Officials at Natural Resources Canada, the lead agency for Canada's asbestos policy, declined to be interviewed. However, the agency provided written responses to these questions:
Question:
Does the government of Canada believe that Canadian asbestos is being used safely in countries, such as India, that import it?
Reply:
• Chrysotile is the only asbestos fibre produced in, and exported from Canada. Its production, transportation and use is rigorously controlled to protect workers.
• Canada has long advocated, at home and abroad, a responsible, controlled use approach for chrysotile asbestos. The implementation of domestic measures to ensure workplace health and safety is a sovereign responsibility of importing countries.
• While Canada does not have the legal authority to monitor exposures in other countries, Canada provides information on how to manage the risks associated with chrysotile in line with its controlled use approach. Countries are encouraged to implement measures in compliance with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 162 and Recommendation 172 of safety in the Use of Asbestos.
• 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.
Question:
The World Health Organization says no safe threshold for asbestos exposure has been established. (See the WHO filing: http://www.who.int/occupational_health/publications/asbestosrelateddiseases.pdf Why does the government of Canada maintain that the UN organization is wrong and that low exposures are safe?
Reply:
• Canada follows a “controlled use” approach to strictly control exposures to chrysotile through federal, provincial and territorial workplace exposure limits and bans on some categories of consumer and workplace products under the Hazardous Products Act.
• This approach to chrysotile was established in 1982 and is consistent with a number of studies including the extensive review by the Ontario Royal Commission on Asbestos (1984).
Question:
Why has the approximately $20-million that the federal government has spent promoting asbestos since 1984 been money well spent on behalf of Canadian taxpayers?
Reply:
• The Government of Canada supports the Chrysotile Institute, a not-for-profit organization mandated by the federal and provincial governments as well as by industry and the unions representing chrysotile workers, to support the promotion of the controlled use of chrysotile nationally and internationally.
• The Institute has organized and conducted information and dust control seminars for trade unions, held medical surveillance training programs, provided technical and financial assistance for launching national fibre associations and technology transfer in more than 60 countries around the world. Each initiative has helped developing countries and countries with economies in transition meet worker health and safety requirements of the ILO Convention 162 and Recommendation 172.
Question:
The WHO report above raises special concerns about how dangerous the use of asbestos is in cement manufacturing. Does the government know the approximate percentage of Canadian exports destined for this use? If not, what efforts, if any, has the government made to find out?
Reply:
• Over 93% of chrysotile exports are used for inclusion in cement products in which the chrysotile fibres are encapsulated in a matrix of cement, thus preventing the release of fibres.
• Occupational exposures during the manufacture of chrysotile cement products can be controlled by prescribing engineering controls and work practices, including workplace hygiene, which afford maximum protection to workers.
Question:
How do you explain to Canadians the company Canada keeps at the Rotterdam Convention in connection with chrysotile, such as regimes of international concern, like Iran and Zimbabwe?
Reply:
• The Government of Canada bases its position on the Rotterdam Convention upon consideration of the available scientific information and the legislation and policies of the Government of Canada.
Question:
One of India's top occupational health doctors told me with regards to the federal government's promotion of asbestos use that "as a developed country, you expect more civilized behaviour" from a country like Canada. How do you respond to views, such as his, that Canada is acting immorally by promoting a carcinogen in developing countries?
Reply:
• As stated earlier in the response the question 3, Canada supports promotion of the controlled use of chrysotile in order to strictly control exposures to chrysotile.
• Similarly, as highlighted in the response to question 1, Canada recognizes that it is the sovereign responsibility of countries to implement domestic measures to ensure workplace health and safety.
• That said, the Government of Canada provides information on how to manage the risks associated with chrysotile and supports the work of the Chrysotile Institute to promote safety in the use of chrysotile internationally.
Question:
Some critics of Canada's asbestos policy contend that the federal government promotes the mineral to protect federalism in Quebec. How do you respond to this claim?
Reply:
• The Government of Canada bases its approach to the controlled use of chrysotile on the available science.
• In fact, the original concerns related to asbestos led to the establishment in 1979 of a Federal-Provincial Working Group on Asbestos whose goal was to develop a consistent and scientifically based approach to the regulation of asbestos in Canada.
• This work formed the basis for the current Canadian approach at a time when asbestos was produced from mines in three provinces (Quebec, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador).
• The efforts of this Group resulted in a 1982 document entitled "Current Approach to the Regulation of Asbestos in Canada", which was approved by federal departments and endorsed by the appropriate ministries and agencies in all provinces and territories.
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