Industry Standards of Shame
Quebec, in line with the rest of the advanced, industrialized world does not use asbestos, known to cause cancer and asbestosis. Within Canada, work is ongoing to carefully remove asbestos from old buildings to ensure they can continue to be used, safely, without exposure to asbestos. Asbestos is so notorious a threat to human health that Realtors routinely ascertain that houses and buildings they undertake to sell, have no asbestos in them.
Yet, in Quebec the industry that continues to mine chrysotile asbestos, which now represents all of the world asbestos trade, also continues to insist that chrysotile asbestos is perfectly safe. There are experts, paid by the industry who are prepared to tell developing countries that the use of this asbestos is safe. The Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Medical Association, and independent experts in the field call for an end in Canada of the asbestos industry.
While strictly avoiding the use of any kind of asbestos in Canada, there is no prohibition in exporting chrysotile asbestos to developing countries of the world. Even though it is clear that asbestos is a dangerous substance, and Canada should play no part in exporting it for use elsewhere. Still the Quebec asbestos lobby refuses to give up the ghost of chrysotile asbestos, an industry that employs a bare several hundred in the province.
Moreover, the open-pit mines are close to exhaustion in some areas, requiring huge investments in underground mines to extract harder-to-reach deposits. It is in Thetford Mines, employing 340 workers that chrysotile asbestos has its last stranglehold on the industry, refusing to face reality, that the health of the workers is directly affected by the work they do, that it is a moral offence to export asbestos to inflict it on poor countries.
All that really remains to be done is for the federal government to finally proclaim that it can no longer countenance the ethical disequilibrium of outlawing the use of asbestos in Canada, while assisting Quebec-based asbestos-extraction companies to continue to mine the product and ship it overseas to countries where it is used without due regard for its impact on people there.
It's criminal, its wrong, and it's past-due time that the practise be halted, forever.
Yet, in Quebec the industry that continues to mine chrysotile asbestos, which now represents all of the world asbestos trade, also continues to insist that chrysotile asbestos is perfectly safe. There are experts, paid by the industry who are prepared to tell developing countries that the use of this asbestos is safe. The Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Medical Association, and independent experts in the field call for an end in Canada of the asbestos industry.
While strictly avoiding the use of any kind of asbestos in Canada, there is no prohibition in exporting chrysotile asbestos to developing countries of the world. Even though it is clear that asbestos is a dangerous substance, and Canada should play no part in exporting it for use elsewhere. Still the Quebec asbestos lobby refuses to give up the ghost of chrysotile asbestos, an industry that employs a bare several hundred in the province.
Moreover, the open-pit mines are close to exhaustion in some areas, requiring huge investments in underground mines to extract harder-to-reach deposits. It is in Thetford Mines, employing 340 workers that chrysotile asbestos has its last stranglehold on the industry, refusing to face reality, that the health of the workers is directly affected by the work they do, that it is a moral offence to export asbestos to inflict it on poor countries.
All that really remains to be done is for the federal government to finally proclaim that it can no longer countenance the ethical disequilibrium of outlawing the use of asbestos in Canada, while assisting Quebec-based asbestos-extraction companies to continue to mine the product and ship it overseas to countries where it is used without due regard for its impact on people there.
It's criminal, its wrong, and it's past-due time that the practise be halted, forever.
Labels: Canada, Government of Canada, Inconvenient Politics
posted by Pieface | 2:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home