It is comforting to see that our financial myopia extends to the production and export of asbestos.  If the tarsands and the associated environmental degradation is a slam dunk for Canada, for then exporting asbestos should hardly be on the radar.

“Canada won the fight, for at least another two years, to keep asbestos off an international list of hazardous chemicals as discussions wrapped up in Geneva on Friday.

The conference of participants to the Rotterdam Convention ended without agreement on whether to add chrysotile asbestos to the Annex 3 list.

The country was one of only a handful — and the only western country — to maintain its objection until the end of the week, denying the conference the consensus it needed to make the change.”

Conservative cabinet ministers in Ottawa insisted the lung-cancer-causing substance can be used safely.

Right on!  The Conservative government making a principled stand for industry and profit, frack the science and those damn weenie Europeans.  What does fact have to do with this issue?

Apparently the NDP gets it.

“Asbestos is the greatest industrial killer the world has ever known. More people die from asbestos than all industrial causes combined, yet Canada continues to be one of the largest producers and exporters in the world. We are exporting human misery on a monumental scale,” said NDP MP Pat Martin. “Our position is morally and ethically reprehensible.”

Full marks for rhetoric, but the message is pretty clear.  Unlike the Liberal party who seem to think it is a great idea with a few ‘realistic’ qualifications.

“Liberal MP Marc Garneau said despite Paradis’ insistence that asbestos can be used safely, he should know that’s not the case in developing countries.

“This minister knows full well that it’s very difficult to use chrysotile in the proper working conditions. The procedures, the training, the complex equipment to use it in a safe way so that fibres aren’t accidentally breathed in,” Garneau said. “He cannot assure us that this is not being used improperly in countries that import it, Third World countries … This is willful blindness.”

Err…yah, so let’s take India where the majority of the people don’t really do the shoe thing.  I’m sure they are ready for industrial grade lung death prevention procedures.

“But Paradis returned to the response he and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver have been offering since the Rotterdam Convention meetings started in Geneva earlier this week.

“We know that recent studies show that chrysotile can be used in a safe and controlled manner,” Paradis said. “This is risk management, so we know that chrysotile can be used safely in a controlled environment.”

Misery and drowning in your own fluids for the poor, but for the asbestos industry it is all smiles and chuckles.  I become more proud to be Canadian every day under this conservative government.