Canada Keeps Asbestos Off UN Hazardous Material List

Quebec's chrysotile asbestos industry is just about the only winner here. That, and maybe Third-World funeral parlours.

Chrysotile asbestos won't be added to the Rotterdam Convention on hazardous material, all thanks to the Conservative government's support of the cancer-causing material. This marks the third time that Canada has done much of the heavy lifting in halting efforts to have the mineral listed on the registry, which would require signatories to state that the product is hazardous when it's exported. Chrysotile asbestos was chief among materials being reviewed for admission to the list at a UN summit in Switzerland. The Tories maintain that they won't get in the way of an industry that they say isn't dangerous so long as its product is handled properly, even though asbestos is shipped almost exclusively to developing countries with loose workplace safety laws.