March 24, 2010
Committee rejects motion on pro-asbestos groupFrançais
Sought to cut federal funding
MICHELLE LALONDE, The Gazette
A parliamentary committee rejected a motion to cut federal funding for a pro-asbestos lobby group from the 2010 budget yesterday, but a Liberal member of that committee said his party remains concerned about Canada’s asbestos industry.
“I am no fan of the Chrysotile Institute, but this vote would have had serious consequences, since it could have led to a confidence (vote)” on the budget, said Geoff Regan, Liberal natural resources critic.
A motion by New Democrat MP Pat Martin to reduce the natural resources budget by $250,000, the amount earmarked for the Chrysotile Institute, was rejected by all members of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, except for its one NDP member, Nathan Cullen.
Martin argued the Liberals could have supported his motion without risking an election call as it was clear the Conservative and Bloc Québécois members of the committee were going to reject it.
“The Liberals missed an opportunity to send a symbolic shot across the bow of the asbestos industry,” he said.
Critics claim the Liberal and Conservative federal governments, along with the Quebec government, have poured tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute), a non-profit organization set up in 1984 by the Quebec and federal governments to promote the safe use of chrysotile asbestos around the world.
“The asbestos cartel are a bunch of old-school, corporate thugs who have survived on lies, junk science and aggressive tactics all paid for courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer,” Martin said.
Claire Checkland, a senior analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, said she was surprised and disappointed that Liberal members of the committee did not support the motion, since Liberal leader Michael Ignatief has indicated his party is now against Canada’s continued promotion and export of the cancer-causing fibre.
“Chrysotile asbestos causes cancer, it is indisputable, and we feel an organization that promotes the use of a substance like this is not what our federal tax dollars should go to,” Checkland said.
But Clément Godbout of the Chrysotile Institute held a news conference yesterday to defend the institute and announce the formation of a new coalition for the “safe, responsible and controlled use of chrysotile fibre.”
The group includes various chambers of commerce from Quebec’s asbestos mining region, the municipalities of Asbestos and Thetford Mines, the Manufacturers and Exporters of Quebec, the Quebec Employers Council, the Quebec Mining Association, the Pro-Chrysotile Movement, Jacques Dunnigan (a researcher from the Université de Sherbrooke) and several Quebec unions.
Godbout said a ban on the export of chrysotile asbestos would have “devastating effects on the economic development of certain regions of Quebec.” He noted the industry is responsible for 700 direct jobs and 2,000 indirect jobs.
He said Quebec has paid a heavy price in terms of workers’ health to develop know-how on using asbestos safely. If Quebec stops producing and exporting asbestos to the developing world, he said countries like Russia will take over the market, but will not educate importers on how to handle chrysotile asbestos properly
