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Asbestos

Mayor of Asbestos says misunderstood town’s history is ‘a source of pride’ – by Graeme Hamilton (National Post – July 7, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

When a government preparing for an election has a job-creating investment to announce, it does not usually schedule it for a Friday afternoon before a long weekend. But when the announcement is in Asbestos, Que., and the funding will revive a dormant mine producing the carcinogenic fiber that gives the town its name, officials prefer not to make too big a splash.
 
So it was last week, as Quebec’s Liberal government announced a $58-million loan to the Jeffrey Mine to convert the open pit to an underground operation that is expected to yield chrysotile asbestos for another 25 years beginning next June.
 
The timing could not completely stifle the backlash, and the government has come under fire from health professionals and environmentalists — the head of Quebec’s association of community-health physicians said the loan amounts to subsidizing cancer.

For Hugues Grimard, Mayor of Asbestos, such attacks are nothing new. Last year his town was made a laughingstock by the American TV program The Daily Show, whose interviewer asked the mine’s president, Bernard Coulombe, whether the word asbestos meant something different in French. “Because in English it means slow, hacking death.”

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Asbestos gets a new lease on death – by Colin Kenny (Montreal Gazette – July 6, 2012)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

Senator Colin Kenny is former deputy chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources

If students want to fight injustice why haven’t they taken to the streets over the government’s latest decision?
 
Canada’s notorious asbestos industry has been given a new lease on death. A $58-million loan guarantee from the Quebec government will allow the town of Asbestos to resume shipments of this documented killer to developing countries, where impoverished construction workers will be forced to gamble with its deadly potential to tear apart their lungs.
 
Where are Quebec student protesters when Canada really needs them? In their focus on tuition fees, they never were quite able to make the case that the Charest government is morally bankrupt. Now that the Quebec government has agreed to bankroll asbestos exports denounced by medical experts around the world in order to restore 425 jobs in rural Quebec, it should be a lot easier to make the case.
 
The use and abuse of asbestos goes way back to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. The Greeks used its fibres to make fabrics more enduring, as did the Egyptians, who embalmed pharaohs in it. Since it was so fire-resistant, the Persians wrapped bodies for cremation in it, the better to gather the ashes of the deceased.

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Quebec should let the asbestos industry die – Globe and Mail Editorial (July 5, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

The news that the Jeffrey Mine will reopen may warm some hearts in the Eastern Townships. Nevertheless, the Quebec government’s decision to provide a $58-million loan to Canada’s last asbestos mine is a shameful thing.

As Canadians headed off to the beach and the cottage last Friday, Yvon Vallières, provincial Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and MNA for the riding of Richmond, visited Asbestos, Que. to officially announce the long-promised loan and the reopening. It’s a move that will provide 425 jobs for that community and may help the beleaguered Liberals hold Richmond and other ridings in the region when Premier Jean Charest calls an election. It’s also a move that will risk lives in India, where the mine will ship the white asbestos known as chrysotile for use as a composite in cement.
 
Although Canadian governments have long maintained that chrysotile is safe if properly handled, the World Health Organization, the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Cancer Society, along with a host of other health and environmental organizations, believe asbestos use should stop because exposure causes lung disease and various cancers.

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Quebec shouldn’t depend on asbestos exports for jobs – Toronto Star Editorial (July 4, 2012)

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Could Quebec Premier Jean Charest have come up with a more obtuse way to mark the Canada Day long weekend? As people from coast to coast were breaking out Maple Leaf flags and fireworks to celebrate the nation’s many proud achievements, his government seized the occasion to throw a $58 million lifeline to the struggling asbestos industry, one of our most notorious exports.

“They’re pumping public money into a moribund industry that’s banned in 50 countries, all for the sake of miserable salaries in a mine that will involve significant risks,” says Dr. Yv Bonnier Viger, who heads a Quebec association of public health specialists. Sadly, that just about sums it up.

At a time when we’re stripping asbestos from the Parliament buildings, the prime minister’s residence and other public buildings as a health hazard, Quebec’s loan will help keep the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Que., productive for 20 more years selling chrysotile asbestos to India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other developing countries.

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Asbestos mine loan gives Charest ‘good reason to be ashamed’ – by Les Parreaux (Globe and Mail – July 3, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MONTREAL — The announcement was described as a national embarrassment, the crass political manoeuvre of a desperate Quebec government trying to hold on to a Liberal seat at the cost of public health.

Critics lined up with speed and in number on the long weekend to blast Premier Jean Charest for green-lighting a $58-million loan to Canada’s last asbestos mine late on the Friday of the unofficial start of summer vacation season.

The loan stunned environmentalists, the medical community and cancer-fighting groups while promoters of the controversial relaunch of the Jeffrey Mine were more difficult to find. Even the province’s own public-health doctors are outraged.

Mr. Charest “has good reason to be ashamed,” said Yv Bonnier Viger, head of Quebec’s association of public-health specialists. “He is relaunching the exploitation of an extremely dangerous material that will cause the suffering and death of thousands of people in poor countries, at only marginal benefit to a desperate community.”

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Asbestos isn’t the lightning rod the Tories seem to think it is – by Chris Selley (National Post – June 27, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Documents obtained by Postmedia News through the Access to Information Act suggest the federal government knows full well that chrysotile asbestos belongs on a list of substances that face import and export restrictions — but nevertheless opposes adding it to the list.
 
“At previous meetings and again [in June 2011], Canada acknowledged all criteria for the addition of chrysotile asbestos to the [Rotterdam] Convention have been met but opposed its addition,” reads the briefing note provided to Environment Minister Peter Kent.
 
As scoops go, it won’t change the world. But it is a technical acknowledgment of a universally understood truth. No one disputes that the chrysotile mined in and exported from Quebec can be harmful if improperly handled. And no one, at least privately, would dispute that it is often not properly handled by workers in the developing countries to which Canada exports it. On asbestos, it’s quite obvious that Canada’s position isn’t mainstream. At a UN summit in Switzerland last year, it was shared only by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam.
 
The Conservatives seem to have inherited and embraced the conventional wisdom that the asbestos industry must be supported in principle, else Quebecers will wreak a horrible electoral revenge.

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Pro-asbestos advocacy group shuts its doors – by Robert Hiltz (Postmedia News – April 30, 2012)

http://www.canada.com/index.html

A decades-old pro-asbestos lobby group, currently funded by the Quebec government, will be shutting its doors after notifying the federal government of its plan to dissolve.

The Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute issued the notice in the Canada Gazette — the government’s official publication for announcing new laws and other public information. The institute, first formed in 1984, promotes the safe use of chrysotile asbestos on behalf of Canada’s asbestos mining industry.

NDP MP Pat Martin — a longtime critic of the asbestos industry and former miner himself — said the closing of the institute signals the “death knell” of asbestos mining in Canada.

“I see it as a real tipping point in the movement to get Canada out of the asbestos industry,” Martin said. “It’s just another demonstration of the death rattle of the asbestos industry in this country.”

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Quebec trying to reopen asbestos mine – by Bill Mann (MarketWatch.com – March 13, 2012)

http://www.marketwatch.com/

Commentary: Investors staying away from provincial government plan

MarketWatch

PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. (MarketWatch) — There have been some suspect Canadian mining ventures over the years. But none were probably as sketchy — or as unhealthy — as this one.

The provincial government of Quebec is doggedly trying to lure investors to reopen the Jeffrey Mine in lovely, pitted, Asbestos, Quebec. It was closed last year for financial reasons after a cave-in. Quebec’s leader has been trying to find money to kick-start the mine for over a year, in fact. So far, investors have stayed away. Quelle surprise.

Asbestos, you have to admit, doesn’t have quite the same allure as gold or silver. That’s right, asbestos. The same legally radioactive material that makes litigation-averse governments and businesses here in the U.S. close and clean buildings if even a trace of it is found. The same cancerous mineral that has attorneys trolling for lawsuits on cable-TV on behalf of victims afflicted with mesothelioma, a particularly aggressive form of cancer caused by asbestos exposure.

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It is time for Quebec to stop investing in asbestos – by Suzanne Dubois (Montreal Gazette – March 6, 2012)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

Suzanne Dubois is executive director of the Quebec division of the Canadian Cancer Society.

There has been much discussion in the media lately regarding the status of asbestos in Quebec. The province is at a historic juncture: for the first time in 130 years, it no longer produces this mineral resource. This break in production is an opportunity to put an end to the use of a recognized carcinogen. There is no safe application of asbestos, which has already claimed too many lives, here and elsewhere.
 
All forms of asbestos cause cancer, including lung cancer, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma, laryngeal cancer and ovarian cancer. Yet the government of Quebec is set to assist in the reopening of the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos with loan guarantees of $58 million, quashing public discussion of this critical issue in the process.
 
The Canadian Cancer Society is firmly opposed to all investment of public funds in asbestos mining. The society believes that greater effort must be made to manage asbestos wherever it is present (producing a registry of buildings that contain it, and removing it when possible).

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Seems even Harper and Charest can’t save Canada’s deadly asbestos exports – by Gerald Caplan (Globe and Mail – March 9, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Despite Stephen Harper and Jean Charest, it appears increasingly likely Canada will export no more Quebec-mined asbestos to countries like India and Indonesia, where it could bring misery and death to those who come in contact with it. Almost all those affected would be very poor workers and their families. But to the bitter end, the two leaders have been determined to preserve Canada’s shameful record of knowingly exporting a carcinogen.

In the face of denunciations of asbestos exports by virtually all health authorities, the Prime Minister made it a point during last year’s election campaign to visit the riding held by Christian Paradis, home to one of Canada’s two last remaining asbestos mines. Both mines are now closed, but Mr. Paradis wants them re-opened. He has long been a proponent of asbestos exports, dismissing out of hand all the proven health risks as well as all the Canadians who have died hideous, prolonged deaths from exposure to the substance.

Mr. Harper has since promoted Mr. Paradis to be Industry Minister. And last June, a month after forming his majority government, he chose to celebrate St. Jean Baptiste Day in his young minister’s riding – and in the town of Thetford Mines itself, the actual home of the asbestos mine Mr. Paradis wants to see re-opened.

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Quebec still favours relaunch of asbestos industry – by Michelle Lalonde (Montreal Gazette – February 16, 2012)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

MONTREAL – The Quebec government continues to favour a relaunch of the asbestos industry – despite a storm of recent controversy, including groundbreaking criminal convictions of two European businessmen for causing thousands of asbestos-related deaths, and far-reaching concerns about the research upon which the province bases its pro-asbestos policy.

Members of the anti-asbestos movement say the Canadian and Quebec governments have long relied on questionable studies produced by researchers at McGill University and elsewhere, funded by the asbestos industry, to promote chrysotile asbestos as relatively harmless if used safely.

McGill is conducting a preliminary review of the research of professor emeritus John Corbett McDonald to determine whether a full investigation should be called into whether some of that research was influenced by the fact it was funded by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association.

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Construction company execs jailed 16 years for 2,000 asbestos deaths in Italy – by Frances D’Emilio (Toronto Star – February 14, 2012)

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

ROME—An Italian court Monday convicted two men of negligence in some 2,000 asbestos-related deaths blamed on contamination from a construction company, sentencing each of them to 16 years in prison and ordering them to pay millions in what officials called a historic case.

Italian Health Minister Renato Balduzzi hailed the verdict by the three-judge Turin court as “without exaggeration, truly historic,” noting that it came after a long battle for justice.

“It’s a great day, but that doesn’t mean the battle against asbestos is over,” he told Sky TG24 TV, stressing that it is a worldwide problem.

Prosecutors said Jean-Louis de Cartier of Belgium and Stephan Schmidheiny of Switzerland, both key shareholders in the Swiss construction firm Eternit, failed to stop asbestos fibres left over from production of roof coverings and pipes at its northern Italian factories from spreading across the region.

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Asbestos industry under microscope – by Michelle LaLonde (Montreal Gazette – February 11, 2012)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

Call for government to stop financial aid

If you were a private investor looking to sink some money into a promising venture, the expansion of an asbestos mine in Quebec may not sound like a great bet these days.

Quebec’s asbestos industry has been taking a heavy pounding of late, with two damning documentaries airing on CBC and Radio-Canada, renewed calls from politicians in Quebec City and Ottawa to outlaw the cancer-causing mineral, and a review launched into some industry-funded research at McGill this week.

On Friday, the opposition Québec Solidaire called on the provincial and federal governments to stop financing the asbestos industry and to ban export of the mineral. Parti Québécois mining critic Martine Ouellette told Canadian Press she wants a parliamentary commission to look at the issue.

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McGill asbestos study flawed, epidemiologist says – by Gil Shochat and Joseph Loiero (CBC News – February 2, 2012)

This article is from: www.cbc.ca

Government plans to approve asbestos sales to developing world

A major 40-year study on asbestos safety completed by a group of scientists at McGill University is flawed, lacks transparency and contains manipulated data says Dr. David Egilman, a professor at Brown University, health activist and longtime industry critic.

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.

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.”

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Canada’s asbestos industry on its last legs – by Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – January 5, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MONTREAL— The “miracle fibre” that helped drive Quebec’s economy for more than a century now represents an industry near death, despite government efforts to keep it afloat.

In its heyday in the mid-1960s, Canada’s asbestos industry employed thousands and produced about 40 per cent of the world’s supply of the silky-white product known for its resistance to fire, rust and rot. It was used widely in construction throughout North America, including at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.

Now, it’s known more for being ripped out of walls as a danger to public health. Many developed nations have banned it outright, and critics warn it’s impossible to ensure its safe use in developing countries. These concerns over a known carcinogen have put the industry on its last legs.

Production at one mine has been halted until it can get refinancing, and another miner – Thetford Mines, Que.-based LAB Chrysotile –filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, leaving no active operations in Canada.

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