NDP MP Pat Martin, who has been fighting to ban asbestos mining in Canada ever since he was elected to the House in 1997, and who has been waging a vocal battle in the Commons against the federal government’s controversial support for it, has his own asbestos story.

Since 2005, Mr. Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) has been part of a longitudinal study at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto where every six months he undergoes a cat scan and bronchoscopy. He worked in a now closed Cassiar asbestos mine in Clinton Creek, Yukon, for two years some 35 years ago when he was 18 years old and said he was exposed to significant amounts of asbestos fibres during his time in the asbestos bagging room. Today, he has scarring on his lungs, but no signs of cancer.

Mr. Martin said after all the years of fighting the industry and calling for its global ban, he’s excited about the progress. “I’ve never seen such an overwhelming outpouring of interest and support. Virtually every daily newspaper has had lead editorials and articles condemning Canada’s asbestos policy,” he said.

Last month, the Canadian federal government refused to list chrysotile asbestos on a United Nations list of hazardous exports, which has drawn international criticism.

Mr. Martin, who is known in federal politics for not mincing his words, calls the asbestos industry players and its boosters “international pariahs,” “morally and ethically reprehensible,” and “globetrotting propagandists.”

He worked for the mine in the mid-1970s. He said he wanted an adventure so he moved North. It was at a time when the health risks related to asbestos were still publicly unclear. The company he worked for made paper masks available, but Mr. Martin, now 55 years old, said “nobody wore them and nobody asked you to wear them.” When the union started asking questions of the mining company, they would say, “Ah, forget it, it’s no more harm to you than floor dust, or household dust. All dust is bad for you, don’t worry about it,” Mr. Martin said.

“Asbestos, when you rub the rock, fibre peels off it, that’s why it’s so useful as a textile. They have these big crushing rooms that fluff it all up and agitate it and these huge bagging machines, and you hold the bag open and 60 pounds of it comes flying down the chute and into the bag and a flurry of dust goes in the air and you can hardly see your hand in front of your face sometimes. So it would pile up and it’s like snow drifts at the edge of the room,” he told The Hill Times on Monday in a telephone interview about his job. “Your first job as an apprentice was sweeping up the dust that would build up in the corner of the mills. So it was extreme exposure for a relatively short period of time. That was the only upside.”

Mr. Martin said that experience influenced his decision to become a trade union leader and later to run for federal office.

He later moved on to work in zinc and silver mines in the Yukon for eight years. On a cold winter day in the mid-80s, while working as a carpenter, he started coughing up blood.

“I started spitting up this cherry red blood. Really bright, which means it’s coming from your lungs. It’s oxygenated. When you cut your finger, it’s sort of a brownish red, but when you cough up blood from your lungs it’s a brilliant, brilliant fire engine red. So I had that examined,” he said. “When my doctor learned that I had been exposed to asbestos, he ordered these tests, and they found the scarring. That just pissed me off that much more that these lying bastards had jeopardized my health and they were still doing it.”

Health Canada’s website states that “asbestos poses health risks only when fibres are present in the air that people breathe. If asbestos fibres are enclosed or tightly bound in a product, for example in asbestos siding or asbestos floor tiles, there are no significant health risks.” In addition, it states, “When inhaled in significant quantities, asbestos fibres can cause asbestosis [a scarring of the lungs which makes breathing difficult], mesothelioma [a rare cancer of the lining of the chest or abdominal cavity] and lung cancer. The link between exposure to asbestos and other types of cancers is less clear.”

Mesothelioma is what former federal Transport minister Chuck Strahl has. His lung collapsed in 2005. While he was in the hospital to repair his collapsed lung, doctors found cancer in the lining of his lung, caused by asbestos exposure almost 30 years ago when he was a logger. Mr. Strahl operated a yarder, a huge logging machine. He used open asbestos brakes on the yarder and has said his exposure wasn’t lengthy but was intense.

“The asbestos that caused my cancer was the worst kind of asbestos that they used to sell freely and everywhere, used it in brake products. I used it in my business and inhaled a ton of this stuff, you know, just looking for trouble,” he told The Hill Times in a 2009 interview when he was the Aboriginal Affairs minister. When asked whether the government should ban the product, which is primarily mined in Quebec in a town with the same name, for export to developing countries, he said, “I think it’s something that I know the government wrestles with.” He said while he’s not against asbestos completely, it should be made safer.

“The difficulty always is what happens to it when it leaves your control. I have no problem with the industry’s efforts to make it a safe and stable product, just like lots of things. You can do that. The issue that I think people need to wrestle with in industry and government is how can you be assured that what happens to it after it leaves your hands doesn’t cause problems?”

Now out of government, Mr. Strahl reiterated that last sentiment recently, when Canada openly opposed listing chrysotile asbestos to the Annex III list of the United Nations’ Rotterdam Convention of hazardous substances.

Mr. Strahl said adding it to the list is the “wise thing to do” and that listing it doesn’t necessarily mean banning its use, but rather importing countries will know the risks and can give informed consent to using it.

“It means using it properly and everybody agrees with using it safely, and I don’t understand the argument that by not telling people about this product, we will help them use it safely,” he told The Vancouver Sun.

Canada is among only four countries that opposed the move, along with Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

The asbestos industry has said it’s not as dangerous as it’s made out to be and that certain levels are safe.

Bernard Coulombe, owner of the Jeffrey Mine mine in Quebec, told The Globe and Mail recently: “They say we are exporting death, but that is not true. … They treat it like it was anthrax. If it was really as dangerous as they say it is, we’d all be lying dead in the streets. Why is the world against us?”

Mr. Coulombe said putting the product on banned list or the Rotterdam Convention ”would bring shame” to the industry.

The Chrysotile Institute, a non-profit lobby group that receives federal government funding, on its website said that the Rotterdam Convention is concerned with pesticides and dangerous chemicals. As such, “there is no scientific or medical reason to justify the classification” of asbestos on the list. “Contrary to other products covered by the convention, the use of chrysotile does not pose an environmental problem. The inherent risks in its use are limited to the workplace,” the institute said. “It’s really a shame that the opponents to a policy which favours a safe and responsible use of minerals and metals use health and environment issues, which are very sensitive to public opinion to support their commercial activities. This approach inevitably translates into exaggeration and denigration.”

Mr. Martin said, however, that Canada’s position on asbestos is “cowardly and unworthy of a great Western democracy.” He said he hangs his head “in shame” and the government (he doesn’t discriminate only against the current Conservative government but said the previous Liberal governments and even Brian Mulroney’s PC government were just as bad) should also be ashamed because it knows better.

“That industry is dying no matter how much artificial corporate welfare we give it,” he said, noting a $58-million loan guarantee the Quebec government recently gave Mr. Coloumbe’s Jeffrey Mine. “The world is twigging to asbestos finally. We’re the last man standing as it is for god’s sake.”

When NDP MP Jack Layton (Toronto-Danforth, Ont.) became the leader, Mr. Martin said he gave him the backing to speak out against asbestos.

“There was a real self-consciousness so it was a bit of a struggle. It was when Jack Layton came along and he gave me the green light and said, ‘You just run with it as hard as you can. We’re not going to shy away from an issue like this.’ To his credit, he gave me the green light to be as open about it as I wanted in an official capacity,” Mr. Martin said, adding that Mr. Layton also helped develop the NDP’s policy on asbestos which includes concrete measures to transition the 500 or so workers into a different industry.

But it wasn’t always that way. “We used to fight to get any interest at all in this subject and now it seems to have reached critical mass and is growing exponentially,” Mr. Martin said, noting that it was even a challenge for him to convince his caucus colleagues to come on board with him. He said a lot of people were afraid of offending Quebecers, and there was little awareness.

Since he’s been an MP, he’s gotten up regularly, at least once a week, to present the same petition on asbestos. He repeats the same message every time he gets up: “Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise to present a petition on behalf of literally thousands of Canadians from all across the country calling upon Parliament to recognize that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has ever known. They point out that more people die from asbestos than all other industrial causes combined and yet, they point out, Canada remains one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world.”

Sometimes, he changes it up: “They further point out that Canada remains one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world, and they note that Canada spends millions of dollars subsidizing the asbestos industry."

Mr. Martin said he introduces the petition one page at a time so that he has more opportunities to stand up and speak about it. “I keep getting fresh copies. If I save them all up and submitted them all at the same time then I’d only be able to stand up once. So I ration them out,” he said, noting that he doesn’t believe it’s in vain. “We’re at a tipping point. … We could be within months of common sense and reason finally and taking control of this debate. That’s what’s exciting and kind of gratifying.”

bvongdou@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

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