CWU Supports Campaign to Stop Canadian Asbestos Exports

The CWU is continuing its support for the worldwide campaign to Stop Canadian abestos Exports and government plans to expand Asbestos Mining and to export 5 Million Tonnes of Asbestos to developing Countries over the next 25 Years.

Dave Joyce National Health, Safety & Environment Officer has issued a letter to branches detailing the campaign and arguments against the asbestos industry in Canada.

The letter, LTB261/11, is reproduced in full below:

Canada’s asbestos sector has become the target of a mounting, international anti-asbestos campaign. In recent months, health professionals, Trade Unions and anti-asbestos activists from around the world have spoken out against Canadian asbestos exports.

Selling asbestos is illegal in Canada with strict occupational health and safety rules in place limiting Canadian workers’ exposure to the mineral. However the Canadian Government sees nothing wrong in continuing to produce asbestos and to export the killer fibre to poor, developing countries where workers have little or no health and safety laws and protection.

Canada has a prominent role in the global asbestos industry and is blamed for 90,000 deaths annually around the world, with up to one million people dying of asbestos related diseases worldwide each year.

A plan to re-open and increase production from Canada's last asbestos mine near this town named "Asbestos" after the deadly mineral has enraged Trade Union, physicians and health workers around the globe. Fibers from chrysotile ore, called white asbestos, are to blame for a worldwide death count in the millions. Many experts are especially upset that the plan calls for the carcinogenic mineral to be shipped to countries where it encounters little, if any, protective restrictions on its use. Politicians, entrepreneurs and bureaucrats in Quebec insist that the chrysotile ore being mined today 75 miles north of the Vermont border is perfectly safe, harmless to the miners and to the workers and consumers who will handle it.

The UK government imposed a legal ban on both blue and brown asbestos in 1986 and Chrysotile White Asbestos was banned by the then Labour Government in 1999. The European Union followed in 2005.

CWU members have died and are dying today because of past exposure to Asbestos, before it was banned in the UK. At least 5000 people in the UK die each year from mesothelioma and asbestos related lung cancer as a result of past exposure to asbestos. Annual numbers of deaths are predicted to go on rising into the next decade and the UK has some of the best Asbestos Control Laws in the World.

The Countries that will receive Asbestos from the Canadian Jeffrey Mine have no such protection for workers. The fibers from chrysotile, white asbestos, are to blame for a worldwide death count in the millions and Canada plans are for the carcinogenic mineral to be shipped to countries where it encounters little, if any, protective restrictions on its use. Many toxicology experts on the dangers of asbestos say it is absurd to pretend it can be safely used.

Chrysotile asbestos is a known human carcinogen - a widely held fact that has been accepted by public health scientists and health agencies for decades. All of Quebec's medical and health authorities, including the government's own health experts, have stated that chrysotile asbestos cannot be “safely used” and would cause asbestos-related diseases and death overseas. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 107,000 people die worldwide each year from asbestos diseases, and the fibers that cause it have made asbestos a pariah in most developed nations. At least 55 countries have already outlawed the use and importation of asbestos.

A report ‘Exporting Harm’ says that Canada exported nearly 153,000 tonnes of chrysotile (White Asbestos) in 2009 and that more than half went to India; the rest went to Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.

In the Quebec region the government is considering a $58-million loan to re-open and expand production at the huge 'Jeffrey Asbestos Mine' in the town of 'Asbestos'. The Canadian Conservative Central government backs the move.

In 1999, Canada challenged France’s Asbestos Ban at the World Trade Organization (WTO) but the WTO rejected Canada’s challenge stating that the European Communities had justification on health protection grounds.

In June 2009, the Council of Canadians joined with the Canadian Association of physicians for the Environment, Canadian Auto Workers Union, Canadian Environmental Law Association, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, 'Mining Watch' Canada, Rideau Institute on International Affairs, and others to demand that Canadian parliamentarians heed the call to ban Canadian asbestos.

Earlier this month the embattled Canadia asbestos industry was dealt another blow, with a powerful Quebec Unions poised to retract its longstanding support. The Confederation of National Trade Unions look highly likely to back a resolution calling for an end to the development of the chrysotile fibre asbestos industry in Quebec. The union is wading into that debate at a sensitive moment.  Claudette Carbonneau, the CNTU president, said in her address to the CNTU Congress "The time has come to update our position," "This would honour those who fought and died for health and safety, and point out that the life of an Indian worker, just like that of a Quebecer, cannot be blindly sacrificed in the name of a job."

See attached Kathleen Ruff’s 32-page "Exporting Harm: How Canada Markets Asbestos to the Developing World" report, Kathleen Ruff (Ban Asbestos Canada) is senior human rights advisor to the Rideau Institute on International Affairs and is a former director of the B.C. Human Rights Commission, is a member of the Rotterdam Convention Alliance, a group of environmental and health organizations working to promote implementation of the Rotterdam Convention.

The CWU has continued its support for the campaign and we've called on the Canadian Government to stop asbestos production and export. A letter has been sent to the Quebec Regional Government's Prime Minister Premier Jean Charest.

Additionally A letter has recently been sent to Normand Paulin Director of Occupational Safety at the Occupational Health & Safety Commission of Québec has been invited to participate in a project to promote the increased export of asbestos on the basis it can be “safely used” and will not cause harm to public health in those countries importing it.

Source: CWU

Designed, Hosted and Maintained by Union Safety Services