Asbestos regulations: Who is responsible?

The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada must be commended for creating this opportunity for dialogue. To start the conversation, here are some basic facts:

• Developing countries use vast amounts of chrysotile for the same reasons developed countries did decades ago: it is more often than not the most cost-efficient, durable product available to poor people who need to put a roof over their heads, and to governments who need to build infrastructures. Indeed, it saves lives and makes people more comfortable.

• The Supreme Court of India refused to ban chrysotile last February. Developing countries are as concerned as Canada is by the health of their populations. The Indian population, institutions and government are quite capable of sharing scientific knowledge and determining what is preferable for them.

• We live in a world filled with useful yet dangerous substances that we have learned to use safely. Chrysotile is one such substance. It is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer on the same list of carcinogens as silica, oral contraceptives, X-rays, alcoholic beverages, wood dust, products used in shoe manufacturing and furniture making, and many other common substances. We have not banned these substances. We have learned to use them safely, to our benefit.

• We will ensure that our customers follow safety standards and are committed to carrying out an independent audit to ensure this. We hope to raise the standards of the industry in this way.

• It is very easy to use chrysotile safely, even in developing countries. We learned decades ago that chrysotile can be safely bound and encapsulated into another substance, the most widely used of which is cement. Cement pipes and sheets pose no health risk. They are legally and safely used in Canada. As for the much-touted fear of the dust generated when sawing a chrysotile-cement product, the answer is very simple: apply water to it, exactly as when sawing any cement product.

• Having learned from past mistakes, we must turn to the future. We learned decades ago that unlike chrysotile, amphibole varieties of asbestos cannot be used safely, so they are no longer mined anywhere in the world. Unfortunately they were widely used everywhere up to the 1960s, including in Canada. When older buildings must be renovated, the amphibole asbestos must be removed with great precaution, as was done recently in the Canadian parliament building. But this has nothing to do with chrysotile. It is time to move beyond disinformation. Those scientists that take the time to review the available scientific literature conclude that when properly controlled and used, chrysotile asbestos in its modern-day applications does not present risks of any significance to public and/or worker health.

The Honourable Baljit S. Chadha, P.C., is President and founder of Balcorp Limited. Mr. Chadha was appointed for life to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada in 2003. He has also served a 5-year term (2003-2008) on the Security Intelligence Review Committee.

Canada not only exports asbestos to Asia, it also exports deadly misinformation that asbestos can be safely used. This misinformation has been condemned as indefensible by all of Canada’s leading health authorities, including the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Cancer Society, which have told the government it is contributing to asbestos-related death in the global South.

 Faced with epidemics of asbestos-related disease and indisputable evidence that safe use of asbestos is impossible, industrialized countries started to ban the use of asbestos in the early 80s. The Canadian government filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization, arguing that banning asbestos was an illegal trade barrier, because asbestos can be safely used. Canada could not show a single example anywhere in the world of asbestos being used safely and lost its case.

Since no industrialized country wuld touch asbestos, Canada deliberately decided to target developing countries. Using the same strategy as the tobacco industry, the government, together with the asbestos industry, created the Chrysotile Institute, supposedly to provide reliable scientific information on asbestos. In reality, it is a lobby group controlled by the asbestos industry. It received millions of dollars from the government to disseminate misinformation about asbestos, to set up asbestos lobby groups overseas and to prevent even minimal safety controls, such as warning labels.

Quebec’s public health authorities have much expertise on asbestos. They state that “safe use” of asbestos is impossible and is not being practiced, even today in a technologically advanced, regulated jurisdiction like Quebec, where construction workers continue to be exposed to asbestos harm. Across Canada, the number one cause of occupational death is asbestos. The numbers keep rising, even though we stopped using it decades ago.

We spend millions of dollars to remove asbestos from schools in Canada to protect our children. But we put out propaganda, endorsed by the Canadian government, saying that putting asbestos in schools and homes in Asia is perfectly safe.

Under Canadian law, asbestos is a strictly regulated hazardous substance. But Canada refuses to allow it to be treated as a hazardous substance under the UN Rotterdam Convention, thus ensuring that its uncontrolled use continues – not in Canada, but overseas. It is much easier to sell asbestos when there is no requirement to disclose its hazards.

Just as the tobacco industry is responsible for deaths caused by the misinformation it disseminated, so is the Canadian government responsible for deaths caused by the asbestos misinformation it disseminates.

Kathleen Ruff is Senior Human Rights Advisor to the Rideau Institute in Ottawa. She is presently Coordinator of the Rotterdam Convention Alliance, which represents various organizations advocating the promotion and defence of the United Nation’s Rotterdam Convention.

Should asbestos use be banned? In Canada, the government has taken major steps to protect citizens and workers from asbestos, including spending billions to remove asbestos from schools, factories, parliamentary buildings and even the home of the Prime Minister. Health Canada, the World Health Organization (which estimates 100 000 die of asbestos-related illness each year), various medical agencies, and countless civil society groups recommend that the most efficient way to protect against asbestos is to ban its use (including chrysotile asbestos). Almost all high-income countries have banned asbestos.

In Asia, several countries have done so, including Japan, South Korea, and most recently, Thailand (which was the world’s 6th largest consumer of asbestos). These countries are responding to the scientific evidence. Not surprisingly, the Chrysotile Institute (the Canadian asbestos lobby funded in part by our government) insists that asbestos is “safe if used properly.” A brief summary of the scientific evidence that clearly contradicts this conclusion can be found here.

If we agree that asbestos should be banned, should the exporter or importer do the banning? Since the first national asbestos ban (1972, Denmark) over 50 countries have now banned it. But in many countries consumer and labour groups have struggled to have asbestos banned. India (the largest importer of Canadian asbestos), for example, has witnessed many failed attempts. All the major Indian trade unions, including the Indian Association of Occupational Health, even chose to directly call on Canada to stop exporting asbestos. This past year in Bihar, India, villagers and youth organized protests to keep an asbestos factory out of their community and faced fire from police as a consequence. The Chrysotile Institute has helped create pro-asbestos lobby groups in India and elsewhere and continues to play a vital role in blocking domestic asbestos bans.

So whose responsibility is it to ban asbestos – the importing Asian country, or Canada? Clearly, it is grossly exploitative for Canada to continue to export asbestos to countries that have not yet successfully banned it. Canada is putting thousands of lives at risk just to squeeze a few jobs out of a dying industry. Instead of giving a $58 million loan guarantee to open up a new mine and financing the asbestos lobby, Canada should invest the few dollars needed to retrain Canadian asbestos miners. Canada should ban asbestos export and save lives. But hey, these are Asian lives and it’s the responsibility of their governments to protect them from Canada, right?

Aneil Jaswal is Director of the Cancer Culprit Awards, an organization created in support of international efforts to ensure the regulation of harmful substance use, including asbestos. For further information, please see www.cancerculprits.org

Canada’s export of asbestos to developing nations has been viewed as highly controversial, especially in light of the fact that asbestos use is highly restricted within Canada because of its suspected health implications. But a trade in some commodity occurs only because there is both supply and demand, and the trade in asbestos is one that is driven by demand. Moreover, Canada is merely the world’s fourth largest asbestos exporter, so asbestos use and the associated dangers in importing countries will continue even if Canada halts its own exports. To some, Canada's action may be seen as taking advantage of developing countries because of their inability to devote better technology and more resources toward their own development. Regardless, the responsibility to monitor the use of asbestos is still one that firmly resides with the importing country. Moreover, ending Canadian asbestos exports might have an unintended negative effect of decreasing aggregate supply and thus possibly driving up world prices. Not only would Canada be benefitting other asbestos exporters at its own expense, but the resulting rise in prices would make development less affordable for importing countries.

But there are nonetheless important reputational reasons for Canada to withdraw from the asbestos industry. The most important is the need to defend Canada's international reputation as a major leader in promoting humanitarian development. At a minimum, Canada should allow importing states to have full access to an independent and thorough assessment of the risks of asbestos use. It can do so, first and foremost, by no longer being the major opposition to listing chrysotile asbestos under Annex III in the United Nations Rotterdam Convention. Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention contains a list of chemicals that have been banned or severely restricted by parties. Subject to the Prior Informed Consent procedure, they can still be traded globally, as long as detailed information on the chemical is provided (the Decision Guidance Document). It is only fair for potential importers to be able to access all information needed to make the best decision for themselves.

Hillary Cheung is an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia, pursuing a double major in International Affairs and Economics. She did preliminary research on the asbestos issue during her time as an intern at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in June 2011.