Kathleen Ruff, RightOnCanada.ca<\/p>\n
The Canadian government has a legal obligation under the Canada Labour Code to protect its workers from asbestos harm. It is an obligation that the government is not fulfilling. Asbestos is the biggest occupational killer of workers in Canada.<\/p>\n
A report today by the CBC<\/span><\/a><\/span> tells how for decades asbestos assessment reports on a major government building in Ottawa showed contamination that posed risk of asbestos harm to maintenance and other workers.<\/p>\n The workers were not told and were not protected.<\/p>\n A consultant’s report to the government in October 2014 stated that the building was not in compliance with regulations and \u201crecommends repair and or removal of damaged ACMs [asbestos containing materials] as well as asbestos-containing debris.”<\/p>\n Nothing was done. The government hid the information from its workers.<\/p>\n In the CBC report, Denis Lapointe, an Ottawa electrician, says he was exposed to asbestos and other toxins while working at the building for 16 years, and was only able to obtain this information by filing access to information requests.<\/p>\n The Minister of Labour, Kellie Leitch, is a medical doctor and she is the person responsible for enforcing the requirements of the Canada Labour Code. She is failing to do so.<\/p>\n In September 2011,\u00a0 medical doctors made repeated appeals to Dr. Leitch<\/span><\/a><\/span> to put her ethical duty as a physician ahead of her political ambition and to stop supporting the mining, use and export of asbestos by Canada and to stop supporting misinformation about asbestos harm. At that time, she was simply a Member of Parliament and not in the cabinet.<\/p>\n She refused to heed their appeal.<\/p>\nMedical doctors made repeated appeals to Dr. Leitch<\/h3>\n
Asbestos victims also appealed to Dr. Leitch<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n