Canadian Labour Congress delays call for ban on asbestos mining

A decision by Canada's largest labour body on whether to call for a ban on asbestos mining has been put on hold after pressure from its Quebec affiliate.

For decades, the Canadian Labour Congress has refused to criticize an industry that is criticized internationally as a deadly threat to its workers and the public at large.

Last fall, CLC president Ken Georgetti said he was embarassed by Canada's leading role in the global asbestos trade and promised that at their next meeting, the labour body's leaders would finally call for a ban on asbestos production in Canada.

"It should have been banned years ago and I'm ashamed we export asbestos to Third World countries," Georgetti said in October at a gathering of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour.

But the executive committee meeting came and went last week with only a promise to debate the issue again soon, CBC News has learned.

Last week, Michel Arsenault, president of the Quebec Federation of Labour, convinced his CLC colleagues not to call for a ban until after a new Health Canada study on the risks of asbestos is completed and made public.

In an interview with CBC News, Arsenault insisted working in an asbestos mine was safe, saying people in many countries had developed a "psychosis" over the substance.

"There's no more health danger working in an asbestos mine than working in a steel mill or working on a street corner in Toronto, for Christ's sake," Arsenault said Monday. "It's a very dangerous animal, but now we know how to work with it in a safe way."

Roughly 700 people work in Quebec's asbestos industry. Canada is the only developed nation still producing the mineral, called a deadly threat by the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Association for Cancer Research and many more health agencies.

Mineral 'a major killer': Indian labour

Quebec, home to Canada's only two asbestos mines, has one of the highest rates of mesothelioma — an asbestos-related cancer — in the world.

The Canadian government believes asbestos is safe if handled properly and has spent nearly $20 million in the past two decades to promote exports of the mineral, almost all of it going to developing nations for use in construction material.

But Georgetti argued any appeal by the CLC wouldn't immediately end the practice of asbestos mining in Canada. He called for the federal government to take a lead role in closing the mines, including providing financial support for the miners, and their families and communities when the industry finally ceases production.

"If they did that, the decision for our council would be very easy," he said.

Last week, the All India Trade Union Congress, the second largest union in India, appealed for help from Georgetti and the CLC in urging the Canadian government to stop exports of Canadian asbestos to India, calling the mineral "a major killer."

Roughly 97 per cent of Canada's production of asbestos is exported — mostly to developing countries including India, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Asbestos has been banned by nearly every developed country, as well as a growing number of developing nations. WHO has estimated as many as 100,000 people around the world die annually from asbestos-related diseases.