Jobs or Safety? Asbestos Debate Goes Global

The Quebec government says it's close to making a decision on providing a $57 million (U.S. dollars) loan guarantee to Balcorp Ltd. That would give the group of foreign investors the capital to complete construction of the underground mine in Asbestos, Quebec, which geologists say may provide a portal to the largest supply of asbestos in the world.

The money would help create 500 or more jobs in the mining region but would also allow Balcorp to ship the material, which has been banned in 55 countries, to numerous nations that have little, if any, protective restrictions on its use.

The debate has gone global in the past couple of months:

December: More than 200 doctors and occupational health scientists from 26 countries signed a letter to the president of the Quebec College of Surgeons, asking the prestigious group to publicly oppose the loan. The Quebec medical group notified its members that "the College is not, and does not, intend to act as an arbitrator on political, social or economic questions nor as a lobby group with regard to decision makers."

December: Sugio Furuya, the secretary general of the Japan Occupational Safety and Health Resource Center, told Quebec Development Minister Clement Gignac, "Around the world, leading medical experts, trade unions and public health defenders are horrified that your government is considering financing another generation of asbestos disease amongst the poorest and least protected people." He urged, "Please find the courage and integrity to do the right thing."

January: In Montreal, a seven-member delegation consisting of activists, a trade unionist and victims of asbestos from Japan, Indonesia, Korea and India came to Montreal to plead for an end to the exports. And all the public heath directors of Quebec's 18 health and social regions wrote to Jean Charest, Quebec province's minister, and other government health offices pleading for the end of mining of asbestos.

January: The Supreme Court of India refused to ban asbestos and directed the Union and State Governments of India to put in place a body to regulate its use and manufacturing.

February: Gignac, a representative of the investors, went to India to promote the deal in Delhi. The Telegraph of India reported this week that thousands demonstrated against the building of asbestos cement plants amid the lychee orchards and farms in Muzaffarpur in northeast India. The Indian government has outlawed the mining of asbestos but permits the mineral to be imported.

February: The prestigious British medical journal The Lancet said: "The governments of Quebec and Canada should not be exporting asbestos to developing nations where there are few or no workplace regulations to protect workers or the general population from its lethal effects.