Mr. Chairman, if I had an indication that the motion would succeed, I would yield the floor immediately, but I have a sense that the Liberals don't want an election and the Conservatives actually approve of corporate welfare for corporate welfare bums, for corporate serial killers. So I'm not willing to cede the floor. I do have the floor legitimately, and I think it is in the interest of this committee to address this issue in greater detail. It's the one time per year that we get to examine Canada's asbestos policy, and it is in the best interests of the nation and the best interests of this government to use the time well and send a clear message that we should stop funding asbestos in all its forms and we should certainly stop funding the Asbestos Institute, which is, as I said, a registered lobby group that does nothing but promote asbestos around the world.
I noted today that we had an observer in the gallery from the Sierra Club of Canada. They sent out a press release today saying that the Sierra Club of Canada is joining with the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Medical Association, the World Health Organization, and other environmental and health organizations in calling for an end to government funding of the Chrysotile Institute.
Civil society has spoken. The medical community has spoken in abundance with a unanimous consensus, if that's not a contradiction, that asbestos kills and the Government of Canada has no place being the world's cheerleaders for the asbestos industry.
Let me explain how the asbestos cartel dines out on the good reputation of Canada.
Around the world, Canada has a boy scout image; we are the international good guys. The asbestos cartel tells small, developing nations, “Look, if the Government of Canada says that asbestos is okay, and they are a nice, developed nation, then it must be okay.”
I urge committee members to look at the Government of France. The Government of France in 1999 decided to ban asbestos, and the Chrysotile Institute spent a fortune supporting a complaint to the World Trade Organization interfering with France's sovereign right to protect its own people from the hazards of asbestos. Thankfully, Canada lost that appeal and the Government of France won, and now the good people of France are at least living in an asbestos-free zone.
For the same reason, the entire European Union, all 40 nations, unanimously banned asbestos in all its forms. They are stuck with the unfunded liability of contamination and the cost of remediation of all their public buildings, just as we are. All our hospitals--