I don’t know about you, but I often take buildings for granted. I assume they are built with certain standards that will insure not only my safety, but that of the people who built them.
However, this is not the case all around the world. The Canadian government recently said it will start a billion dollar project to rid its parliamentary buildings of asbestos. After all, most of us know asbestos is bad. The small fibers can be inhaled and exposure to these fibers can cause mesothelioma, a type of cancer that generally offers a limited life expectancy. Notable people who have died of mesothelioma include actors Paul Gleason and Steve McQueen, footballer turned actor Merlin Olsen, Congressman Bruce Vento, and musicians Warren Zevon and Christie Hennessy.
So asbestos is bad, get rid of it, right? The only problem is while Canada is spending the billion dollars to rid their buildings of asbestos, they continue to sell insulation and other products that contain asbestos to others, especially third world, developing countries. This includes countries that can’t even provide safety equipment to their workers who handle the asbestos. After Russia, Canada is the world’s leading exporter of asbestos.
Ten members of the European Union, including France, has banned asbestos and they are putting pressure on Canada to stop exporting the deadly material. However, many Canadian officials feel that this ban violates the country’s rights under international trade rules. At a speech delivered in Italy, Dr. Joseph LeDou of the University of California Medical School accused Canada of “exploitation of ignorance and poverty” and that by continuing to sell asbestos, it would cause “an epidemic of asbestos-related disease, the costs of which will fall on countries that can ill afford it.”
Now, a group of anonymous investors have asked the government if they can open a mine built in the 1990s, but not quite finished – one that would send about five million tons of asbestos to Asia. And they want Quebec to loan them $58 billion dollars to do it.
Protests against the opening of the mine are planned.