quote:The Canadian Government is in an invidious position; it advocates the use of chrysotile abroad but does not promote its use at home. Canada exports more than 95% of all the asbestos it produces; the cynical observer might be inclined to ask: “If Canadian chrysotile is safe enough for foreigners to use, why isn’t it safe enough for Canadians?” The Ottawa Government’s behaviour is immoral and is social dumping of the most cynical kind. The paper by Dr. Jim Brophy The Public Health Disaster Canada Chooses to Ignore examines the devastating impact Canadian asbestos production has had at home and the unscrupulous methods used by stakeholders to promote Canadian asbestos sales:

“The Canadian federal government has blocked efforts through the United Nations to have chrysotile asbestos included in the Rotterdam Convention… (Canadian) embassies throughout the world are busy promoting asbestos in individual countries. The Canadian Embassy persuaded South Korea in 1977, for example, to withdraw labelling legislation that would have warned about the possible dangers of chrysotile. In the late 1980s, the Canadian government intervened along with the asbestos industry to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from enacting a phase-out of asbestos use.”

At the conference held in Bangkok this Summer (2006), Canadian MP Pat Martin criticized his country’s asbestos policy: “Canada is acting like an ‘international pariah’ by exporting asbestos to Third World countries despite the well-known health hazards.” In the paper Asbestos is Not Banned in North America, Dr. Barry Castleman elaborates on this point:

“Canada, like the U.S., uses very little asbestos in domestic manufacturing. Canada’s asbestos mines export virtually all of their output to poorer countries. Many of the perennial defenders of chrysotile asbestos on the global scene today are Canadian scientists, they carry on the tradition started in the 1960s by spokesmen for multinational asbestos corporations. But they would be less effective as globe-trotting asbestos industry propagandists, featured in news reports with titles like Asbestos cement products are absolutely safe, if Canada banned asbestos.” Source (.pdf)[p.9]