Canadian asbestos production suspended – by Andy Blatchford (Globe and Mail – November 25, 2011)

Montreal— The Canadian Press – Canada’s once-mighty asbestos sector has ground to a halt for the first time in 130 years, as production of the controversial fibre has stalled in both of the country’s mines.

A shutdown this month marked a historic milestone for the Canadian asbestos industry, which at one time dominated world production and led to the construction of entire towns in Canada. Proponents of the industry insist it’s way too early write the obituary on Canadian asbestos; they’re hoping to start digging again as soon as the spring.

But for now, amid all the noisy political debates and a dramatic anti-asbestos news conference Thursday on Parliament Hill, Canadian production has quietly and suddenly stopped.

Work halted earlier this month at the Lac d’amiante du Canada operation in Thetford Mines, Que., which followed a production stoppage at Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, about 90 kilometres away. The future of both mines is unclear.

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Canada’s chronic asbestos problem – by John Gray and Stephanie Nolen (Globe and Mail – Report on Business Magazine – November 21, 2011)

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.

For a place of modest size, Asbestos has made an impressive imprint on the Canadian psyche. In 1949, the Asbestos Strike—which took place at the mines in Asbestos and nearby Thetford Mines—helped to usher in the Quiet Revolution that shaped the modern Quebec. And in 2011, the place’s eponymous product is giving a black eye to Canada’s international reputation as a fair dealer.

Most of the world, including the medical community, agrees that asbestos is desperately dangerous. The World Health Organization reports that more than 100,000 people die every year from lung cancer and other respiratory diseases due to asbestos exposure. And many more will die, because 125 million people are exposed to asbestos in their workplaces today and every day.

No surprise, then, that the stuff is effectively banned in Canada. And a surprise, to observers, that Canada exports it to other countries, most notoriously India, where public-health regimes are less vigorous than in Canada.

But that fact is no more mysterious than two forces that are as well known in India as they are in Canada.

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Canada hypocritical on a dangerous mineral [asbestos] – by Keeble McFarlane (Jamiaca Observer – October 22, 2011)

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/

We all no doubt remember the rushing cloud of whitish dust which ballooned out over southern Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001, as the iconic towers of the World Trade Centre fell in on themselves after the planes commandeered by terrorists crashed into them.

In addition to the almost 3000 people who died in the towers themselves, dozens of rescue workers and others caught in the cloud have since died from exposure to the dust. Many others developed serious lung problems which have severely affected their health and which will invariably shorten their lives.

That cloud was a toxic mixture of all the materials contained in those towering structures – gypsum wallboard, floor and ceiling tiles, disintegrated concrete, shredded paper, furniture, carpets and draperies, office chemicals, metal residue, even food blown to bits in the devastation and, saddest of all, people and their clothing. Perhaps most crucial was the 400 tonnes of asbestos, used as a fire-retardant.

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Documents detail Mulroney-era efforts to block U.S. asbestos ban – by Gloria Galloway (Globe and Mail – October 19, 2011)

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.

Anti-asbestos lobbyists say former Canadian politicians, ambassadors and bureaucrats abandoned their morals when they successfully lobbied two decades ago to prevent the carcinogenic material from being banned in the United States.

Laurie Kazan-Allen of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, a group based in Britain, told a news conference Tuesday that, “as a consequence of the legal and political actions mounted by Canadian interest, a further 300,000 tons of Canadian asbestos was used in the United States and vast amounts of asbestos-containing products were incorporated into the United States infrastructure.”

Ms. Kazan-Allen obtained documents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to show that former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney lobbied his friend, then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan, in the mid-1980s about the EPA’s plan to ban asbestos.

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Sarnia rallies against asbestos – Katie Daubs (Toronto star – October 1, 2011)

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.

SARNIA—Chantale De Paepe is getting married this Saturday. Her day is packed with hair, makeup, and a memorial asbestos walk. Her dad, Vince, died of mesothelioma this summer.

“Here in Toronto, people are like, ‘What’s that? I’ve never heard of it,” the 28-year-old said. But the rare form of cancer is well known in Sarnia, where De Paepe is from.

For decades, the small city has been synonymous with chemical production and oil refineries, with a concentration of companies doing business in an area dubbed “Chemical Valley” by locals. In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the pipes that snaked through the valley were insulated with asbestos.

In the last decade, an alarming number of men and women in the area have died of asbestos-related cancers, which have latency periods of 20 to 40 years. Since 1999, 105 people with mesothelioma have come through the local Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers. Only two are still alive.

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Giving asbestos new life – by Graeme Hamilton and Nicolas Van Praet (National Post – September 29, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper

He has been portrayed as a monster, a businessman with impeccable political connections who sells a product so dangerous it has been banned in Europe and largely shunned on this continent.

But Baljit Singh Chadha says he is simply aiming to make some money while helping the poor improve their lives. And it looks like the Quebec government is about to back him up.

Mr. Chadha is a Montreal entrepreneur and the new face of the asbestos industry in Canada. After acting as the sales agent in India to Quebec’s Jeffrey asbestos mine for years, he has put together a plan to buy the bankrupt business and give it new life.

The Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest has committed $58-million in loan guarantees to relaunch the mine, provided Mr. Chadha can show the project can turn a profit, that the asbestos will be used safely in importing countries and that he can find private investors willing to put $25-million into the plan.

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Yes, we have the $25-million,’ Quebec firm says of asbestos plan – by Julian Sher (Globe and Mail – September 27, 2011)

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 – A year ago, over a lunch of oysters and fine wine at a posh downtown restaurant, Baljit Chadha held himself out as the potential saviour of Quebec’s faltering asbestos industry. This week, he plans to deliver.

Days before a provincial government deadline this Saturday to find private funding for the Mine Jeffrey in Asbestos, Que., the wealthy and well-connected Montreal businessman says he has “letters of intent” from unnamed investors in three different countries – enough to breathe new life into an export trade critics decry for causing death.

“I have done a lot of soul-searching on this and have come to a conclusion that we are not exporting death,” said Mr. Chadha, who combines an almost evangelical fervour for asbestos with the clout needed to pull off his controversial plan.

Mr. Chadha, whose company already handled much of the mine’s asbestos sales to his native India, offered to buy the mine outright in August of 2010, for “tens of millions.” But to clinch the deal, he had to secure an additional $25-million from outside investors while the Quebec government kept the mine afloat with a $58-million loan guarantee.

“Yes we have the $25-million,” he told The Globe and Mail.

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[Canada] Two faced on asbestos – by Lorne Gunter (National Post – September 14, 2011)

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

June was a very wet month in Edmonton. It rained nearly every day. Sometimes, it poured. And sometimes when it poured, it also blew – hard. Near the end of the month, rain fell for three days straight, while the wind gusted at times from 90 to 110 kilometres per hour.

The downspout from the upper roof of our home emptied onto the lower roof, from where the precipitation rippled across the shingles, disappeared into the eaves, down the pipe attached to the bricks next to the family room window and out onto the lawn.

In the middle of the night on the third straight day of rain, all the water and wind that had played on the roof over all the years succeeded in lifting the corner of one or two shingles. First a little rain, then a lot, snuck under the protective, overlapping asphalt tiles and leaked into our family room through the pot lights in the ceiling.

Around 5: 00 a.m., as the sun was rising on the upper side of the clouds, I was awakened by a dripping sound. Climbing down the stairs, I found some of the rain that should have been running out onto the lawn falling by drips and spoonfuls onto the rug in two places, as well as onto the middle of a large, overstuffed ottoman.

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[Asbestos] The Story of a Dead Sailor, His Widow and a Bunch of Boneheaded Politicians – by Serge Schmemann (New York Times Editorial Observer – September 3, 2011)

The New York Times has the third highest weekday circulation in the United States (after USA Today and the Wall Street Journal) and is one of the country’s most influential newspapers.

Robert Keyserlingk died in December 2009 of mesothelioma, a cancer usually caused by exposure to asbestos. Mr. Keyserlingk, a neighbor and good friend on the Canadian mountain lake where we spend our summers, had been a history professor and a wonderful gardener. Forty years earlier, he was a cadet in the Canadian Navy, in an era when the plumbing and wiring in naval vessels were routinely coated with asbestos.

In the 2 1/2 years he struggled with his disease, he and his wife, Michaela, a textile conservator, became involved in the political campaign against the continued mining of asbestos, specifically chrysotile, or white asbestos, in Canada, and its export to the third world.

This summer, to Mrs. Keyserlingk’s surprise and in a rather peculiar way, her continuing campaign was thrust into the limelight. The Conservative Party, which is currently governing Canada and has steadfastly supported asbestos mining, sent her a sharp notice demanding that she cease using the party’s logo on the modest Web site for her campaign. It threatened “further action” if she did not comply.

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Tories’ asbestos policy ‘unethical and shameful’ say Canadian doctors – Joanna Smith (Toronto Star – August 25, 2011)

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.

ST. JOHN’S—The Canadian Medical Association condemned the Conservative government for blocking asbestos from being listed as a hazardous substance around the world earlier this summer.

“I think this sends a strong message to the federal government that their unethical and shameful behaviour will not be tolerated by the physicians of Canada,” Dr. Barry Turchen of Abbotsford, B.C. told the annual gathering of the national body representing about 75,000 doctors on Wednesday.

Canada opposed the inclusion of chrysotile asbestos in a United Nations treaty last June that would have forced exporters to warn importing countries of health hazards.

The Rotterdam Convention, which operates by consensus, would have also given recipient countries the freedom to refuse to allow the product to enter their borders if they did not believe they could handle it safely.

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[Anti-asbestos] Ottawa widow stands firm against Conservative threats – by Time Harper (Toronto Star – August 17, 2011)

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.

Michaela Keyserlingk pauses when asked to recite her history of political activism. She seems to recall writing a letter to the local school board some years back after it closed some schools.

But over the past 72 hours, the Ottawa woman has outsmarted the propaganda arm of the Harper government after it handed her a gift, allowing her to publicize a cause she has championed in honour of her late husband.

The Conservative party may have success demonizing the Liberal party or painting the national media as agents of evil, but it appears to have met its match in this Ottawa widow.

Keyserlingk lost her husband, a retired university professor and one-time Progressive Conservative riding association president for Ottawa Centre, to asbestos-related cancer in December, 2009.

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Tories tussle with widow over use of party logo in asbestos ad campaign – by Andy Blatchford (The Canadian Press/Globe and Mail – August 14, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

The federal Conservative party has sent a threatening email to the widow of an asbestos victim in the latest chapter of Canada’s debate over the hazardous mineral. A top Tory official is warning the woman to stop using the party logo in an online ad campaign against the controversial industry — a campaign she started after her husband died of an asbestos-related cancer.

Michaela Keyserlingk, whose husband Robert died in 2009 of mesothelioma, has been running an online banner since the spring that reads, “Canada is the only western country that still exports deadly asbestos!”

Conservative party executive director Dan Hilton warned Ms. Keyserlingk to stop using the Tory symbol immediately. “Failure to do so may result in further action,” Mr. Hilton wrote in a July 29 email which carried the subject title, “Unauthorized use of trademark.” The email, which The Canadian Press obtained from Ms. Keyserlingk, went on to advise her: “Please govern yourself accordingly.”

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Asbestos killed my father. Now my mother is sick – by Heidi von Palleske (Globe and Mail – July 28, 2011)

 The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Globe and Mail -Facts and Arguments

When I was a child, I went to a Christmas party at the factory where my dad worked. There was a Santa and presents. My siblings and I went along with the other children on a tour of the factory.

I didn’t care about the machinery or how it worked. I only marvelled at the fairy dust in the air and how it seemed to sparkle when the light hit it. To me, it was magical, not something that would be a carrier of death.

Death has its own sound. It is the rattle of my mother’s lungs as she struggles for air. The purring sound she makes when the breath finally finds its way in. The rasp of her voice as she speaks.

My 79-year-old mother is dying. She’s dying just as my father did four years ago. There is no way to slow the process. No hope for a cure. There is no relief. Once mesothelioma is discovered, it is already too late.

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Asbestos: Killer product or toxic PR? – by Mark Bonokoski (Toronto Sun – July 10, 2011)

Mark Bonokoski is a columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper.    mark.bonokoski@sunmedia.ca

Back in May, an international consortium of doctors, scientists, labour leaders and health organizations wrote a rather pandering letter to Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe.

And, in that letter, they appealed for “His Excellency” to back off reopening two old asbestos mines in the country he has already impoverished by murderously turning Africa’s certified bread basket into a certifiable basket case.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s name was not mentioned, but it was implied, citing the Canadian government’s support for the reopening of the Jeffrey asbestos mine in Quebec as the kind of “reprehensive and retrogressive” action that Zimbabwe should not emulate.

The World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and the International Trade Union Confederation — claiming to represent 176 million workers in 151 countries — have all called for a global end of the use of any form of asbestos, citing it has led to the deaths and chronic disabilities of thousands of innocent victims from cancer and the respiratory disease of asbestosis.

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A deadly disdain for science [Harper and asbestos] – by Peter McKnight (Vancouver Sun – July 9, 2011)

www.vancouversun.com
pmcknight@vancouversun.com

The Conservative Party’s stance on asbestos -which drew worldwide condemnation -is just the latest example of the federal government’s embrace of an alternate reality bereft of scientific evidence and morality

In the atmospheric film Silent Hill, a dead mining town is forever shrouded in fog and falling ash, while those unfortunate enough to visit also find themselves forever trapped in an alternate reality, where science and morality have no hold.

It’s an apt metaphor for Quebec’s dying and deadly asbestos industry, as it slowly suffocates in a chrysotile cloud. But even more so, it’s an apt metaphor for the federal government’s asbestos policy, just the latest example of the Conservatives’ embrace of an alternate reality bereft of science and morality.

That policy received worldwide condemnation recently, after Canada became the only country in the world to oppose listing chrysotile asbestos under Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention, a multilateral treaty covering the importation of hazardous chemicals. Listing a substance on Annex III triggers the Convention’s Prior Informed Consent Procedure, which requires exporting countries to inform importers of the hazards that exist, and of the precautionary measures they ought to take in handling the substance.

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