Mr. Speaker, for too long now, the Minister for International Trade has been pathetically slow to defend asbestos internationally. He seems to have nodded off completely on this issue.
The proof is that his government waited 30 months before finally deciding to turn to the WTO to challenge France's unjustified ban on asbestos. The minister clearly has a double standard when it comes to defending Canadian companies on the world market.
How can he explain the speed with which he rushed to the defence of the Toronto-based Sherritt company, when the United States passed the Helms-Burton legislation? Why, at the same time, was he so timid and slow in defending the interests of asbestos workers?
I hold the Minister for International Trade, the Prime Minister and Canada's ambassador to France, Jacques Roy, responsible for the negative impact of France's ban on chrysotile asbestos and the resultant domino effect.
Asbestos sales have been dropping for several months, leading to the closing of the BC mine and increasingly frequent sporadic closings in two other mines, Lac d'Amiante and Bell, in Thetford Mines. In the meantime, the minister just throws up his hands.
Why is this government not taking the necessary action to promote chrysotile asbestos, a product unique in the world, effectively? Why is it not ordering an exhaustive study of the environmental risks of the products replacing asbestos? Why is it not also ordering a study of the poor performance of these replacement products?
Yes, the minister took vigorous and speedy action in the Sherritt case, in the case of durum and in the case of Pacific salmon, but when it comes to asbestos, the response has been limited to telephone conferences organized by Ambassador Roy or small evening receptions where a personal friend of Canada's Prime Minister has presented his French counterpart with a piece of asbestos.
What the asbestos region needs is a government that defends its interests actively on the international scene. This government does not even come close.