Canada: Pro-asbestos lobby gets caught out

TUC Risks 31st May 2008 reported that Canada's pro-asbestos lobby has faced stern criticism for wrongly implying a long-delayed government commissioned report opposes a ban on asbestos.

Critics including the chair of the Health Canada panel of experts that prepared the report have denounced both the delay and the misrepresentation of their findings.

Health Canada hired seven scientific and medical experts from around the world last November to examine the risks of chrysotile, or white asbetsos. Leslie Stayner, head of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, as well as UK occupational hygiene expert Trevor Ogden, the chair of the panel of experts, have each written letters to federal health minister Tony Clement decrying the delay in publishing their findings. 'It is simply unacceptable for this report to continue to be withheld from the public, while individuals who have seen the report and our comments make erroneous allegations about what it contains to suit their political objectives,' Stayner wrote in his letter.

Last week, Bloc Québécois MP André Bellavance rose in Canada's House of Commons to argue against growing calls to ban chrysotile, implying Health Canada's new study supports his view. 'I want to make the record clear that nothing in the report would argue against the sensibility of an asbestos ban in Canada or for that matter anywhere else in the world,' Stayner told CBC News.

In his letter, Stayner said that while the panel was not asked to rule on whether chrysotile asbestos can be used safely, 'from a pragmatic point of view, my answer to this question would be that it [safe use] is simply not possible.' The controversy comes as the executive of CLC, Canada's national union federation, is recommending a policy that will see the gradual closure of the country's asbestos mines, alongside measures to address the impact of the shutdown on the affected miners.