This Gets Pretty Personal
Well, it would; anything that affects the health of individuals relating to workplace hazards certainly is personal. How much more personal can you get than granting extraction and usage approval to a process and a substance that has proven itself to be a deadly carcinogen? Years after exposure to something like asbestos, for example, the deadly disease of cancer reveals itself.
In Canada, when you're in the process of selling a house, the real estate agent's first question is whether there is asbestos somewhere in the ceiling, under the roof. It's required by law to divulge the presence of such health-deleterious substances. Furthermore, although asbestos is still being mined in Canada, it is no longer approved for use in the country.
Countless millions of dollars have been spent in renovating older buildings and homes to remove asbestos from existing structures to render them safe and usable. In other instances, where it is known that asbestos exists in a building, but there are structural assurances that the asbestos is contained and is incapable of contaminating the atmosphere it is left to moulder.
Which doesn't stop Canada from allowing asbestos to be sold abroad, as though is of no consequence that this harmful substance is used elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind, and ring up that cash register. Is that the behaviour of a responsible government? Well, although asbestos mining-and-production has been shut down pretty well everywhere in Canada, it's still an ongoing concern in Quebec.
Quebec has a substantial social conscience, but it does not bother to extend its responsibility much past its provincial citizens. Without much of a thought to its extended responsibility, asbestos is an income-generating business, its extraction and sale abroad ensures that the hundreds of workers employed thereby in the province remain gainfully employed. This bespeaks a hypocritical half-measure of social conscience.
I had a telephone call from one of my cousins yesterday evening. I haven't seen her in about 45 years, but she's still my cousin. One doesn't think of the blue collar workers whose employment, aside from actual miners, places them in contact with such deadly substances. But her husband, in the early 1960s, was exposed to asbestos. Thirty years later he was diagnosed with a melanoma, operated on, underwent chemotherapy, given a 10% chance of survival.
Survive he did, another thirteen years, as the treatment was successful in leading to a remission. But when it finally returned, it did so with a vengeance, and his condition was such that he was beyond medical remediation. He lived in pain and agony for one long excruciating year, my cousin somehow managing his care with the assistance of professional health care givers whom she expresses unending gratefulness to in enabling them both to cope.
Yesterday's call was to inform me that he had died, in his bed at home, under medical supervision, in the early hours of the morning. A 2006 report issued by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards reveals that 30% of total workplace fatalities in 2004 within Canada were related to the use of asbestos.
In 2004 the fatality rate from asbestos was 1.8 per 100,000 workers, up from 0.4 in 1996. NDP MP Pat Martin (again, one of those rare politicians of integrity), a former asbestos mineworker, terms asbestos "the greatest industrial killer" the world has seen. It's his opinion that the federal government, fully cognizant of all the data, is reluctant to risk alienating Quebec by pressuring that province to cease and desist.
Quebec, reputedly the most socially-responsive and progressive of all the provinces. Quebec, long held hostage by its various militant unions who resent government interference and which have become a law unto themselves. Quebec, the only place in Canada to mine and export asbestos. Quebec, who will admit to no wrong-doing in selling this deadly substance to mostly under-developed countries.
Now the Canadian Cancer Society has weighed in on the matter, and none too soon. It summarily rejects the federal government's policy on asbestos, that the type mined in Quebec, - chrysotile asbestos - is "safe when properly used". The very same federal government which saw fit to oppose listing chrysotile asbestos on an international list of the most toxic of substances.
The Canadian Cancer Society calls that characterization of chrysotile asbestos a myth. In its publicly-issued statement the Society calls it the most commonly used form of asbestos, a known substance inextricably linked to lung cancers, asbestosis, along with a host of other implacable diseases.
The Green Party's Elizabeth May offers her opinion that "Canada's efforts to block an international asbestos ban is a disgrace and a smear on our reputation. Asbestos is toxic to the environment and human health - no level is safe". From her long-time environmental perspective and involvement in such issues, she would certainly know.
In Canada, when you're in the process of selling a house, the real estate agent's first question is whether there is asbestos somewhere in the ceiling, under the roof. It's required by law to divulge the presence of such health-deleterious substances. Furthermore, although asbestos is still being mined in Canada, it is no longer approved for use in the country.
Countless millions of dollars have been spent in renovating older buildings and homes to remove asbestos from existing structures to render them safe and usable. In other instances, where it is known that asbestos exists in a building, but there are structural assurances that the asbestos is contained and is incapable of contaminating the atmosphere it is left to moulder.
Which doesn't stop Canada from allowing asbestos to be sold abroad, as though is of no consequence that this harmful substance is used elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind, and ring up that cash register. Is that the behaviour of a responsible government? Well, although asbestos mining-and-production has been shut down pretty well everywhere in Canada, it's still an ongoing concern in Quebec.
Quebec has a substantial social conscience, but it does not bother to extend its responsibility much past its provincial citizens. Without much of a thought to its extended responsibility, asbestos is an income-generating business, its extraction and sale abroad ensures that the hundreds of workers employed thereby in the province remain gainfully employed. This bespeaks a hypocritical half-measure of social conscience.
I had a telephone call from one of my cousins yesterday evening. I haven't seen her in about 45 years, but she's still my cousin. One doesn't think of the blue collar workers whose employment, aside from actual miners, places them in contact with such deadly substances. But her husband, in the early 1960s, was exposed to asbestos. Thirty years later he was diagnosed with a melanoma, operated on, underwent chemotherapy, given a 10% chance of survival.
Survive he did, another thirteen years, as the treatment was successful in leading to a remission. But when it finally returned, it did so with a vengeance, and his condition was such that he was beyond medical remediation. He lived in pain and agony for one long excruciating year, my cousin somehow managing his care with the assistance of professional health care givers whom she expresses unending gratefulness to in enabling them both to cope.
Yesterday's call was to inform me that he had died, in his bed at home, under medical supervision, in the early hours of the morning. A 2006 report issued by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards reveals that 30% of total workplace fatalities in 2004 within Canada were related to the use of asbestos.
In 2004 the fatality rate from asbestos was 1.8 per 100,000 workers, up from 0.4 in 1996. NDP MP Pat Martin (again, one of those rare politicians of integrity), a former asbestos mineworker, terms asbestos "the greatest industrial killer" the world has seen. It's his opinion that the federal government, fully cognizant of all the data, is reluctant to risk alienating Quebec by pressuring that province to cease and desist.
Quebec, reputedly the most socially-responsive and progressive of all the provinces. Quebec, long held hostage by its various militant unions who resent government interference and which have become a law unto themselves. Quebec, the only place in Canada to mine and export asbestos. Quebec, who will admit to no wrong-doing in selling this deadly substance to mostly under-developed countries.
Now the Canadian Cancer Society has weighed in on the matter, and none too soon. It summarily rejects the federal government's policy on asbestos, that the type mined in Quebec, - chrysotile asbestos - is "safe when properly used". The very same federal government which saw fit to oppose listing chrysotile asbestos on an international list of the most toxic of substances.
The Canadian Cancer Society calls that characterization of chrysotile asbestos a myth. In its publicly-issued statement the Society calls it the most commonly used form of asbestos, a known substance inextricably linked to lung cancers, asbestosis, along with a host of other implacable diseases.
The Green Party's Elizabeth May offers her opinion that "Canada's efforts to block an international asbestos ban is a disgrace and a smear on our reputation. Asbestos is toxic to the environment and human health - no level is safe". From her long-time environmental perspective and involvement in such issues, she would certainly know.
Labels: Environment, Government of Canada, Politics of Convenience
posted by Pieface | 5:38 PM
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