Say It Isn't So Canada

"When asbestos was first discovered, it was the superhero of mined ore. Its heat tolerance was incredible and people thought, by putting it in their houses, that fires would be a thing of the past. They didn’t stop at houses and it was installed everywhere, including insulation of schools, and public buildings. They then discovered one little drawback…it causes cancer, horrible cough-up-your-lungs-while-begging-to-be-shot cancer.

Canada, a bastion of workers’ rights, quickly banned anything containing even the tiniest bit of asbestos, along with the rest of the industrial world. Yet with large asbestos mines that employed lots of people, Canada couldn’t just stop mining the cancer rocks…you know for the good of mankind. No, Canada continues to export asbestos to Third World countries, even though they know that each package is basically the Grim Reaper wrapped up in white plastic. Friendly Ol’ Canada is the only western country to export asbestos, and actually fights international regulations that would prevent it from exporting all that cancer.

When other countries try and add warnings on asbestos packaging, Canada exerts pressure to stop this even though, inside the country, a plethora of regulations not only require asbestos to be clearly marked but also basically require a space suit to handle it. Canada says that it only exports to customers that take the greatest of safety measures, yet studies show developed countries, the only ones that haven’t yet banned it, have virtually no safety regulations regarding asbestos. In short, whole generations handling asbestos will grow up with horrible forms of lung cancer."

Recently The Daily Show did a story about this national shame. I love how the asbestos guy tries to argue that people from India are immune from the harmful effects from handling their product because they are used to being around polution.



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