I'd say less than five minutes, if that's all right, Mr. Chairman. I find it very hard not to be repetitious.
Perhaps I could explain the impact on developing nations in the third world or how Canada's reputation is being sullied by our export of asbestos to developing nations. One scientist at the recent round of the Rotterdam Convention, which I attended in Rome, said that Canada is unleashing the equivalent of 1,000 Bhopals into India every year. Our largest customer is now India, into which we're dumping our asbestos. The impact in the number of people affected is like 1,000 of the Bhopal chemical disasters every year going off in slow motion. That's what he said. I think we should be aware of that.
Mr. Chairman, just let me summarize by saying that we are exporting human misery on a monumental scale. It would be an enormous symbolic gesture if this committee--even if it has no authority to ban the use of asbestos or to even comment on whether or not asbestos should be mined in this country--sent a very strong message that it will not tolerate corporate welfare for an organization that is doing so much harm and so little good for Canada.
Even if you don't care about the asbestos issue, there is the notion of handouts, which are $19 million according to one article. I can prove more. A Montreal Star article from the 1980s announced $32 million, and the heading was “To take the stink off the asbestos industry”. So even in the mid-1980s they knew that world opinion had finally turned on the use of asbestos, and Canada started shovelling money into that region of Quebec to try to salvage that industry. It's simply wrong on every level.
India's asbestos time bomb cites the hazard that we're creating with every boatload of asbestos that goes over there, tied to our international trade and tied to our foreign aid. It is an appalling prospect that the beneficiaries of Canada's foreign aid often get cash and a boatload of asbestos as part of the aid sent over to their countries. We are killing the future with asbestos use in Asia. These are bags of Canadian white asbestos from the LAB Chrysotile company, mined in the Thetford Mines region of Quebec. If you can see, that's a more typical example of the way asbestos is handled in that country.
The last thing I'll say is that chrysotile asbestos is hazardous to humans and deadly to the Rotterdam Convention. In our undermining of the consensus process of the Rotterdam Convention, we have put in jeopardy the success of that convention altogether, because we've let commercial and political interests override science in naming which chemicals should be on that list. It's an appalling thing for a country like Canada. Canada is at risk of losing its Boy Scout image in the world because of this promotion of asbestos. The asbestos cartel, truly the face of evil, dines out on Canada's good name by saying that if a nice country like Canada thinks asbestos is okay, then it must be okay. I put it to you that it's not, and I urge this committee to send a message to the government of the day by withholding and withdrawing the funding to the Asbestos Institute in this small but important symbolic gesture.
I urge your support of the motion to remove $250,000 from vote 5.
That's all. Thank you.