Jan 8 2010<\/p>\n
The debate on Canada\u2019s asbestos export has hit a fever pitch in recent times, with the focus turning on the country\u2019s last operational mine in Quebec. While the industry leaders maintain that they export only to Third World companies with all necessary precautionary measures in place, the environmentalists say that Canada\u2019s asbestos policy is driven not by health concerns but by Quebec politics. New Democratic Party Member of Parliament, Winnipeg Center in Manitoba, Pat Martin, who was once a blue collar worker at the asbestos mines of Yukon Territories, is also on the side of the environmentalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe asbestos is Canada\u2019s greatest shame on the international stage because we not only export asbestos, but also subsidize and promote the production and export of this serial killer asbestos, of which sadly, India is the number one buyer,\u201d Martin told India Abroad in an exclusive interview December 28.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsbestos,\u201d he said, \u201cand tobacco are the two industries where the industry knows well it is killing people but it survives by junk science and aggressive lobbying of politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Quebec mine, which has been around since 1879, is the last mine standing in a country where market forces have destroyed the industry over decades. \u201cIn Quebec, asbestos is a national pride, a very emotional question,\u201d said Martin, explaining about the great asbestos strike of February 1949, and how politicians like Pierre Trudeau and Rene Levesque got involved. (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NDP MP Pat Martin speaks to Ajit Jain about Canada\u2019s asbestos policy Jan 8 2010 The debate on Canada\u2019s asbestos export has hit a fever pitch in recent times, with the focus turning on the country\u2019s last operational mine in Quebec. While the industry leaders maintain that they export only to Third World companies with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[326,78,62],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-asbestos","tag-india-abroad","tag-pat-martin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}