobby arm funded by, overseen and closely associated with both Liberal and Conservative governments — to promote the use of asbestos overseas.
The Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, which later changed its name to The Asbestos Institute and then to the Chrysotile Institute, received approximately $20M in direct funding from the Canadian government since the 1980s.
According to Egilman, as the dangers of asbestos became better known in the 1960s, the industry decided to do its own research and hired Dr. John Corbett McDonald at McGill University's School of Occupational Health. Industry documents obtained by CBC News showed it wanted to conduct research similar to that in the tobacco industry, which stated that "Industry is always well advised to look after its own problems.
CBC
Watch Terence McKenna's shocking report from Feb. 2, 2012 online. And watch the slimebag from McGill squirm.
Steve Harper is the biggest mass murderer since the tobacco lobby. In the mean time, working class slobs in India can some more Chrysotile. Theyre a bunch o rotten bastards.