Mr. Speaker, there are really two issues here. One is the mining of asbestos and the other is the export into countries where there are not safe practices to protect workers.
As far as the minister is concerned, it is fine to mine a product here, which he claims is mined safely, and there are many dissenting opinions on that. Even if we could buy that argument, he is saying that it is absolutely okay to export it to developing countries where those workers have no protection.
It would seem to me that Canada needs to take some responsibility for the end use of its product. At a minimum, the government could have signed on to the Rotterdam Convention, but chose to block it in every way possible.
I simply do not buy the argument that we cannot disassociate the mining of this product from the end use. A responsible government would take a look at what the rest of the world is saying about this and sign on to the Rotterdam Convention.