Statement made on 06 October 2011 by Senator Jim Munson
Hon. Jim Munson:
Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. In the last few months I have been noticing the great cleanup that has been ongoing in the West Block, the billion-dollar project of cleansing the West Block of asbestos.
There have been many warnings about what asbestos does, with 500,000 cancer victims in Western Europe alone. Yet, we continue to export the same kind of asbestos. There are critics who say the country is exporting death to protect the profits of a handful of companies, one in Montreal, and the jobs of 1,600 miners.
Dr. Barry Castleman is the author of a respected book on the danger of asbestos. What is the difference between land mines and asbestos, he asks. A key difference, of course, is that Canada does not export land mines. Therefore, why are we continuing to export this deadly product?
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