Mr. Speaker, the objective of the Government of Canada in partnership with Quebec, the industry, unions and local communities is to maintain market access for asbestos. The Prime Minister raised this issue last fall with his counterparts from the U.K. and France.
The issue was also raised on a number of occasions between senior Canadian officials and their counterparts. Our officials held exploratory discussions on WTO options with interested partners as early as September 1997. On November 26 and again on January 28 the deputy minister for international trade held subsequent consultations with these same partners. On February 10 the deputy minister also held a conference call with stakeholders to discuss the next steps on this file.
It was made clear that the Canadian government would prefer to seek a resolution of this issue through diplomatic means as opposed to moving right now to the WTO. We are prepared to go to the WTO at the right time but we prefer to continue our crucial dialogue with the French government.
We organized gatherings of producers in London in December and in Brussels in January and February to work on a common strategy for the defence of chyrsotile asbestos. We believe that scientific data favour a controlled approach. A recent European technical paper raises questions about the growing use of asbestos bans in Europe as a means of protecting public health.
Canada attaches the highest priority to protecting export markets for chyrsotile asbestos and we will pursue every option available.