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Before asbestos became feared as one of the most powerful cancer-causing agents ever used, it was heralded as the "magic mineral." In an age of impermanence, asbestos offered durability. While it had the texture of wool, it didn't burn and was incredibly resistant to decay. That is why it was once used in thousands of products, everything from car brake pads to insulation on some of the giant steel girders holding up the World Trade Center.

But asbestos has a big problem. When used, it promiscuously sheds tiny dust fibres. Once inhaled, the fibres become tangled in lung tissues, where they wreak havoc — typically lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma, a rare, painful and almost always fatal cancer of the lining of the chest wall. The World Health Organization estimates asbestos kills at least 90,000 people a year — about half of all occupational cancer deaths.

The unfortunate drawback of killing large numbers of people has led more than 40 countries, a who's who of advanced industrialized nations, to outlaw asbestos use. But Canada isn't among them.

While the federal government projects an image of being a helpful, international Boy Scout on issues ranging from peacekeeping to nuclear proliferation, Canada has a peculiar relationship to asbestos.

Since it's a carcinogen, Canadians don't use much of it any more. Even the asbestos in the Parliament Buildings is being removed. But the country remains one of the world's biggest purveyors of the deadly mineral, selling abroad 95 per cent of the output from the country's two remaining mines, both in Quebec, a business worth about $93-million a year.

Most asbestos used in developing countries is added to cement (at a rate of one part asbestos to about 10 parts of cement) to add durability to water pipes and the ubiquitous corrugated roofing that is a familiar sight in shantytowns around the Third World.

India alone has about 50 plants making asbestos cement destined for homes and other buildings. Asbestos cannot be mined legally in India, so it imports what it uses from countries such as Canada. Cement is the end use of practically all Canadian exports — more than 93 per cent, according to the federal government.

It's not just that Canada is home to companies that sell asbestos abroad. The federal and Quebec governments actively promote it, spending tens of millions since 1984 to encourage the remaining markets, mainly in developing countries. Ottawa has even mobilized Canadian diplomatic staff, from Jakarta to Washington, as recently as last summer, to stand on guard against asbestos bans in the roughly 70 countries that still buy it from Canada.

Natural Resources Canada is the lead federal department dealing with asbestos. It declined a request from The Globe and Mail to interview officials about Canada's asbestos policy, but agreed to answer written questions.

"Canada has long advocated, at home and abroad, a responsible, controlled use approach for chrysotile asbestos," the department said, although it added that "the implementation of domestic measures to ensure workplace health and safety is a sovereign responsibility of importing countries."

The response sidestepped questions about whether promoting asbestos abroad is a good use of taxpayers' money and whether it is done to protect federalism in Quebec.

The government insists that foreigners can and do use asbestos safely, because Canadian companies would sell it only to those that implement Canadian-style safeguards: "The Canadian chrysotile industry has agreed not to export to companies that do not use chrysotile in a manner that is consistent with Canada's controlled-use approach."

The biggest purchaser, taking about a quarter of Canada's output, is India, where it's easy to find workers using one of the most dangerous materials in the world clad only in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops.

Tushar Joshi, a noted New Delhi occupational health expert, is flabbergasted over asbestos sales by a country of Canada's stature. "As a developed country, you expect more civilized behaviour," Dr. Joshi says. Canada's activities are "beyond comprehension," he adds, calling Ottawa's promotion of asbestos "a black spot on a sparkling white dress."

Animal experiments conducted in the mid-1970s, when the material was still widely used in Canada, found that as little as one day's exposure was enough to induce cancer in the laboratory.

Even though the federal government says today's Canadian asbestos doesn't pack the same killing punch of other varieties, the World Health Organization says all types — including chrysotile asbestos, the only type now mined in Canada and worldwide — cause cancer.

The WHO says thousands of other people die each year after unknowingly come into contact with asbestos dust. The dust is such an efficient inducer of cancer, no known safe exposure level exists: "Bearing in mind that there is no evidence for a threshold for the carcinogenic effects of asbestos … the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos-related diseases is to stop using all types of asbestos."

The United Nations agency cites as a particular concern the continued use of asbestos cement in the construction industry because "the work force is large, it is difficult to control exposure, and in-place materials have the potential to deteriorate and pose a risk to those carrying out alterations, maintenance and demolition."

It isn't often that Canada is totally at odds with a UN agency, but it is on asbestos.

"The Government of Canada is of the view that the health risks of chrysotile can be managed if regulations, programs and practices equivalent to Canada's are in place to limit exposures to airborne fibres and that the risks would be no greater than posed by other occupational activities," the government said earlier this year in a statement issued by Peter MacKay, then foreign affairs minister.

It was a response to a petition filed with the office of the federal Environment Commissioner by David Boyd, a University of British Columbia researcher, seeking an explanation for Canada's promotion of asbestos. (The government has a legal obligation to answer questions posed in petitions to the commissioner.)

In an interview, Mr. Boyd said he feels that Canada's continuing export of "a deadly substance with profound public health impacts" is "unethical and immoral," but based on a desire of governments to win votes in Quebec.

"It's the old conundrum where we've got an industry that's centred in Quebec and the federal government is always walking on pins and needles when it comes to dealing with issues that threaten the loss of votes or seats in Quebec," he said.

In the statement, Ottawa said it doesn't verify whether buyers follow Canadian-style rules when using asbestos, arguing that seeking such information would violate foreign sovereignty. About 75 per cent of Canadian asbestos is shipped to Asia, where, along with India, the biggest customers are Indonesia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Many health experts consider it laughable to say that workers in poor countries use asbestos with the same care that is taken in Canada. Ontario's asbestos regulations run seven pages, and their requirement for sophisticated dust-control equipment — and decades of medical monitoring including chest X-rays for those exposed — are unlikely to be followed in poor countries.

"Anyone who says there's controlled use of asbestos in the Third World is either a liar or a fool," says Barry Castleman, a consultant who helped to advise Europeans in 2000 on Canada's unsuccessful attempt to overturn a French ban on Canadian asbestos.

According to a published estimate in India, about 100,000 workers are exposed to asbestos. Fewer than 30 people have ever been formally compensated for asbestos-related diseases, a figure that is unlikely to reflect the true extent of the illness burden. A 2005 study of a group of exposed factory workers found that 22 per cent had asbestosis, although the industry has published figures claiming that none of its workers have developed the disease from the mineral.

Dr. Joshi is worried that India, which began using asbestos in large quantities in the 1980s (just as usage started declining in the West), is on the cusp of a cancer epidemic. He said he has treated three patients with asbestos-related illnesses. However, he added, the Indian medical system isn't geared up to catch complicated ailments such as mesothelioma and lung cancer.

He suspects that these cancers are occurring but are incorrectly diagnosed as tuberculosis or pneumonia, which are common in India. And, given the lag of several decades between initial asbestos exposure and the development of cancers, his hunch is that Indians may soon experience thousands of additional cancers, for which Canada will share some responsibility.

While Dr. Joshi said it is impossible in a country such as India to use asbestos safely, Canada seldom rests in its promotional efforts.

In July, the Canadian embassy in Washington sent a letter to the U.S. Senate, which was considering an asbestos ban. The letter conceded that "all forms of asbestos fibres, including chrysotile, are carcinogenic," but it maintained that its use can be safe if proper precautions are followed. The Senate ignored the advice and voted unanimously this month to ban asbestos.

Last year, Canada was more successful, scuttling an effort by the UN's Rotterdam Convention to have chrysotile added to the list of materials that are so dangerous that countries need to approve imports in advance, as a sign that they know what they are getting into. Canada allied itself with pariahs such as Iran and Zimbabwe to defeat the listing.

Despite these occasional successes, the federal government's aid probably will not avert the eventual death of the Canadian asbestos-mining industry. With the fall of communism, Russia and Kazakhstan have emerged as low-cost producers, taking away business from Canada. And because of health worries, the Canadian industry's output is about one-third of what it was in the 1980s. This summer, one of Quebec's producers, LAB Chrysotile Inc., filed a notice advising that it would seek bankruptcy protection.

When it comes to asbestos, Dr. Joshi said, "the benefits are not many, even for Canadians."

Martin Mittelstaedt is The Globe and Mail's environment reporter.