Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that we have a good friendship, but on this point I do not agree with my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley.
What we are talking about today is a ban. We are not talking about Rotterdam. A ban would mean that the day we ban it, Canada would be out of business. There is a growing demand in the world, and we can share the responsible expertise that has been developed by our own workers here very seriously.
If we ban that natural substance, there will be a need for substitutes. There are projects for substitutes for which the biopersistence, most of which are longer than chrysotile.
There is a legitimate question to be asked that was never asked by the NDP. Does the NDP want to go with the false feeling of security in dealing with the mineral that has been the most studied one in the world? We accept that there is a toxicity level that we need to deal with but it is manageable. This is the irrationality of the position here. It is a risk-managed issue.