From the Vancouver Sun - June 20, 2011
by Sarah Schmidt
OTTAWA — The Conservative government took a hit from friendly-fire Monday when a former Tory cabinet minister who has battled lung cancer pleaded with his former colleagues to support limits on the export of chrysotile asbestos.
Chuck Strahl, a senior Tory cabinet minister until his retirement from politics in May, wrote a column on the opening day of an international conference to decide whether the substance should be labelled as a hazardous material under the United Nations' Rotterdam Convention.
Strahl called on Ottawa to stand with the world's industrialized countries and list the carcinogen on Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention.
This is a special list that requires "Prior Informed Consent" before countries can export the hazardous product to another country. Placing it on the list means recipient countries must be informed of the hazards and can refuse to accept it if they believe they can't handle it safety.
Strahl, a former British Columbia logging contractor, developed lung cancer linked to his exposure to asbestos.
Although the four-day UN meeting kicked off Monday in Geneva, the government has yet to disclose whether Canada supports the listing of chrysotile asbestos on Annex III.
The mineral is mined in Quebec and exported to developing countries such as India and Thailand.
Strahl told Industry Minister Christian Paradis and Prime Minister Stephen Harper that it's time for Canada to support flagging the carcinogen as potentially harmful because importers and exporters have the right to know there are serious health risks if misused.
"Loggers like me operated some of industry's largest and most dangerous equipment. I loved every minute of it. Huge and powerful, they fit the personalities of the men of the woods — aggressive, production-oriented, no-nonsense types who didn't wait around to listen to some do-gooder tell them about the dangers of asbestos. That was a big, big mistake," Strahl wrote in the Globe and Mail.
"Not surprisingly, exposure of this kind caused problems. But never immediately. Like smoking a cigarette, the effects take time. And, like smoking a cigarette in those days, people just didn't know about the long term impacts of asbestos. But we do today. The doctors tell me that the cancer I was diagnosed with six years ago and collapsed my lung was certainly caused by exposure to asbestos. Miraculously and thankfully, my cancer hasn't grown and I'm symptom-free. Most guys that get diagnosed are dead in six to 12 months."
Strahl added: "The Prime Minister and Quebec's regional minister have both said that they support the safe use of chrysotile asbestos. It's hard to argue with that. By listing chrysotile in the Rotterdam Convention as a product that deserves to be handled carefully and with proper warnings, safe use is more likely to occur. Workers from all countries will be grateful for that notification — if not today, then a generation from now."
At the most recent Rotterdam Convention meeting in 2008, consideration of whether chrysotile asbestos should be listed was deferred after consensus could not be reached. Canada split with industrialized countries by objecting to the listing, along with a handful of other countries, including Iran, Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe.
Canada also blocked the move to list chrysotile asbestos at the 2006 conference. At the time, Health Canada's bureaucracy wanted to include the carcinogen on the convention's list of hazardous chemicals.
Under the convention, hazardous chemicals and pesticides that have already been banned, or whose uses are severely restricted in many countries, are listed in Annex III if they also meet certain scientific criteria. The convention's expert scientific committee has repeatedly recommended that chrysotile asbestos, already banned in many countries, be placed on the list.
Paradis was not immediately available to comment on Strahl's salvo.
On Friday, his spokeswoman said it wasn't the right time to discuss Canada's position on the Rotterdam Convention. Paradis, who has also served as natural resources minister, represents the Quebec riding of Megantic-L'Erable, home to Canada's last-remaining asbestos mine.
"There are times when it's time to disclose it and there are times when it's not the time, and now it's not the time," spokesman Pascale Boulay said Friday.
"Canada knows what its position is."
After the opening day of the conference Monday, countries are scheduled Tuesday to discuss the recommendation from the convention's committee of scientists to list chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance.
Anti-asbestos campaigners say they believe Canada will continue to push to keep the mineral off the convention's list of hazardous materials. They accuse Paradis — whom they call the "czar of asbestos" — of overruling health and environment experts within the federal government.
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