Australia urged to halt exports of Canadian asbestos to India | Connect Asia

Labor Party Senator Lisa Singh, who chairs an all-party group on asbestos, made the call at a meeting of anti-asbestos activists in New Delhi, who are protesting over what's likely to be a renewed surge in imports of the cancer-causing fibre from Canada into India.

Correspondent: Matt Peacock

Speakers: Mohit Gupta, Occupational and Environmental Network of India; Lisa Singh, Labor Senator

MATT PEACOCK: "A new lease of death", was how one critic termed the recent decision by Quebec's provincial government to lend $56 million to a consortium to re-open the ailing Jeffrey Mine in the town of Asbestos.

Jeffrey ceased production late last year, the last of Canada's controversial asbestos export mines. But this latest infusion of cash allows expansion underground, below the open cut, and Jeffrey could now continue to supply the voracious Indian asbestos market for another twenty years.

Its backers, including the multi-millionaire, so-called Sheik from Montreal, Baljit Chada, claim that white asbestos or chrysotile they mine, can be used safely. A claim that is vigorously disputed by anti-asbestos activists in India who say Canada's exporting a class-one carcinogen to the world's poor while it's busy banning its use at home, where it's even been stripped from its parliamentary buildings.

MOHIT GUPTA: The decision of the Canadian Quebec government was like a slap on our face.

MATT PEACOCK: Mohit Gupta, co-ordinator of the Occupational and Environmental Network of India, who says the Canadian decision flies in the face of world scientific evidence.

MOHIT GUPTA: It was like a total disregard for human life, for Indian locals.

MATT PEACOCK: Labor Senator Lisa Singh, who chairs an all-party group on asbestos in Federal Parliament, and who's currently visiting India where she's met with anti-asbestos activists, says the Gillard Government should make its views known to the Canadians.

LISA SINGH: I think that we have to really lead by our own example and really make it very clear that this is simply not on. I mean this is a developed nation, Canada knows better than is. Canada won't use asbestos themselves but they are quite happy to export it to developing countries to you know, areas where they know they've got that open market because the safety regulations in those countries are not as strong.

Now that is simply not on and I think Australia and other developed nations like the EU nations that have also banned asbestos, need to put that pressure onto Canada and make sure that they stop this absolutely appalling trade.

MATT PEACOCK: India is one of the world's biggest markets for asbestos, along with China and Brazil, and health authorities fear that exposures in such developing countries will cause an ongoing world epidemic of asbestos cancers that will eclipse the already massive and mounting toll in Australia, the US and Europe.