Mr. Speaker, last week a conference was held to denigrate Canadian chrysotile asbestos; it was chaired by the member for Windsor—St. Clair and the international ban asbestos movement.
Their goal was to accuse our government and pro-chrysotile stakeholders of hypocrisy and profiting from the export of Canadian asbestos.
At a rally organized last Friday by the pro-asbestos movement, 250 miners and regional stakeholders came to Ottawa to protest the holding of this conference.
On Tuesday, results of a study on the low biopersistence of Quebec chrysotile released by the directors of the Asbestos Institute provide sufficient evidence to support the debate over the safe and responsible use of chrysotile.
And I reiterated the position of the Government of Canada—that when chrysotile is used safely it poses no risk to health.
I would like to thank the residents of Frontenac—Mégantic and Asbestos for this rally in Ottawa. We were able to demonstrate to all of Canada that properly used chrysotile is a fibre worth preserving.