Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to the issue about the safe levels of asbestos. There is no safe level of asbestos. One part per billion is unsafe. There are handling procedures. It is much like a class 4 virology laboratory. Everything has to be double sealed in a pressurized environment. Workers have to change their clothes as they go into the chambers and when they go out.
It is so complicated that the cost of removing asbestos in a building 20 years old is greater than the cost of building the building.
I know a lot about asbestos. We teach the courses on how to work safely with asbestos with our union because sometimes it is unavoidable.
In the building I am in, the Wellington Building, they are trying to remove the asbestos from that building because they are concerned that one part per billion in the air will cause hazards.
There is a famous case of a little girl who would ride her bicycle to the mine in Asbestos, Quebec to bring her father his lunch only during the summer holidays. Maybe a couple of times a year she would bring her dad his lunch to the mine. She wound up with asbestosis after the 20-year incubation period. There is no safe limit.
It is criminal for countries to be dumping asbestos into the third world and everyone knows it.
If I could just quickly comment on final offer selection, I have very strong views about final offer selection. I have used final offer selection in my own collective bargaining where it was allowed under the legislation in the province of Manitoba. It is not a solution. It is not a magic bullet. The Reform Party keeps revisiting this as though it is some new idea. It is nowhere near a new idea. It is not even a very good idea. It has very limited value in the labour relations climate and that is why it is rarely used.
I would have to agree with the previous speaker that final offer selection is highly overrated. It is a tool in the tool chest of labour relations practitioners who can use it if they both see fit. But any time it is legislated, it will lose its value and it will corrupt the whole labour relations process.