Postscript to the asbestos dispute

Canada’s asbestos industry is effectively and finally shut down, with Industry Minister Christian Paradis’s announcement Friday that the Canadian government will no long oppose the listing of asbestos as a hazardous substance in the international Rotterdam Convention.

Paradis also said the federal government will invest up to $50 million to help the country’s last remaining asbestos mining region, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, to diversify into other areas of activity.

Asbestos production in Quebec has been de facto shut down for the last couple years, but the outgoing Liberal provincial government was loaning $58 million to a company to restart its mining and export operations.

The new Parti Québécois provincial government has promised to cancel the loan.

As recently as 2010, Canada was producing 150,000 tonnes of asbestos annually, all of it in Quebec, and exporting 90 per cent — worth about $90 million — to developing countries. More than 50 countries ban the mining and use of asbestos because it causes cancer, but Canada, traditionally a major exporter, has successfully lobbied in the past to keep it off the UN’s Rotterdam Convention list of hazardous substances. –http://worldtradelaw.typepad.com/ielpblog/2012/09/postscript-to-the-asbestos-dispute.html