Stephen Harper Sells Poison Canadian Asbestos to 3rd World Children
Updated in 2009 & February 2010
Canada’s new Conservative government returned to Ottawa last November, powerful and sneaky as ever. Prime Minister Steve is still letting Canada tell lies about our most toxic export, asbestos. We can’t use it in Canada to build homes but it is perfectly okay for Canada to export the lung-poisoning asbestos to third-world countries. Screw the wogs! Why, they're not even white, are they, Harper?
Difficult as it may be to believe, the government of Canada under Stephen Harper actively sends diplomats and officials scurrying like lying rats all over India and Thailand and Indonesia to assure semiliterate innocents that it is safe to house their vulnerable children in homes in which Canadian asbestos lurks ready to induce lung cancer. This isn’t a matter of opinion. Even the usually fraidycat Canadian Medical Association Journal has come out with a dead-clear denunciation of Canadian asbestos.
Illustration of the Government of Canada's Official Asbestos Policy
Read my article below to see precisely which cancers asbestos causes. Or should I say, the cancers Canada's Stephen Harper allows to flourish.
The coverup about asbestos is to save the one-industry Quebec town of Thetford Mines. The one industry is asbestos. The cover-up is part of Prime Minister Harper’s continuing attempt to coddle Quebec in its cradle as the demanding baby of current Canadian confederation, a baby that screams, “Gimme. Gimme. Gimme,” but has no plans to give back anything in return. It’s just that, this time, the cradle is crammed with asbestos fluff that floats on its deadly flight into the lungs of third-world children.
As Don Martin wrote recently in the National Post (Oct 24/08): “A study by international experts into the cancer risks of asbestos, commissioned with tax dollars by Health Canada, has evolved into a conspiracy of silence that's galling even by this government's paranoid standards of secrecy.
The 4,000-word study was submitted to Health Canada in March for vetting. It still remains classified as confidential pending the completion of the review, even though its findings would be useful at the global conference.” He refers to a conference in Rome this week where Canada was expected to continue trying to block other countries from banning asbestos.”
WARNING: The Pictures in the Ottawa Mirror Are Sneakier Than They Appear.
This is the government you elected Canada, so get used to another four years of vileness, for Harper has gathered round him once again the Cabinet of Thugs, including The 4 Harrismen of the Apocalypse, a familiar circle of bullies plucked from the crew created when Mike Harris took eight years to destroy Ontario.
The whole sick cabal of sneaks and neocon liars came back: the malignant Irish dwarf Flaherty, a traitor who bad-mouths his own province of Ontario; the hypertrophied stumblebum behemoth John Baird, the oaf who can't talk fast and can't talk slow; the automaton Tony “What? Me Feel?” Clement.
Have you ever paid serious attention to Tony Clement's political statements and defenses of Conservative policy over the years and not felt a frisson of revulsion creeping up the back of your neck? There is an ice cube where Clement’s heart should be. Clement could be the poster boy for a whole chapter in a psychology textbook, the chapter entitled “Lack of Affect.”
And Canada’s new Environment minister is Jim Prentice. So we know those tar-sands’ tailings ponds are safe. Fuck a duck, right, Jimbo? An environment minister might logically be expected to consider asbestos toxicity. Have Canadians heard even one syllable that was not blindly partisan from Jim Prentice? No.
Then let Canadians, concerned about asbestos export, seek action from our federal Ministry of Science.
In charge of that complex and serious portfolio Stephen Harper has placed an evolution-denying, born-again chiropractor.
Last week and this week, reporters asked this minister, Gary Goodyear, about his belief in evolution. This so-called graduate of the University of Waterloo could barely frame a cogent answer. Listening to him try to respond was truly frightening. It was obvious he did not understand evolution and Goodyear could barely put together a sound sentence.
Stephen Harper has placed in command of a delicate portfolio, upon which depends the future of Canadian science, a semi-literate chiropractor of breathtaking mediocrity.
But that is the government today in Canada: a herd of run-of-the-mill yesmen who tremble like a cowed herd before the bullying tactics of a control-freak prime minister incapable of delegating the smallest amount of authority to act.
Under Stephen Harper, Canada is fucked.
Our unfuckment will begin when we rid ourselves of his glum burgherdom of Conservative lumpen-nebbishes.
But let’s get back to Canada as peddler of international poison.
And let’s examine another story, deeply touching and moving.
And let’s examine another story, deeply touching and moving.
The city of Asbestos is situated in the Eastern Townships of Québec at the centre of a triangle formed by the cities of Quebec, Sherbrooke and Montreal. Asbestos wants to change its name. Asbestos as a town name has become politically dicey, embarrassing, toxic, but chiefly it's a lousy, persistent, economic burden.
Asbestos is a fibrous mineral such as chrysotile or actinolite easily made into long flexible strands formerly used where incombustible, nonconducting, or chemically resistant material was needed, until science discovered asbestos causes cancer in persons exposed to it over long periods of time.
Asbestos has been mined from the gigantic Jeffrey pit for more than 100 years. One of a handful of substances conclusively proven to be a human carcinogen, asbestos causes cancer, big time. Actinolite is a rare form of asbestos whose needle-like fibers make it a potent lung invasive and carcinogen. Other forms of asbestos in the amphobile group are considered especially dangerous because the fibers are hard for the lungs to expel. The amphobile family of asbestos is also more likely to become airborne than the chrysotile asbestos. Asbestos becomes a health hazard when it becomes lodged in the lungs. The major health risks linked to asbestos are asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs; meso-thelioma, a cancer of the lung and chest linings; other lung cancers and nonmalignant lung and pleural disorders. Does science feel this? Think this? Science KNOWS this! Want to read medical proof of the toxic potency of asbestos? Begin at this website for Hazards magazine. http://www.hazards.org/asbestos/
But here for the questing mind to contemplate is a picture of a cancerous lung.
Now the citizens of Asbestos, Quebec, wish to change the name of their fair hamlet. The word asbestos has become tainted in the public mind with nasty things like tumours and death. Awww! One local Quebec official says it’s all because nitpicky Americans have a phobia about asbestos. Not quite, mon vieux. The word phobia implies an irrational and unfounded fear of something. Fear of asbestos is about as rational and smart as a human being might get. So you can dump the phobia palaver. The danger is real, monsieur.
In 1989 asbestos was banned. Too late, as usual. Widely used during the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s in various building materials as a thermal insulator for walls, flooring, ceilings, insulation, roofing, fireproofing and automotive products, asbestos dust was also found in packaging and even wallpaper tiles and various other acoustic soundproofing products.
Now that most North American and European construction legislation has banned totally the use of asbestos in human habitation, what have Canada asbestos miners and manufacturers done with 95% of our Canadian asbestos? Guess! Sold it and shipped it off to the third world to use in its building projects, markets in Thailand, Singapore, Brazil, India and other developing nations.
Most of Canada’s toxic asbestos goes to Asian countries. But it’s all okey-dokey, say the many government-sponsored “safety” agencies. The asbestos industry says it promotes safe use of its products, and that the deaths and disease caused by asbestos use in the United States and Europe during the past century will not be repeated elsewhere in decades to come. Modern manufacturing processes are well-ventilated, producing minimal dust, industry defenders say. But medical experts worry that workers in those countries ultimately will develop lung afflictions that will sicken or kill them. Asbestos critics scoff at such safety claims. They cite unventilated factories in Brazil and other places. Some offer as proof slides of children in India exposed to dust produced by men sawing asbestos. Though there is deep disagreement over the current safety of and need for asbestos products, both sides on this debate agree on one thing: Asbestos can kill.
Still we have our petit problème in Quebec. They need a new name to cover up what has been mined there for more than 100 years. Local suggestions include Trois Lacs (Three Lakes) and the upbeat Phoenix, wherein locals hope the guiltless town will rise again, squawking and flapping its asbestos-dust-free wings as it soars through Quebec skies to glory.
Your humble deponent, Bill Casselman, would like to offer some new names too, just to be hell-pful. How about Sweet Lung, Quebec ? Or Pas de Cancer icette, mes copains? We could go for the nom faux-aborigène. You know, make the town name sound like an ancient Iroquois burial ground and redub it: Mesoquebecoma.
Thug Tactics by Asbestos Lobby To Intimidate Critics
2008.
It is not enough that the thug owners and thug Canadian workers don't care if they are mining material that is going to poison children. Now they hire goons and enforcers to try to frighten and bully anyone who criticizes the asbestos industry. Check out this story from the pages of online Hazards Magazine:
"Asbestos is still a money-spinner, and the industry is investing in a major promotional drive to protect its trade in chrysotile (white asbestos). But it is not limiting this global campaign to product marketing. It is resorting to threats and the courts to harass campaigners for an asbestos ban.
A meeting of anti-asbestos campaigners in Thetford, Quebec, had to be cancelled this year after industry thugs “threatened our worker contacts with violence and firings,” a Canadian union activist said. Union campaigners at the World Health and Safety Congress in Korea in July 2008 were provided minders as the atmosphere soured. Asbestos industry association speakers at the congress made defamatory attacks on union and asbestos disease campaigners. And international delegates to a February ban asbestos conference organised by the global building unions’ federation BWI found the hotel lobby festooned with pro-asbestos materials on their arrival. Delegates were intimidated at the conference and, in some cases, on their flights home."
Any action by Canada's so-called national police force, the RCMP, on these illegal and criminal intimidation tactics? NO! Not one nano-second of police work to apprehend these pro-asbestos scumbags. Is the noble RCMP in the pocket of Big Asbestos? Who knows? Maybe it is time for the many organizations who don't want Canada selling poison asbestos to the world's children to find ways to take the asbestos industry to court, to fight back with legal actions against these poisoners? Last time I looked selling known poisons was a teensy-weensy bit illegal.
Etymology of the Word Asbestos
Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,Unabridged (2002) gives a superb etymology quoted below:
“Middle English asbestus mineral supposed to be inextinguishable when set on fire, alteration (influenced by Latin & Greek asbestos) of albestron, probably from Middle French, alteration (probably influenced by Latin albus white) of abeston, from Medieval Latin asbeston, alter of Latin asbestos, from Greek, unslaked lime, from asbestos inextinguishable, unextinguished, from a- not(alpha privative)- + (assumed) sbestos, verbal of sbennynai to quench, extinguish; akin to Lithuanian gesti to be extinguished, Sanskrit jasate he is exhausted and perhaps to Old High German quist annihilation, Gothic qistjan to destroy, Tocharian B käs- to pass out of existence.”
Before we get to a review of the criminal apathy of Stephen Harper's Conservative government in regard to asbestos, we'll continue our asbestos story with a medical diagram for your delectation and perusal.
Stephen Harper Happy to Insure That Canada is an International Poisoner of Third World Workers
Anything to make a buck is the motto of our disgraceful Canadian Prime Minister, the same slimeball, son of an oil executive, who says Alberta Tar Sands Are Healthy & Wonderful.
Think I’m just a bitter old nutbar?
Read what Harper has done recently to promote the killer Canadian Asbestos. Here is an update by concerned anti-asbestos activists at Right On Canada. The final material below is quoted from a Right On Canada emailing in February 2010.
Help Stop Harper’s Asbestos Exports
We need your help to defend the human rights and health of impoverished workers around the world – from our own Canadian government!
Prime Minister Harper refuses to listen to the world’s leading health experts, like the World Health Organization, which says that use of asbestos must stop in order to save lives.
Instead, he allows the asbestos industry to set Canada’s policy. He is right now giving taxpayer funds to an aggressive asbestos lobby group which pushes sales of asbestos in developing countries and assures them it is a wonderful product they can safely use.
Because of our credibility as a country, Canada is the most powerful asset the global asbestos industry has.
This lobby group (the Asbestos Institute, now re-baptized the Chrysotile Institute), with Harper’s support, succeeded in sabotaging the UN Rotterdam Convention and prevented the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance. This is great for sales, as it means Canada’s asbestos industry can sell asbestos in developing countries without having to tell them it is hazardous.
It is a shameful blot on Canada’s reputation that we put the industry’s wishes ahead of human lives.
Asbestos is like a land-mine. It goes on killing for generations.
Workers around the world are dying from Canada’s asbestos. In fact, workers in India (where Canada ships most of its asbestos) have made a direct appeal to Prime Minister Harper to stop this heartless and cynical policy. He refuses to listen to them.
That’s why we must make him listen and make him stop exporting asbestos death in our name and with our money.
In his latest Cabinet shuffle, Harper appointed his most aggressive promoter of asbestos, Christian Paradis, to the powerful position of Natural Resources Minister.
Mr. Paradis is Canada’s “Asbestos Czar” because of his close connections with the asbestos lobby and its industry-funded pro-asbestos scientists.
RightOnCanada.ca is at the forefront of a Canada-wide and truly international effort to stop Canada’s asbestos exports. We are working with doctors, experts, trade unionists, environmentalists, and human rights activists around the world.
This month we co-operated closely with workers in Mumbai and Delhi who confronted Quebec Premier Jean Charest during his trade tour to India over his province’s appalling asbestos exports.
Stephen Harper and Jean Charest don’t seem to care about the painful deaths and cancers caused by Canadian asbestos – but I know that you do.
We will continue to inform journalists and the Canadian public about Canada’s unwanted distinction as the world’s fourth largest asbestos exporter (after Russia, Kazakhstan and Brazil). Using our links with experts in Canada, pressure will be brought to bear on the government to ban the export of asbestos. And we will work in solidarity with allies in other countries.
Our country is turning into a worldwide human rights abuser, not a human rights defender.
If you want to contribute to this worthwhile anti-asbestos campaign, visit their website by clicking below.
www.RightOnCanada.ca
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